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Dive Briefing:
- The average full-time professor salary for the 2023-24 school year rose to approximately $112,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's only a 0.4% increase over the previous year, according to the annual report of the American Association of University Professors.
- But wages, adjusted for inflation, are still well below pre-pandemic levels. AAUP found that the average real wage of full-time professors decreased by 7.1% from the 2019-20 school year to the 2023-24 school year.
- Meanwhile, according to the report, the president's salary increase rate has surpassed that of full-time professors for several years. For doctoral programs, for example, the ratio of the president's salary to the average professor's salary was 4.6 last fall, up from 4.2 three years ago.
Dive Insights:
AAUP's report highlights stagnant wages; Widespread gender and racial wage gaps, and a growing share of non-regular workers. Part-time faculty, who lack tenure protection, currently account for 67.7% of non-medical faculty appointments.
“The decline in full-time and tenured positions, the rise of part-time positions, and the increased reliance on graduate student staff to teach classes undermine academic freedom, faculty stewardship, and faculty integrity, and these trends ultimately reduce student learning,” the report said.
Part-time faculty face a “particularly dire” situation, the AAUP said. Those paid based on the number of classes taught “earned an average of $3,903 per three-credit course” in the 2022-23 school year, according to the report. Adjusted for inflation, this percentage represents a 5% salary reduction compared to the 2019-20 school year.
Moreover, many of these workers lack job security. The majority of part-time temporary faculty, 59.2%, have non-renewable contracts, compared to only 5.1% of full-time temporary faculty.
AAUP points to two factors that prevent universities from “supporting real wage growth” to make academia more attractive: rising long-term debt levels and rising non-education spending.
Long-term debt held by U.S. universities will reach $388 billion in 2022, a 30.9% increase from 2011 when taking inflation into account.
Universities with the largest endowments have relatively low levels of debt relative to their assets, the report noted. However, AAUP said, “More than 1,100 institutions reported a 2022 debt-to-assets ratio of 1.0 or higher, meaning they owe more than the value of their endowment assets.”
The organization noted that the average base salary for doctoral deans in fall 2023 was approximately $642,300, a 27.1% increase over the average salary in fall 2019, the organization said. This compares to a 10 percent increase in average base salary for full professors at the institution, to approximately $176,200.
AAUP's report was based on a survey of nearly 880 colleges and universities that provided employment information to more than 460,000 faculty.