Professors in The United States - Salary

Salary

Most professors are paid by a college or university on nine- or ten-month contracts. Salary data for professors is typically reported as a "9 month" salary, not including compensation received (often from research grants) during the summer. The overall median 9 month salary for all professors was $73,000, placing a slight majority of professors among the top 15% of earners at age 25 or older. Yet, their salaries remain considerably below that of some other comparable professions (even when including summer compensation) such as lawyers (who earned a median of $110,000) and physicians (whose median earnings ranged from $137,000 to $322,000 depending on speciality). According to the U.S. Department of Labor,

salaries for full-time faculty averaged $73,207. By rank, the average was $98,974 for professors, $69,911 for associate professors, $58,662 for assistant professors, $42,609 for instructors, and $48,289 for lecturers. Faculty in 4-year institutions earn higher salaries, on average, than do those in 2-year schools. In 2006–07, faculty salaries averaged $84,249 in private independent institutions, $71,362 in public institutions, and $66,118 in religiously affiliated private colleges and universities.

Salaries varied widely by field and rank ranging from $45,927 for an assistant professor in theology to $136,634 for a full professor in "Legal Professions and Studies." Another study by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources found the average salary for all faculty members, including instructors, to be $66,407, placing half of all faculty members in the top 15.3% of income earners above the age of 25. Median salaries were $54,000 for assistant professors, $64,000 for associate professors and $86,000 for full professors 2005. During the 2005–06 year, salaries for assistant professors ranged from $45,927 in theology to $81,005 in law. For associate professors, salaries ranged from $56,943 in theology to $98,530 in law, while salaries among full professors ranged from $68,214 in theology to $136,634 in law. During the 2010–11 year, associate professor salaries vary from $59,593 in theology to $93,767 in law. Full professors at elite institutions commonly enjoy six-figure incomes, such as $123,300 at UCLA or $148,500 at Stanford. The CSU system, which is the largest system in the U.S. with over 11,000 faculty members, had an average full-time faculty salary of $74,000 in 2007, which had been scheduled to increase to $91,000 by 2011. Unfortunately for these faculty, the ensuing crash of the U.S. economy resulted in temporary pay reductions and total salary stagnation at the 2007 level instead, with this same level of pay now forecast to persist through 2015 at least, in spite of ongoing inflation. Professors in teacher education sometimes earn less than they would if they were still elementary classroom teachers. In one case study report, it was shown that a beginning full-time tenure-track assistant professor in elementary teacher education at California State University, Northridge was hired in 2002 at a salary of $53,000., which was $15,738. less than she would have earned in her previous position as a 9-month public school kindergarten teacher, ($68,738). See Gordon, L. M. (2004, January 6). From kindergarten teacher to college professor: A comparison chart of salaries, work load, and professional preparation requirements. Published proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on Education. ISSN# 1541-5880. Adjunct college instructors, as previously mentioned, make from $1,500 to $4,000 per course, so that if teaching four courses per semester (a schedule difficult to maintain for reasons of distance and market saturation, and a higher load than tenure track faculty must endure), they can earn from $12,000 to $32,000.