Dive Brief:
- The median base pay increase for tenured and tenure-track faculty in the 2014 fiscal year rose 2.2% at public colleges, compared to 2% for private schools.
- The overall median increase for tenured/tenure-track faculty — 2.1% — was higher than inflation, at 1.5%, but lower than the 2.5% average increase enjoyed by administrators
- According to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources annual report, the highest average salaries in the tentured/tenure-track faculty disciplines went to legal, business and engineering professors.
Dive Insight:
Now they’ll rewrite the country music song to say: “Mama, don’t let your sons (and daughters) grow up to be history professors.” The highest average pay went to professors in legal professions, with an average of $112,088 at public colleges and $123,541 at private institutions. The lowest paid professors at public colleges were in history, English, and visual and performing arts. At private colleges, the lowest salaries went to professors of communications technologies and support services; theology and religion; and parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies. The association’s report, which is due to be released this week, based its findings on the salaries of 178,717 tenured/tenure-track faculty members and 55,000 full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members at 792 four-year colleges.