Joe Biden isn’t the first ex-politician to be paid a lot of money by a college for nothing apparent. It’s a common problem, but it’s worse in Biden’s case because of how much he was paid and how many titles he received and how little he did.

Joe Biden joins the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School and School of Arts and Sciences as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor and the driving force behind the new Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, Biden also holds a secondary affiliation in the Wharton School as a Practice Professor of Management.

Sounds impressive? What did it amount to?

Two weeks after the announcement that former Vice President Joe Biden will join Penn as a professor, administrators, professors and politically minded students alike are still confused about the nature of his role at the University.

On Feb. 7, Penn President Amy Gutmann announced that Biden will lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. as a “Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor,” but nearly a month later the administration seems unclear about what this means.

Many students thought Biden would be teaching courses at Penn, but Biden spokesperson Kate Bedingfield said he will not be teaching classes when she spoke to The Daily Pennsylvanian at the beginning of the month.

It did mean a $900K payday. And Biden claiming to be a prof.

Mr. Biden claimed to be an Ivy League professor at the end of a nearly 8-minute, rambling answer to a question from an 18-year-old on what he was doing to appeal to young voters who may favor Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“There’s a lot we can do. When I left the United States Senate, I became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania,” he said, bringing up that fact to claim that his professorship established a bond with college students.

Last July, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Penn has paid Mr. Biden $900,000 and asked “what did he do to earn the money?”

Be a likely presidential candidate, mainly.

Biden is as much of an academic as he is compos mentis.