COMP NEWS – According to a survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors, professor salaries have only increased by 2% this year. Due to the inflation rate being around 7%, professors are actually seeing a decrease in their salary by 5%.
Full-time faculty salaries increased 2 percent this academic year over last, according to annual faculty compensation data gathered by the American Association of University Professors. This is one of the smallest year-over-year increases the AAUP has recorded since it began tracking the measure in 1972—and that’s before factoring in this year’s surging inflation.
Adjusted for inflation, real average salaries decreased 5 percent year over year, representing the greatest decrease in real-wage growth seen since 1979–80, according to the AAUP. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or CPI-U, increased 7 percent in 2021 and 12.5 percent in 1979, the AAUP said in a preliminary analysis of its data.
Currently, the average salary for a professor is around $140,000. Associates made a little less at around $97,000, and assistants made $85,000.
Across all institution types, full professors made $143,823 this year, on average. Associates made $97,724, and assistants made $85,063. Instructors made $62,874, and lecturers made $69,499. Doctoral institutions, especially private, independent ones, tended to pay more than these averages. (AAUP does not analyze professor pay by field, unlike some other data sources.)
The AAUP is also releasing its own salary data, claiming that no sector is receiving a net raise due to high inflation rates.
Forty-year-high inflation rates aren’t just top of mind for Glenn Colby, senior research officer at the AAUP, and his colleagues at the AAUP. The College and University Professional Association–Human Resources is releasing its own faculty, staff and administrator salary data later this month, and its director of research, Jacqueline Bichsel, said that report will compare annual salary increases to the inflation rate.
“Inflation was nearly 7 percent for the period corresponding to our latest data effective date,” Bichsel said, “so of course salary increases for any sector do not even approach that.”
To read more about professor pay rates in the face of rising inflation, click here.
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