A recent study, “The Devaluing of Higher Education: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2005-06,” found that overall average salaries for professors, when adjusted for inflation, declined for the second year in a row. The study by American Association of University Professors also found that salaries of full-time faculty at public institutions continued to lag behind their private school counterparts, with full professors at doctoral-granting institutions earning less than 80 percent of private college professors. The salary gap makes it hard for public universities to attract top-flight faculty.
The situation is worse for professors at historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. AAUP’s subsequent analysis found that professors at these institutions generally make less than the average salaries offered at all public and private colleges. For instance, full professors at doctoral-granting HBCUs made 85.6 percent, and their counterparts at Hispanic-serving institutions made 77.8 percent, of the overall average salary for full professors.
