Survey Finds Small Increase in Professors’ Pay
By TAMAR LEWIN
Average faculty salaries rose 1.4 percent from 2009-10 to 2010-11, even though average pay decreased at 30 percent of colleges and universities, according to the annual pay report being released Monday by the American Association of University Professors.
This year’s results are just slightly higher than last year’s increase of 1.2 percent, which was the smallest rise reported in the survey’s 50 years.
On average, full professors at doctoral universities earned $127,296 for the current academic year, and assistant professors $72,893.
But the report found a widening pay gap between public universities, where full professors averaged $118,054 and assistant professors $69,777, and private institutions, where full professors’ average salary was $157,282 and assistant professors’ $86,189.
Pay is substantially less at liberal arts colleges and community colleges. And at every type of college and university, men continue to earn substantially more than women.
The report, “It’s Not Over Yet: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2010–11,” based on data from more than 1,300 colleges and universities, found a continuation of a long-term trend of institutions using more graduate student employees, part-time professors and non-tenure-track instructors.
Such appointments now make up more than three-quarters of total faculty, compared with two-thirds in 1995.
And in the last three years, the number of tenure-track faculty members dropped 4 percent, while the number of full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members increased 8 percent.
“We’re not even hiring tenure-track faculty to replace the tenure-track faculty that’s retiring,” said John Curtis, director of research and public policy at the association.
Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, said the long-term shift to contingent faculty members could be seen as good or bad — positive because colleges could more easily respond to changing student interests, negative because the loss of longtime tenured professors erodes a hallmark of American universities.
Either way, Mr. Hartle said, the change seems to be here to stay.
“Just as American companies have sought to maintain flexibility in their human resources policy, so are colleges and universities,” Mr. Hartle said. “And given the precarious financial situation facing most public colleges and universities, I don’t see anything on the horizon to change the long-term trends we’ve been seeing.”
The American Federation of Teachers has been working for several years for legislation at the state level that would both increase the number of full-time faculty members and the pay and conditions for part-time members.
“Given the economy, it’s been very difficult to make any headway,” said Craig Smith, deputy director of higher education for the federation. “But some states, like Oregon, have taken the concepts and put them in place.”
At the association of professors, Mr. Curtis said he was particularly struck by the widening gap between faculty salaries and salaries of presidents.
Over the last three years, the average salary increase for presidents was twice the average faculty salary increase at public institutions, and nearly three times the faculty salary increase at private institutions.
“Even in a period when they’re asking everyone else to sacrifice, university presidents seem to think it’s still O.K. for their salaries to go up significantly,” Mr. Curtis said.
