It is an ignorant attitude, actually

“If you are not a professor, then you are an uncultured person interested only in money.”

“Because you were so selfish as to do the Ph.D, you owe it to the world to be a professor — in any circumstances, and no matter what else you might have to give up.”

“If you are not willing to sacrifice all of your actual intellectual interests in service of holding the title of professor, then you were never a serious intellectual, and were never serious about having any career.”

These are the things professors say, and that is why I consider them unsophisticated and also cruel. If the budget cutters are cutting because of having had professors like this, they might be right.

Axé.