|
Despite a slowing economy, the average salary of college faculty members rose this year, according to the 2008-2008 National Faculty Salary Survey. This survey, which was released by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), found the median increase in average salary for college and university faculty was 4.0%, up from last year’s 3.8% increase.
Reported Findings
The discipline with the highest average salaries was law/legal studies. This held true across almost all faculty ranks and for both public and private institutions. The average salary for a full professor of law was $129,527; for an associate professor, $94,444; for an assistant professor, $79,684 (comparable to, but slightly below, the average salary for a business professor at the same rank); and for an instructor, $63,174.
Faculty in engineering and business also commanded high salaries. The average salary for a full professor of engineering was $107,134; for an associate professor, $82,857; for an assistant professor, $72,734; and for an instructor, $55,364. The average salary for a full professor in the fields of “business, management, marketing and related support services” was $102,965; for an associate professor, $86,633; for an assistant professor, $79,910; and for an instructor, $53,937. The one exception was for instructors at private institutions, where the category encompassing area, ethnic, cultural and gender studies is among the top three.
In general, however, salaries in the humanities were lower. For all ranks combined and across all types of institutions, visual and performing arts, English language and literature, and parks, recreation and leisure studies had the lowest average salaries. Theology and religious studies is invariably one of the lowest paid disciplines but is not included in the above comparison because it is not found at public college and universities. For all ranks combined, and at each rank, the lowest paid disciplines were generally different for private and public institutions.
Increases in average salary by rank ranged from a low of 3.3% for new assistant professors at public institutions to a high of 4.0% for professors and associate professors both at public and private institutions, and for assistant professors at private institutions. Increases for other ranks range from 3.4% to 3.9%. Increases were the same at public and private institutions for professors and associate professors and slightly higher at private institutions for assistant professors, new assistant professors and instructors. Increases last year, in most cases, were greater at public institutions.
How the Study was Conducted
These findings reflect the salaries of more than 211,424 faculty members in public and private colleges and universities nationwide. Salaries were reported by 838 institutions, including 499 private institutions and 339 public institutions. Ninety percent of these institutions also participated in the previous year’s faculty salary survey.
This report also reflects an important change CUPA-HR made in their survey reports, beginning with 2006-07. The salary data in this report is “un-weighted” rather than “weighted.” Un-weighted data more precisely reflects what institutions are paying, as the average or median salary for a particular position is included only once for each participant school. Weighted data, on the other hand, is more of an indicated or what incumbents (current employees) are earning, since the average or median salary for a position is included once for each incumbent, thus giving more weight to salaries paid by colleges and universities with large numbers of faculty members.
The salary data was reported for full-time faculty only and did not include adjunct or part-time faculty, visiting faculty, or replacements for faculty on sabbatical. It also excluded faculty whose services are valued by bookkeeping entries rather than salary (such as members of religious orders) and faculty who, as members of the military, are paid on a salary scale different from that of civilian employees. Full time faculty included tenured, tenure-track and non-tenured positions. It also included department chairs and other administrative staff who held full-time faculty rank and whose teaching and/or research represented more than half of their duties.
Type and Number of Institutions
“We are pleased that more than 800 institutions consistently complete this critically important survey,” says CUPA-HR Director of Research and Information Systems Ray “Chip” Sizemore. “This year’s survey provides salary data by rank for more than 215 disciplines and should be an invaluable resource for institutions in planning their faculty salaries.”
Public institutions comprised 40.0% (339) of the 2008-08 respondents, and private institutions 60.0% (499). The responding private institutions were almost equally split between religiously affiliated (259) and independent institutions (240).
Institution types were broken down into the following categories: Doctoral institutions (Institutions characterized by a significant level of activity in and commitment to doctoral-level education), Master’s (Institutions characterized by diverse post-baccalaureate programs, but not engaged in significant doctoral-level education), Baccalaureate (Institutions characterized by their primary emphasis on general undergraduate baccalaureate-level education) and specialized (Institutions which concentrate on a particular program of study).
Master’s colleges and universities were the largest group of participants at 44.5% (373), and were about equally split between public and private institutions. Baccalaureate colleges comprised 28.7% (240) of the respondents. Doctoral institutions comprised 16.7% (140) of the respondents and about two-thirds of them were public.
Specialized institutions were the smallest segment of respondents at 10.1% (85), and almost all are private institutions. About 34% (114) of the responding public institutions report that their faculties are unionized.
“Our ability to adequately reward and recognize the performance of the men and women who dedicate their careers to teaching and research is essential to the continued success of higher education,” says CUPA-HR Chief Executive Officer Andy Brantley. “I am pleased that so many colleges and universities were able to provide faculty salary increase pools that met or exceeded the levels provided last year.”
About the Survey Report:
The 2008-08 National Faculty Salary Survey report provides a national-level summary of salaries by discipline and rank for all institutions and for public and private institutions separately. For public institutions, data also are reported separately for faculty represented and not represented by a collective bargaining unit.
To order survey results or download a free Executive Summary for this survey, go to “Surveys” on The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources’ home page http://www.cupahr.org and click on “Salary Surveys 2008.” |
