How much are professors paid?(ifweassume.com)
ifweassume.com
How much are professors paid?
https://www.ifweassume.com/2019/06/how-much-are-professors-paid.html
18 comments
I was an adjunct for one semester, many years ago. I mentioned my experiences to my mom, who is a retired high school teacher. Her response: "Now you know why teachers have a union."
Yes, I had the same experience. I work in higher ed, and occasionally teach a course, maybe once a year. It's good to pickup a little extra $$ with little inconvenience since I can just walk over to the classroom at the end of my workday. It also keeps me in touch with the on-the-ground reality of both faculty and student life, a perspective that gives me great context for my normal job. But the amount of work it takes for even a single course really illustrates just how low the pay is for the time required. And where I work the adjuncts actually DO have a union, but all it's been able to accomplish are modest increases in pay and the ability to buy into the health benefits plan. Not that they get health benefits, they still have to pay the full price for the premiums, they simply have access to do so. And if it's a family plan, the premium could actually come close to costing a majority of their pay. So I'm not sure how much of a "win" that was for the union.
>It's even worse than you paint it, for a lot of adjuncts.
Yes, I specifically showed an optimistic picture of adjunct work so it didn't seem like I was tanking the numbers, but I should have said as much. I've gone back and edited it to reflect that my presentation is more of a best-case scenario.
Yes, I specifically showed an optimistic picture of adjunct work so it didn't seem like I was tanking the numbers, but I should have said as much. I've gone back and edited it to reflect that my presentation is more of a best-case scenario.
I think you meant to reply to ska's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20206480
Oh, thanks. I can no longer edit/delete this, but I reposted to their comment.
Because the price determined by the market is wrong. Wrong!
I wish taxpayers had a union.
I wish taxpayers had a union.
Most adjuncts are in the business of selling their services to effective monopsonies. Oligopolies, at best. Free market economics don’t exonerate the result.
I don’t agree with the parent but calling the educational system a monopsony sounds even less believable, there are tens of thousands of educational institutions in America alone
Most adjuncts - heck, most people - are not capable of moving around the country chasing low-paying, often part-time jobs.
When you’re geographically locked, the universities become effective monopsonies everywhere but NY, Boston, etc
When you’re geographically locked, the universities become effective monopsonies everywhere but NY, Boston, etc
Tax payers sort of do have a union where the collective bargaining takes place in the form of electing official to work on their behalf. Often enough though, those elected end up working against the intersts of voters, sometimes explicitly advocating for policies that voters don't realize are not in their interests.
Not unlike unions that hire a negotiator to work on their behalf, if the negotiator ignored the contractual priorities given to them by the unions.
Not unlike unions that hire a negotiator to work on their behalf, if the negotiator ignored the contractual priorities given to them by the unions.
Except suffrage is not limited to taxpayers.
Not sure what you mean. Everyone doesn't pay all types of taxes, but everyone pays some types. Payroll tax, sales tax, etc.
Taxpayers do have a union. The taxpayer's union in my state outlawed the teacher's union.
We got that Howard Jarvis thing that brought us so much wonderful stuff... like Prop 13.
It's even worse than you paint it, for a lot of adjuncts. Besides the lack of benefits and insurance, often they do not actually know their course allocations in advance, and can suddenly end up losing 1/2 their income or whatever, with a week or so's notice.
For comparison if you are full time faculty at a research (i.e. R1) oriented department, a 1-1 or 1-2 (e.g. 2 - 3 courses a year) is typically considered a full time teaching load on top of your research, although you often have a graduate seminar or two on top of that. If your department focuses on teaching, a 4-4 load is typical. "Teaching relief" is given to new and productive research faculty. Summer courses are often taught for extra income, and/or can be applied to soft salary. Similar things mutatis mutandi if you aren't on a semester system.
For comparison if you are full time faculty at a research (i.e. R1) oriented department, a 1-1 or 1-2 (e.g. 2 - 3 courses a year) is typically considered a full time teaching load on top of your research, although you often have a graduate seminar or two on top of that. If your department focuses on teaching, a 4-4 load is typical. "Teaching relief" is given to new and productive research faculty. Summer courses are often taught for extra income, and/or can be applied to soft salary. Similar things mutatis mutandi if you aren't on a semester system.
>It's even worse than you paint it, for a lot of adjuncts.
Yes, I specifically showed an optimistic picture of adjunct work so it didn't seem like I was tanking the numbers, but I should have said as much. I've gone back and edited it to reflect that my presentation is more of a best-case scenario.
Yes, I specifically showed an optimistic picture of adjunct work so it didn't seem like I was tanking the numbers, but I should have said as much. I've gone back and edited it to reflect that my presentation is more of a best-case scenario.
> Adjunct/non-tenure faculty should be kept in mind.
Absolutely. Most adjuncts and non-tenured professors are paid surprisingly low wages, and many colleges are relying more and more on them (probably because they're so much cheaper).
Absolutely. Most adjuncts and non-tenured professors are paid surprisingly low wages, and many colleges are relying more and more on them (probably because they're so much cheaper).
It's hard to blame the schools too much, at least for public college's and universities. In most states Higher Ed budgets are first on the chopping block for cuts. Even when they're not cut, they frequently remain flat for years, and with inflation that amounts to a Dr facto budget cut.
This dynamic places a downward pressure on what institutions are able to spend of human resources. Adjuncts proliferate, and so do certain types of part time hourly jobs (little/no benefits) that are typical administrative tasks. I'm familiar with an example where fully half of their professional academic advising staff were hourly non-benefit. And quality advising is actually a revenue center, keeping students on track, helping when problems arise that might otherwise prevent a student from continuing their education.
This dynamic places a downward pressure on what institutions are able to spend of human resources. Adjuncts proliferate, and so do certain types of part time hourly jobs (little/no benefits) that are typical administrative tasks. I'm familiar with an example where fully half of their professional academic advising staff were hourly non-benefit. And quality advising is actually a revenue center, keeping students on track, helping when problems arise that might otherwise prevent a student from continuing their education.
Adjuncts are the glue that keeps our university system from shattering—they keep departments alive even as the number of tenure jobs dwindle and administration swells.
Ask yourself: how does one pay off six figures of accumulated undergraduate and graduate debt on 25 grand a year? Answer: you never do. Now imagine that you get to compete with hundreds of other PhDs entering the workforce for this "privilege."
Adjuncting is a silent scandal and the entire university system deserves to burn for it.
Ask yourself: how does one pay off six figures of accumulated undergraduate and graduate debt on 25 grand a year? Answer: you never do. Now imagine that you get to compete with hundreds of other PhDs entering the workforce for this "privilege."
Adjuncting is a silent scandal and the entire university system deserves to burn for it.
Isn’t that more of a signal that so many people shouldn’t be chasing PHDs?
When I was on the academic job market in 2017/2018, most of the CS faculty positions I was applying to paid between 95-115k as the 9 month salary. So with summary salary from your startup funds/grants it would pay a total salary of 115-140k (assuming 2 months summer salary, which is common).
That is not bad. The university/department ranking seemed to affect the salary only a little. The cost of living surprisingly affected the salary very little. This means you could make 130k while living in an extremely cheap area, but living in an expensive area you would not make much more.
Of course, many fields don't pay anywhere near that. Some pay quite a bit more (business!).
Disclaimer: I'm tenure-track faculty at a public R1 university.
That is not bad. The university/department ranking seemed to affect the salary only a little. The cost of living surprisingly affected the salary very little. This means you could make 130k while living in an extremely cheap area, but living in an expensive area you would not make much more.
Of course, many fields don't pay anywhere near that. Some pay quite a bit more (business!).
Disclaimer: I'm tenure-track faculty at a public R1 university.
Anecdotally based on some skimming of the California version of the salary database, there seems to be greater variation between fields than between universities. My wife is in the humanities, and the mid-career salaries of the professors at UCs in her field seem to be about the starting range for UC professors in mine (biology).
If you are currently tenure track at an R1, I would expect that most of your other offers were from a similar tier. So while there may not be a huge difference in salaries between the top-ranked and the 30th ranked school in your discipline, there likely is one between the 30th ranked and the 300th or 1,000th. I'd be curious to see the analysis in the linked article run on the California data, where there are multiple top-tier research universities as well an extensive CSU system. Maybe I'm even the person to do that analysis...
If you are currently tenure track at an R1, I would expect that most of your other offers were from a similar tier. So while there may not be a huge difference in salaries between the top-ranked and the 30th ranked school in your discipline, there likely is one between the 30th ranked and the 300th or 1,000th. I'd be curious to see the analysis in the linked article run on the California data, where there are multiple top-tier research universities as well an extensive CSU system. Maybe I'm even the person to do that analysis...
Not to be condescending, but I should hope area of study should influence expected earnings of an academic.
I hope it's not too much of a stretch to see the difference between a professor of medicine and medieval tapestry or Viking theology
I hope it's not too much of a stretch to see the difference between a professor of medicine and medieval tapestry or Viking theology
An analysis like that would be very interesting to see. Despite a lot of this data being public, I haven't seen any useful analyses of it (e.g., they always mix different fields or lump adjuncts in).
It would be helpful if I could select a field, a position (e.g., assistant prof), a range of school rankings, number of years since hired (e.g., hired last year), and a geographical region, and see the salary data.
It would be helpful if I could select a field, a position (e.g., assistant prof), a range of school rankings, number of years since hired (e.g., hired last year), and a geographical region, and see the salary data.
There is also a large difference between disciplines. Professors in professional schools such as law, medicine, or business tend to make significantly more than professors in the liberal arts (note: this includes math, engineering, and CS many places).
This depresses me a bit. I make substantially more than the average professor, and I'm just an eccentric dropout working at a big megacorporation.
I would like to do research full-time some day, but considering that completing my bachelors and then getting my PhD can get incredibly expensive, it gives me pause if I know that my salary is going to be cut in half in the process.
I would like to do research full-time some day, but considering that completing my bachelors and then getting my PhD can get incredibly expensive, it gives me pause if I know that my salary is going to be cut in half in the process.
A professor typically isn't working full-time on research either.
You can do full-time research in your megacorporation on your current salary or higher, probably.
Probably, I work for a tech company, pretty tricky to get that to those positions without a PhD though. Not 100% sure how I'd get a PhD while working full time; after emailing dozens of professors in the NYC area about this, none of them got back to me about that.
Anyway, my point in the previous post though, and I realize that I didn't express this terribly clearly, was that it's a bit upsetting that people who work really hard and dedicate themselves enough to become a professor end up making a pretty pathetic amount of money in proportion to their effort.
Anyway, my point in the previous post though, and I realize that I didn't express this terribly clearly, was that it's a bit upsetting that people who work really hard and dedicate themselves enough to become a professor end up making a pretty pathetic amount of money in proportion to their effort.
Something important to note when reading this is that at a university in the US, almost everyone is a professor. That's why these pay ranges are so wide - they include both very junior part-time staff and very senior world-class full-time staff.
Could you elaborate a bit? I know that over here there are certain requirements (needs to teach classes, publish at least one paper a year).
Is this different in the US?
Is this different in the US?
In many countries a professor is usually extremely distinguished in their field, with perhaps twenty years' research experience, and you will only get a couple of them in each department, with some universities not having any.
I think in the US everyone just automatically gets the title 'professor.'
I think in the US everyone just automatically gets the title 'professor.'
The same ranks exist in the US:
1. Assistant Professor
2. Associate Professor
3. [Full] Professor
As far as I know, you should only use the title "Prof." to refer to a "full" professor, and "Dr." for assistant and associate professors. In reality, everyone is just referred to as a "professor".
1. Assistant Professor
2. Associate Professor
3. [Full] Professor
As far as I know, you should only use the title "Prof." to refer to a "full" professor, and "Dr." for assistant and associate professors. In reality, everyone is just referred to as a "professor".
Exactly. Except I thought you should use "Prof" for anybody with Professor in their title.
My University also has a few other titles: Acting Prof, Research Prof, and of course Prof Emeritus
My University also has a few other titles: Acting Prof, Research Prof, and of course Prof Emeritus
I believe in (some) American universities, any non-grad student who teaches a class is called a professor.
In the summer I had a grad student who was teaching the class as the primary teacher, and he was called "professor" (although I suspect his paycheck was just the standard grad check).
Basically, if you teach even a single class (you have alternative employment, teach at a few different schools, are underemployed, etc.) you are an adjunct professor. And there are a lot of adjuncts.
You generally start as an assistant professor, which means you are on the tenure track but you don't yet have tenure. After several years, if you did well, you get promoted to associate professor, meaning that you got tenure. Finally, after some more years, you turn into a full professor, at which point you will likely earn the most.
All three types are generally referred to as "professor" but they differ in their seniority.
All three types are generally referred to as "professor" but they differ in their seniority.
Promotion from associate professor to professor is not automatic; indeed, there are several associate professors in my department who have been at that rank for some time, and seem unlikely to get promoted.
But it is reasonably common, unlike in (say) the UK.
But it is reasonably common, unlike in (say) the UK.
There are multiple 'professor' titles, but only one tenured faculty role. The tenured faculty is the holy grail, and everyone else is underpaid and overworked. [0]
You have instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. There's also such things as visiting professor (temporary postition) or professor emeritus (used to be a professor).
[0]. https://www.bu.edu/handbook/appointments-and-promotions/clas...
You have instructor, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. There's also such things as visiting professor (temporary postition) or professor emeritus (used to be a professor).
[0]. https://www.bu.edu/handbook/appointments-and-promotions/clas...
Could you clarify what 'one tenured faculty role' means?
The link you gave says "The granting of Tenure, discussed in “Tenure and Promotion on the Charles River Campus”, is a separate guarantee that is not implied by any of the titles discussed in this section."
The tenure document, for example, says that 'The award of tenure to an Assistant Professor shall include promotion to the rank of Associate Professor.' So 'tenured associate professor' is a tenured faculty role, in addition to the 'tenured professor' faculty, such as http://www.bu.edu/wheelock/dr-leslie-dietiker-promoted-to-as... .
The link you gave says "The granting of Tenure, discussed in “Tenure and Promotion on the Charles River Campus”, is a separate guarantee that is not implied by any of the titles discussed in this section."
The tenure document, for example, says that 'The award of tenure to an Assistant Professor shall include promotion to the rank of Associate Professor.' So 'tenured associate professor' is a tenured faculty role, in addition to the 'tenured professor' faculty, such as http://www.bu.edu/wheelock/dr-leslie-dietiker-promoted-to-as... .
I think GP is using "role" to mean the collection of tasks/functions performed by a person rather than their job title. As far as I can tell, duties and incentives don't change as much when going from associate to full professor as when going from assistant to associate.
Thanks. I think I'm getting stuck on "The tenured faculty" rather than simply "tenure".
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Almost everyone except the adjuncts, which might be a small number at some R1 institutions, but might be a lot more common elsewhere.
Their title is literally "adjunct professor". They would show up in this graph as "professor".
Maybe. In some places, it's "lecturer" or "instructor". In addition, I looked up one individual I know is an adjunct, and his title was just "adjunct" on the department page. I suppose it's possible there's a more official database wherein his title is adjunct professor.
Perhaps there's a difference in terminology? My sense is that in academic circles, adjunct is now frequently used not for a specific position/title, but for the class of professionals who are hired on a semester by semester basis and paid by the class. Whereas the assistant/associate/full professor ladder is well defined most places, the adjunct position is more of an afterthought. It's temporary/disposable labor.
Perhaps there's a difference in terminology? My sense is that in academic circles, adjunct is now frequently used not for a specific position/title, but for the class of professionals who are hired on a semester by semester basis and paid by the class. Whereas the assistant/associate/full professor ladder is well defined most places, the adjunct position is more of an afterthought. It's temporary/disposable labor.
Adjunct is a way of designating an affiliation that is not on the tenure track, i.e. is not regular faculty (and will not be).
In my experience it's a professional affiliation that is flexible, designating that you are not a student, but not regular faculty. In some cases it designates a sessional lecturer (i.e. paid by the course, not full time, no job security), but it can also be used to associate someone in the department for the purposes of contributing to research or co-supervising a student. So you can end up being an adjunct for a department for a while without ever having been employed by them directly.
Originally it was much more the latter use, and not the former, but as the use of non-TT instructors grew some places used adjunct for this, others "lecturer", "sessional" etc.
In my experience it's a professional affiliation that is flexible, designating that you are not a student, but not regular faculty. In some cases it designates a sessional lecturer (i.e. paid by the course, not full time, no job security), but it can also be used to associate someone in the department for the purposes of contributing to research or co-supervising a student. So you can end up being an adjunct for a department for a while without ever having been employed by them directly.
Originally it was much more the latter use, and not the former, but as the use of non-TT instructors grew some places used adjunct for this, others "lecturer", "sessional" etc.
Not entirely true - a growing number of PhD-holding faculty have labels like "lecturer" or "instructor", which are non-tenure-track and often contract based. Like in the public college system, this is leading to the majority of student contact hours being from faculty who don't have any permanent status within the university, and whose pay is far below even the junior professors.
These contact hours are further diluted with TA's shouldering a lot of the burden too.
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My sister was a doctor at a hospital affiliated with a local public state university (similar to the ones in the dataset) and was listed as a professor on publicly available salary databases because she would train interns and residents for them. She definitely wasn't a professor in the traditional research sense but she was teaching in a way.
In the US, professors come in different grades: full professors, assistant professors, associate professors, etc. (https://maniagnosis.crsr.net/2016/02/a-short-guide-to-academ...)
That couldn't be less true. I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make. Obviously not "everyone" is a professor when you mix in facilities and administrative staff.
If you're trying to more narrowly say "all instructors are considered professors", that's not true at any institution type, not even R1 (major research Universities)
https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20S...
If you're trying to more narrowly say "all instructors are considered professors", that's not true at any institution type, not even R1 (major research Universities)
https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20S...
My understanding that almost all academics with tenure and even many without in the US calls themselves a ‘professor.’
I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that PDF - it doesn't even mention the word!
I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that PDF - it doesn't even mention the word!
Their title would be something like lecturer. I suppose students might call them professor, or they might insist on being called professor just like some Ph.D graduates might insist on being called 'Doctor' even though they're not a medical doctor.
An associate professor would at least be tenure-track.
An associate professor would at least be tenure-track.
> Their title would be something like lecturer.
Have you never heard of 'adjunct professors' in the US?
> An associate professor
In most countries people at the level of just associate professor don't call themselves 'professor.'
> like some Ph.D graduates might insist on being called 'Doctor' even though they're not a medical doctor
The title 'doctor' means you have a doctorate, or in some cases like the UK it's also used as a courtesy title for a medical professional with just a bachelors degree. PhDs, EngDs, DPhils, DLs, MDs, and more are all entitled to use it as much as each other.
Have you never heard of 'adjunct professors' in the US?
> An associate professor
In most countries people at the level of just associate professor don't call themselves 'professor.'
> like some Ph.D graduates might insist on being called 'Doctor' even though they're not a medical doctor
The title 'doctor' means you have a doctorate, or in some cases like the UK it's also used as a courtesy title for a medical professional with just a bachelors degree. PhDs, EngDs, DPhils, DLs, MDs, and more are all entitled to use it as much as each other.
I'm not sure how meaningful this analysis is. First, as others have noted, just having the word "professor" in the title doesn't mean much: both a full, tenured professor and an untenured, adjunct professor would have the word "professor." (In my field, mathematics, postdoctoral positions are often called "visiting assistant professors"; these are not tenure-track positions.) Second, again as others noted, salary varies widely across fields, e.g., a med school professor will be paid a lot more than an English professor.
Just looking at nominal salary also misses out on important subtleties. For example, med school professors primarily doing research are often expected to pay their own salaries out of grants (since many of them do very little teaching or practice medicine), whereas clinical professors (e.g., those who teach in hospitals) get a salary. The former category is much less stable as it is contingent upon sustained research funding, but the second will not leave time for research (nor would it be expected).
Source: I'm tenured at an R1 university in the US.
Just looking at nominal salary also misses out on important subtleties. For example, med school professors primarily doing research are often expected to pay their own salaries out of grants (since many of them do very little teaching or practice medicine), whereas clinical professors (e.g., those who teach in hospitals) get a salary. The former category is much less stable as it is contingent upon sustained research funding, but the second will not leave time for research (nor would it be expected).
Source: I'm tenured at an R1 university in the US.
The take-away from this is that
- several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department.
- aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance.
If you are getting an offer from a professor position, you can get very precise salary expectations by looking at this granular data. For instance, lookup the salary of professors in the hiring department joined a year or two before your offer. GlassDoor information pales in comparison.
- several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department.
- aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance.
If you are getting an offer from a professor position, you can get very precise salary expectations by looking at this granular data. For instance, lookup the salary of professors in the hiring department joined a year or two before your offer. GlassDoor information pales in comparison.
> several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors.
I'd expand this to state governments. It depends on the state, but for some states you can find a lot of detailed salary information.
I'd expand this to state governments. It depends on the state, but for some states you can find a lot of detailed salary information.
> several (maybe most) state universities in the US publish the salaries of their professors. Some state universities publish comprehensive (creepy?) granular data, e.g., a spreadsheet with each row displaying professor name, professor salary, rank, department.
My understanding is this is practically a requirement for government employees, so if the university is public, this data must be provided. Similarly, you can look up the salary/pay for most other government employees, although they're usually strict to scales.
My understanding is this is practically a requirement for government employees, so if the university is public, this data must be provided. Similarly, you can look up the salary/pay for most other government employees, although they're usually strict to scales.
> aggregated statistics (across all fields, all ranks, tenure-track/non-tenure-track, etc) are useless because of the variance
Could you expound on that? How does the variance in underlying data cause aggregated statistics to lose usefulness?
Could you expound on that? How does the variance in underlying data cause aggregated statistics to lose usefulness?
Say you receive an offer for a specific position in a specific department and hope to negotiate a better salary. Aggregated data averaged across all fields, all universities and all ranks is not useful. However, the salaries of recent hires, for the same specific position, in the same field at comparable universities will give objective data (and possibly leverage) to negotiate your offer.
Good data, just wish it was presented a little differently. I can't tell where zero percent is for any of the salary graphs, and I'd also like to know the median home value used for calculating the values in the second graph. Otherwise, very informative post, thanks!
Haha, right. I searched for "axis" to see if anyone was making this point before I re-made it.
I think the data here are unfortunately pretty hard to interpret, in part because:
- it's not clear if summer salary is included. Most tenure-track faculty in the U.S. are on a nine-month contract (sometimes paid out over nine months, and sometimes over 12), and this "salary" notionally comes from tuition or the state government. But many faculty in the sciences and engineering are also paid a "summary salary" that comes out of grant funding (typically grant funding that the faculty member participated in raising) or from the startup funding provided by the university to new faculty. This can increase a professor's total annual cash compensation by 33%.
- this is looking at salaries of public universities in one state.
- there can be a huge variation between disciplines (e.g. history vs. computer science vs. law vs. medicine) or between seniorities. Also between tenure-track faculty and everybody else (adjuncts, lecturers and instructors, teaching-track professors).
- professors often go on leave or otherwise aren't fully paid throughout the year, which can distort the average per-capita figures.
- professors in high cost-of-living areas sometimes receive important non-cash compensation from the univeresity, e.g. the university will provide below-market-rate rental apartments or originate mortgages.
- professors in law and engineering typically have other ways to make money that aren't generally afforded to other private-sector employees, e.g. professors receive "consulting privileges" (the lawyers can do legal work in private practice, and professors can consult n days per year), and they personally receive around 30% of the patent revenue that the university collects (for patents invented by the professor in their academic work and assigned to the university), etc.
One data point: I am an assistant professor (the lowest tenure-track rank) for a large private university in the U.S. in an engineering department in a high cost-of-living area, and my pre-tax cash compensation from the university is more than $225,000/year, included my summer salary that comes out of my grants, but not including the FMV of the below-market-rate mortgage benefit that the university offers to faculty and not counting consulting on the side. So not close to industry money, but a lot higher than the numbers in this article and higher than I think most people realize a junior engineering professor can make.
- it's not clear if summer salary is included. Most tenure-track faculty in the U.S. are on a nine-month contract (sometimes paid out over nine months, and sometimes over 12), and this "salary" notionally comes from tuition or the state government. But many faculty in the sciences and engineering are also paid a "summary salary" that comes out of grant funding (typically grant funding that the faculty member participated in raising) or from the startup funding provided by the university to new faculty. This can increase a professor's total annual cash compensation by 33%.
- this is looking at salaries of public universities in one state.
- there can be a huge variation between disciplines (e.g. history vs. computer science vs. law vs. medicine) or between seniorities. Also between tenure-track faculty and everybody else (adjuncts, lecturers and instructors, teaching-track professors).
- professors often go on leave or otherwise aren't fully paid throughout the year, which can distort the average per-capita figures.
- professors in high cost-of-living areas sometimes receive important non-cash compensation from the univeresity, e.g. the university will provide below-market-rate rental apartments or originate mortgages.
- professors in law and engineering typically have other ways to make money that aren't generally afforded to other private-sector employees, e.g. professors receive "consulting privileges" (the lawyers can do legal work in private practice, and professors can consult n days per year), and they personally receive around 30% of the patent revenue that the university collects (for patents invented by the professor in their academic work and assigned to the university), etc.
One data point: I am an assistant professor (the lowest tenure-track rank) for a large private university in the U.S. in an engineering department in a high cost-of-living area, and my pre-tax cash compensation from the university is more than $225,000/year, included my summer salary that comes out of my grants, but not including the FMV of the below-market-rate mortgage benefit that the university offers to faculty and not counting consulting on the side. So not close to industry money, but a lot higher than the numbers in this article and higher than I think most people realize a junior engineering professor can make.
Not a very useful analysis, there are various levels of pay-grade and they all except the lowest ranks, often have 'professor' in their job titles. eg. Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Professor, Professor Emeritus, Visiting Professor, and sometimes Contract Professor.
Fair and balanced.
I spend all day doing useful analysis for science. On the internet, all I can hope for is doing mildly interesting work :D
I spend all day doing useful analysis for science. On the internet, all I can hope for is doing mildly interesting work :D
It is wide ranging for sure. I think most starting assistant professors start in the 50 to 75k range. In Cal State, your salary will start on the lower end, and go up incrementally. If in the University of California system, it will start in the upper end, and within 6-10 years, your salary will have doubled.
Would be nice to have an actual y-axis on those charts. No way to tell the difference between near zero and zero for the various schools.
I’m an adjunct faculty at ASU and make $4,000/year for one course. This stipend is a nice gesture but I do it for the kids.
What happens if you teach multiple sections of the same course? Like a morning section and an evening section? Do you get paid double or once?
ASU explicitly disallows adjunct faculty from holding multiple courses. I have no idea why.
The highest paid professor in the University of Massachusetts System makes $468k/year. Of the state's highest paid employees, 58 of 60 work for UMass. (Top non-UMass employee comes in at #32) http://cthrupayroll.mass.gov/#!/year/2018/full_time_employee...
If you want some real data for computer science, there is a survey conducted every year on this topic: https://cra.org/resources/taulbee-survey/
This is broken down by region, size of school, state vs. local, seniority, title, etc.
This is broken down by region, size of school, state vs. local, seniority, title, etc.
Yup, 'professor' covers everything from adjuncts who are one step from freshly graduated grad students with the pay to match and eminent figures with entire departments under them and decades of connections.
I like how we just casually analyze public salaries but if you did this for any comparably large company, it would be far, far more f'd up.
Wow. All those college bucks are not going to Prof salaries.
Tl;dr Not much...
The overall average for this is about $3,000/course, but I believe this is brought down by small private & for-profit schools. At a typical public school $4000/course is a good rule of thumb. Teaching more than 4 courses is a significant load, and some schools limit it to 3 or 4 courses/semester, but let's assume 4 courses in the spring, 4 in the fall, 2 in the summer. That puts the yearly gross at $40,000/year. That's probably a livable wage in many parts of the country, but keep in mind this does not include things like sick or vacation pay, health insurance, retirement plans, or other benefits.
EDIT: I should point out that the above is, for the most part, a best-case scenario for adjuncts. It often isn't possible to get full teaching loads, or doing so requires piecing together a course here or there at multiple schools. Income in the $25,000 range is not uncommon.