The following article gives a national context for discussion of the budget
at tomorrow's Faculty Meeting.
Inside Higher Ed: April 24, 2006
The Eroding Faculty Paycheck
The average faculty salary increased by 3.1 percent in 2005-6, a year in
which the inflation rate was 3.4 percent, according to data released today
by the American Association of University Professors.
That makes this year the second straight in which faculty members have lost
spending power over the course of a year. And this two-year stretch of
falling behind inflation is the first such repeat in inflation outpacing
raises since 1981.
A report on salaries, by Saranna Thornton, an economist at Hampden-Sydney
College and chair of the AAUP's Committee on the Economic Status of the
Profession, speculates that many colleges may not have accurately projected
the rate of inflation. Her report urges colleges to consider this issue
more carefully in the future, and warns that allowing salaries to fall
behind will hurt the ability to attract professorial talent.
The AAUP compared figures for faculty salaries with those of other
professions that attract highly educated people, and the picture isn't
pretty. While professors know that physicians and lawyers earn more money,
they may not realize how the gaps are growing. Between 1986 and 2005, the
percentage change in real salaries for faculty members increased by 0.27
percent. (emphasis mine). The increases were substantially larger for
engineers (4.68 percent), lawyers (17.73 percent), and physicians (34.41
percent). For good measure, the AAUP also notes that average salaries of
college presidents and the average size of college endowments have also
outpaced increases in professors' pay.
As the data from the AAUP make clear, the salary picture for professors
varies widely depending on where and in what capacity someone works. The
average increase for continuing faculty was 4.4 percent, outpacing
inflation. The gaps between elite and non-elite colleges are such that
there is no one real category of faculty pay.
The average for full professors is $172,800 at Rockefeller University, and
five institutions (all private) have six-figure averages for associate
professors. But salaries like that are not typical. The average salary for
one professor at Rockefeller or Harvard or Princeton Universities would pay
for the average salaries of three associate professors at a community
college or three assistant professors at a baccalaureate institution.
Rockefeller has the highest pay for full professors this year, while the
University of California at Los Angeles leads for public institutions,
Wellesley College for liberal arts institutions, and Westchester Community
College for community colleges. The California Institute of Technology
leads in the rankings for average associate and assistant professor
salaries. (Some tables with the highest and lowest salaries appear at the
end of this article.)
The following table shows averages for different types of institutions and
ranks. The community college averages are based only on those institutions
with faculty ranks.
Average Salaries of Professors, by Rank and Institution Type, 2006-6
Institution Type/Rank
Average Salary
1-Year % Change
Doctoral: public
Professor $101,620 +3.9%
Associate professor 70,952 +3.7%
Assistant professor 60,440 +3.8%
Doctoral:private independent
Professor $131,292 +4.4%
Associate professor 84,419 +3.5%
Assistant professor 71,877 +3.0%
Doctoral:private church-related
Professor $113,740 +3.8%
Associate professor 77,409 +3.9%
Assistant professor 65,286 +3.9%
Master's public
Professor $78,884 +2.7%
Associate professor 62,700 +2.6%
Assistant professor 52,873 +3.0%
Master's private independent
Professor $88,800 +3.4%
Associate professor 67,148 +3.2%
Assistant professor 54,996 +2.8%
Master's private church-related
Professor $78,379 +3.3%
Associate professor 62,208 +3.2%
Assistant professor 51,411 +3.5%
Baccalaureate public
Professor $73,406 +2.9%
Associate professor 59,913 +3.0%
Assistant professor 49,546 +2.7%
Baccalaureate private independent
Professor $87,779 +3.3%
Associate professor 64,846 +3.6%
Assistant professor 53,083 +4.0%
Baccalaureate private church-related
Professor $66,547 +3.9%
Associate professor 55,402 +3.5%
Assistant professor 45,873 +2.8%
Community colleges public
Professor $66,011 +3.0%
Associate professor 53,405 +2.8%
Assistant professor 47,116 +2.3%
The data from the AAUP draw attention to the gap that has grown between
public and private salaries. Historically in the United States, the gap
hasn't been large, and ambitious public institutions were able to attract
top talent. At the doctoral level, this enabled top institutions to have
graduate programs and research centers that could compete in selected areas
with the Ivies and other top private institutions.
Increasingly, that is not the case. In 2004-5, public salaries of full
professors equaled 77 percent of average private salaries at doctoral
institutions, 91 percent at master's institutions, and 83 percent at
baccalaureate institutions. For assistant professors a key comparison
because it affects the initial entry point to academic careers: the
percentages are 83 percent at doctoral institutions, 97 percent at master's
institutions, and 94 percent at baccalaureate institutions. As recently as
1990-91, pay for assistant professors was better at public institutions
than at privates at the master's and baccalaureate levels.
The AAUP study notes many ways in which its data may not reflect the
situation of individuals in various sectors or at various institutions. The
data collected are from full-time faculty members, even though a growing
proportion of faculty members work part time. Cost of living obviously
varies widely in the United States, and many institutions at the top of the
salary lists are in expensive urban areas, so plenty of faculty members who
work at institutions further down the list, and in less expensive areas,
enjoy the ability to have nicer homes and may have more cash in their
retirement accounts.
The AAUP data also do not focus on disciplines. Cary Nelson, the new
president of the AAUP, said in an interview last week that he would like to
see the survey find ways to reflect disciplinary gaps. (The College and
University Professional Association for Human Resources releases data that
<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/06/cupa>compares salaries by
discipline, but that does not contain information on individual
institutions.) To the extent that disciplinary gaps exist, they affect not
only individuals, but averages for institutions, since those with many
faculty members in business may have larger averages than those that have
many classics professors.
Institutional Rankings
Among private research universities, compared to last year, the California
Institute of Technology fell from No. 6 to 8, with Yale and the University
of Pennsylvania each moving up a notch. Columbia University, which was
ninth last year, did not submit figures this year.
Top 10 Private Research Universities in Average Salary for Full Professor
University
Average Salary
1. Rockefeller University
$172,800
2. Harvard University
$168,700
3. Princeton University
$156,800
4. Stanford University
$156,200
5. University of Chicago
$155,100
6. Yale University
$151,200
7. University of Pennsylvania
$149,900
8. California Institute of Technology
$147,800
9. Yeshiva University
$144,200
10. New York University
$144,000
Among public universities with the highest average salaries for full
professors, there was relatively little movement. The State University of
New York's Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn fell out of the top 10 while
Rutgers University at New Brunswick made the cut. With that addition, New
Jersey has three universities in the public top 10 (as does California).
Top 10 Public Research Universities in Average Salary for Full Professor
University
Average Salary
1. University of California at Los Angeles
$128,400
2. New Jersey Institute of Technology
$128,000
3. University of California at Berkeley
$126,200
4. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
$125,600
5. Georgia Institute of Technology
$123,600
6. University of Maryland at Baltimore
$123,300
7. University of Virginia
$123,100
8. Rutgers University at Newark
$118,800
9. University of California at San Diego
$118,100
10. Rutgers University at New Brunswick
$116,800
Among liberal arts colleges, the top salaries are found at institutions in
the Northeast or in Southern California.
Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges in Average Salary for Full Professor
College
Average Salary
1. Wellesley College
$123,100
2. Pomona College
$121,700
3. Barnard College
$120,300
4. Amherst College
$119,300
5. Swarthmore College
$118,200
6. Williams College
$116,900
7. (tie) Harvey Mudd College
$116,400
7. (tie) Middlebury College
$116,400
9. Claremont McKenna College
$115,700
10. Wesleyan University
$115,400
Among community colleges, comparisons of institutions are more difficult
because only some two-year institutions have faculty ranks. Among those
that do, however, the Big Apple is the place to be. Six of the top 10 are
in the City University of New York, while one other is in nearby
Westchester County, and two are in New Jersey.
Top 10 Community Colleges in Average Salary for Full Professor
College
Average Salary
1. Westchester Community College
$95,100
2. Gloucester County College
$94,000
3. Miami U. (Ohio) at Hamilton
$90,600
4. Union County College
$89,900
5. Queensborough Community College
$89,200
6. Hostos Community College
$87,200
7. LaGuardia Community College
$86,700
8. Borough of Manhattan Community College
$85,300
9. (tie) Bronx Community College
$84,300
9. (tie) Kingsborough Community College
$84,300
While six-figure salaries have become the norm for full professors at top
public and private universities, six-figure averages are just starting to
show up at the associate professor rank, and they are not visible at the
assistant level.
Six-Figure Average Salaries for Associate Professors
Institution
Average Salary
1. California Institute of Technology
$106,500
2. Stanford University
$106,100
3. Babson College
$103,000
4. Thomas M. Cooley Law School
$101,300
5. University of Pennsylvania
$100,700
Of the top 10 universities in average salary for assistant professor, all
are private except one, the University of Texas at Dallas.
Top 10 Institutions in Average Salary for Assistant Professor
Institution
Average Salary
1. California Institute of Technology
$96,800
2. University of Pennsylvania
$88,100
3. Harvard University
$87,300
4. Babson College
$87,200
5. Stanford University
$86,900
6. Cornell University (endowed colleges)
$82,900
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
$82,700
8. University of Texas at Dallas
$82,400
9. Northwestern University
$81,200
10. Carnegie Mellon University
$80,500
The institutions that have the lowest salaries for full professors tend to
be, like those that pay the highest, private institutions. Many on the low
end of the pay scale are religious.
Bottom 20 Four-Year Institutions in Average Salary for a Full Professor
Institution
Average Salary
1. Naropa University
$28,000
2. Union College (Ky.)
$35,700
3. Bethany (Kan.)
$38,600
4. Anna Maria College
$39,100
5. Tabor College
$39,300
6. Walla Walla College
$39,500
7. St. Pauls College (Va.)
$39,700
8. Toccoa Falls College
$41,400
9. Tennessee Wesleyan College
$42,100
10. College of the Southwest
$42,400
11. Crichton College
$42,500
12. Ohio Valley College
$42,700
13. Kentucky Christian University
$43,100
14. Oklahoma Wesleyan University
$45,100
15. Antioch College
$45,300
16. Kansas Wesleyan University
$45,400
17. Missouri Valley College
$45,600
18. (tie) Bryan College
$46,000
18. (tie) MacMurray College
$46,000
20. Concordia University (Oregon)
$46,300
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