For the 2018-19 academic year, salaries for full-time faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities, on average, are 2 percent higher than they were in the 2017-18 academic year — just 0.01 percent above the inflation rate for the academic year after being adjusted.
It’s the third consecutive year that average increases in full-time faculty salaries at U.S. institutions have barely outpaced inflation, according to the annual Faculty Compensation Survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
For this year’s survey, the AAUP collected data from over 950 U.S. higher education institutions, including community colleges, liberal arts colleges and prominent research universities. In addition, data used in the survey covers over 380,000 full-time faculty members at colleges and universities and includes the salaries of senior administrators and pay for part-time faculty members.
“The data confirms that support for higher education in this country is not where it should be,” said AAUP spokesperson Dr. Gwendolyn “Gwen” Bradley. “Even full-time faculty salaries barely outpace inflation, and about half of the faculty in this country are on part-time appointments that typically have low pay and lack institutional support such as professional development funding, job security, and adequate office space.”
Salaries for full-time faculty members vary based on the type of the institution, in addition to faculty rank. For instance, the survey results found that a full-time professor at a private-independent doctoral university is almost $196,000, whereas an assistant professor at a religiously affiliated baccalaureate college annually earned $61,127, on average.
In addition, the salary increase for full-time faculty at private institutions was, on average, 0.4 percent higher than for those teaching at public institutions, survey results found.
Part-time faculty members were paid, on average, $3,894 per each three-credit course, however, the range of pay varied by institution type. The lowest average amount paid to part-time faculty was $2,925, by religiously affiliated baccalaureate colleges. In contrast, the highest average amount paid to part-time faculty was $5,858 by private religiously affiliated doctoral institutions.
