Real wages for full-time college and university faculty declined in the 2025–26 academic year, erasing two years of post-pandemic gains and raising fresh alarms about the long-term economic sustainability of the academic profession, according to preliminary findings released this week by the American Association of University Professors.
The AAUP's 2025–26 Faculty Compensation Survey — the most comprehensive dataset of its kind in American higher education — found that while average nominal salaries rose 2.3 percent, a 2.7 percent spike in inflation produced a net 0.4 percent drop in actual purchasing power. The decline marks a sharp reversal after two consecutive years of 3.8 percent nominal salary increases that had offered some hope of recovery from pandemic-era economic disruptions.
"This is a sobering moment for the profession," said Dr. John Gordon, a faculty member at Union College. "We've been treading water for years, and now we're being pulled under again. When inflation outpaces your raise, that's not a raise, that's a pay cut. Faculty are making real sacrifices, and institutions need to reckon with what that means for recruitment, retention, and ultimately the quality of education students receive."
The salary picture varied significantly by institution type. Faculty at public institutions saw average nominal salary growth of 2.4 percent, while their counterparts at private independent institutions fared the worst at just 1.5 percent. Religiously affiliated institutions posted the highest nominal increase at 2.5 percent. Across all categories, however, none kept pace with inflation, meaning faculty at every type of institution experienced a real-dollar decline in compensation.
Among continuing faculty — those employed in both fall 2024 and fall 2025 — the news was slightly more encouraging. That cohort saw a 3.4 percent nominal increase, translating to a modest 0.7 percent real gain after adjusting for inflation. The more favorable outcome for continuing faculty reflects the drag that lower-paid new hires and departures can exert on aggregate salary averages across institutions. Still, economists and faculty advocates noted that even a 0.7 percent real increase is thin compensation for the demands placed on faculty in an era of declining public funding, growing administrative burdens, and increasing pressure to demonstrate student outcomes.
The survey's expanded data on part-time faculty painted a particularly stark picture of a two-tiered academic labor market in which adjunct instructors, who now make up a majority of the faculty at many institutions, continue to bear a disproportionate share of higher education's financial strain.
Pay per course section in the 2024–25 academic year ranged from a low of $3,200 at religiously affiliated master's institutions to a high of $6,320 at private independent baccalaureate institutions. Among the 555 institutions that reported minimum starting pay, the median was just $3,121 per course section, a figure that, for many instructors teaching a standard load, translates to annual earnings well below a living wage in most metropolitan areas.
Benefits for part-time faculty remained scarce across the board. Only 32.7 percent of institutions reported contributing toward retirement plans for some or all adjunct faculty, and just 30.6 percent contributed to medical insurance premiums. Critics have long argued that the adjunctification of the American faculty represents not only a labor crisis but an educational one, as instructors working without job security, adequate pay, or institutional support are poorly positioned to invest deeply in student success.
The AAUP significantly expanded its data collection on part-time faculty this year, with nearly 590 colleges and universities providing per-course-section pay data, an increase of more than 50 percent over the prior year. The organization said the expanded dataset offers the clearest and most accurate picture yet of the economic conditions facing the growing contingent faculty workforce. The AAUP described the rates of pay and benefits offered to part-time faculty at many institutions as "appallingly low."
The findings arrive at a particularly fraught moment for higher education, which is grappling with declining enrollment projections, ongoing federal policy uncertainty, and renewed political pressure on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Faculty unions and advocacy groups are expected to cite the new compensation data in contract negotiations and legislative lobbying efforts in the months ahead.
"Two steps forward, one step back. That's been the story for full-time faculty," said Gordon. "For part-timer, it's been no steps forward at all. The AAUP data makes that undeniable."
