Are you talking generally or surveying specifically.?ÿ
Perhaps not for things like the humanities, but well suited to engineering related fields of study.?ÿ?ÿ
When survey employees are paid the same as plumber apprentices you??ll see more interest in surveying.
@richardlhardison A few others have pointed to actual numbers that support my statement. E.x. 100 survey students in Idaho.
Running our proffesion like it is the old days when land was almost worthless and surveyors spent most of their time in the field with a four man crew wielding a chainsaw is sure recipe for unsustainable wages and irrelevance.
When survey employees are paid the same as plumber apprentices you??ll see more interest in surveying.
But they are usually paid more... A "plumber apprentace" works in the union world. Most union pay svales pay surveyors more than plumbers apprentices.?ÿ
A real comparison is the earnings of the the guy?ÿ in the town of 3,000 who helps his boss fix pipes at retried farmers' houses and the surveyor's employees in the same time.
Again, we can't make earning potential conclusions based on those who chose to forgo high salaries for quality of life reasons, because those options are not available to the proffesions we are trying to compare ourselves too.?ÿ
@aliquot If the profession comes to rely on the 4 year colleges and universities to supply new surveyors, the profession will die. In the states that have 4 year degree requirements the results have not fully shaken down. Ohio is the future for that model, and it isn't going to be pretty. If you think people are going to put up with the sort of fees what you are pushing will require, you are deluded. The Kansas Model is workable, but the 4 year degree requirement model is not.
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Theyll pay the fee if they need a survey. ?ÿI only was approached once by someone who didn??t need his property surveyed. ?ÿI??d just gotten my license and told my Dad there was no way I was going to survey his property. At that time my parents had lived there over 30 years.
I think he was looking for a deal. LOL
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@richardlhardison...but the evidence seems to say exactly the opposite.?ÿ
This debate was had way back with attorneys, doctors and engineers. It worked out pretty well for them and for the public.?ÿ
I believe the "degree or nothing" requirement instituted by many licensing boards when "approved" surveying programs are few and far between is a major contributor to the declining numbers of applications
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I couldn't agree more.
last year I was doing some research on the numbers of license applications for approved Surveyors versus Engineers was looking like for new Mexico.
I was absolutely gobstruck.?ÿ Not quite 200 engineers, and less than 10 surveyors. This was supplied by NMBPEPLS.
that pretty much summed it up.
Goes in line with why survey still needs its own board not overseen by Engineering.
great discussion.?ÿ I'm glad you're having it too!
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I wonder what the average age of retirement is for a PE, a PLS with a degree and a PLS who went the experience route. Government employees excluded.
Growing up in the Ocala, Gainesville area of Florida, I can remember the surveying company owners being very well known, successful and prominent men in the area. From about 1930 through about the early1960's each town had only 2 established surveying companies. Each of these companies had an office building (owned, not rented) that rivaled offices of attorneys and other professionals. They had secretaries, and nice trucks and equipment that gave the appearance of a successful business.
Then, around 1970 things started to change. Hundreds of new surveyors were being licensed each year. It seemed like each year that went by new surveyors were hanging out his/her shingle everywhere you turned. So many of these new surveyors just a few months earlier had been earning 4 or 5 dollars an hour somewhere as a party chief.
After getting licensed, many of these people thought they had hit the jack pot if they could knock down $600 weekly gross. They could get financing to buy an old used truck and a transit, and they were in business working out of the house.
In a town near me there was a newly minted ??licensed surveyor? who took out ads in local ??shopper? rags advertising to do land surveying for under half of what the older established companies had been charging. This new surveyor answered the call when the local county school board was advertising for a ??county school board surveyor? who would be under contract to do all the school board work for the next year. He inked an hourly rate contract for around 50% of what the school board had been paying one of the established surveying businesses in town. The owner of the now former county school board surveyor told me about seeing his competition working on a large topo project. He said some days this new surveyor would have his wife out with him, and other days his retired father. The new surveyor, by saving the county thousands of dollars, effectively hurt the surveying community by locking out money that would have otherwise come into our profession.
Some see nothing wrong with charging low rates, after all it is a free market, but when you are doing this you are helping to keep new blood from entering the profession as you simply do not have the money to hire young, smart, energetic, going places types of young people. Also, while charging wage earner fees for furnishing professional products, you are helping to ensure that upcoming young, smart, energetic, going places types of young people, are unlikely to view a career in surveying as something they would want to study and pursue especially when they see all the magnificent impressive real estate company office buildings while the local surveyor is either working in a dump or out of his/her house...and driving an old beat up truck.
Prior to the year 2000, Florida was licensing 200-300 new surveyors each year. For the past several years Florida has been licensing around 50 per year. If Florida had not gone to the 4 year degree requirement back in the 1990's, we would today likely have 5000 or more licensed surveyors, rather than the 2,555 (number is from the year 2020) (92% are over the age of 40, with 47% over 60) current number. Today we see fees beginning to go up. Finally. If Florida had licensed an additional 2500 surveyors would we now have also finally begun to see fees raise? What evidence exists that would lead anyone to believe that?
The same reasons for justifying the degree requirement that existed years ago, are as real and true today as they were back when those reasons were first debated and put into effect. And, from what I have heard the only reason now for doing away from the degree requirement is that we are simply running out of surveyors.
Keep the degree requirement in place. Let the free market speak. As compensation rises private practice surveying will become attractive to young, smart, energetic, going places types of young people who will be able to retire while still young enough to enjoy retirement rather than still having to slog through the swamps and woods till they're 90 (or they die earlier). When surveyors begin to look successful word will get around and the right young folks will take notice and aspire to joining us.
If we are worried about the costs to taxpayers, and for that reason believe that the cheapest possible way for the taxpayers to have their property surveyed is by eliminating the degree requirement; then first, maybe we should try to convince states to start licensing more doctors, by not making it nearly impossible to be admitted to medical schools (unless your dad's a doctor). Imagine the taxpayer dollars that can be saved by some tweaks in that industry.
Otherwise, just give up with licensing altogether like Florida was considering, and let anyone with the equipment low ball the cheapest price.
@fairbanksls My friend, if they don't have the money for the fees you sort wish to see, it won't get done. And in the rare cases where it does, you will simply leave hatred in your wake and that will come back to haunt you. If you think such things will be ignored by state legislatures, you are deluded.
@aliquot The debate is not over. Doctors are disgruntled with falling fees. Engineers do not serve the regular market, and most are much too expensive to for the normal run of people. Lawyers are seeing some back lash from their fees and in my area there is more and more pro se cases because of it.
The debate is certainly not over for Surveyors. For the degree requirement ilk to get their way would mean the death of the profession, the very thing we keep being told will happen if we don't require 4 year degrees. Add in the lack of qualified professors in Land Surveying, and you get a situation no reasonable professional wants to see.
@i-ben-havin you said it well. I would just like to add that not only does the degree requirement allow us to earn a comfortable living through supply control it increases the average value of the services we provide.?ÿ
In my experience deed stakers who claim every boundary decision is a "legal question" that needs an attorney to address are much more likely to lack a four year degree. License us like technicians and the public will get the services of technicians. They will be far less well served by engineers and attorneys when situations call for a proffesional.?ÿ
@dougie?ÿ
Go figure??ÿ
Apartment vs house, Toyota vs Porsche?
"The average Land Surveyor, Entry salary in the United States is $60,310.as of September 26, 2022."
"The average salary for a mathematician is $103,612 per year in the United States as of November 10, 2022."
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@dougie?ÿ
Go figure??ÿ
Apartment vs house, Toyota vs Porsche?
"The average Land Surveyor, Entry salary in the United States is $60,310.as of September 26, 2022."
"The average salary for a mathematician is $103,612 per year in the United States as of November 10, 2022."
????
I don't know where you got those numbers from, but every attempt I have seen to present a mean or median salary for land surveyors fails to accurately capture who we think of as "land surevors". They always seem to manage to capture unlicensed people who work for land surveyors, construction companies and engineers.?ÿ
Care should also be taken with the number for mathaticians. This number doesn't represent the salary of those with math degrees, because very few of them actually become mathaticians..a much greater percentage of land surveyor graduated become land surevors, and their average salaries are certainly higher than $60,310 (excluding their time pre-licence).?ÿ
If we are throwing out estimates of land surveyors' salaries here is one that claims the average is over $180,000. I don't belive this one either.?ÿ
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https://www1.salary.com/Land-Surveyor-salaries.html
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