Losing Ground on Salaries
April 11, 2011
For most faculty members, this academic year will be one of eroding purchasing power, according to the annual study of salaries being released today by the American Association of University Professors.
The average salary for continuing faculty members increased by 1.4 percent in 2010-11, just under the rate of inflation, the study finds -- making this year the second in a row in which faculty members will on average lose ground economically.
To those who might hope that an economic recovery exists and is having an impact on faculty salaries, the report's title -- "It's Not Over Yet" -- makes clear the AAUP's take on the issue.
"The overall picture this year, then, is of mostly stagnant salaries for full-time faculty members," the report says. "The numbers vary considerably across institutional types. But aggregate faculty salary levels did not keep up with inflation in the past year, and the cumulative increase during the last seven years lagged behind the cumulative increase in median earnings for all U.S. workers."
Indeed the variation in pay stands out. The average salary of full professors at Harvard University (which pays better than anyone else at that level) is approaching $200,000, and the average salary for assistant professors there tops $100,000. One state and a world away in terms of pay, Manchester Community College, in New Hampshire, has an average salary for full professors of just over $58,000. And while Harvard pays a lot in part because it is a research university, there are also wide gaps within sector categories. Among research universities, the average salary at private institutions is nearly $40,000 greater than that of a comparable public institution.
The report also notes several related trends of concern to the AAUP, including a rising gap between salary levels at public and private institutions (favoring the privates), and increased reliance on faculty members off the tenure track. Further, the AAUP notes concern over the continued growth in salary compression (in which senior faculty earn only modestly more than recent hires) and in the salary gaps by discipline.
While the AAUP study reports on overall institutional averages, the study includes some cross-institutional data on the latter trend. The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, which also conducts an annual faculty salary survey, highlights the issue of disciplinary shifts, and the data in that study are consistent with the concern expressed by AAUP.
For a number of reasons, the report probably understates the economic hit being taken by those who teach at colleges and universities. First, the report studies only full-time faculty members, excluding the many adjuncts who are hired course-by-course (and have for years earned much less than their tenure-track counterparts). Many adjuncts have lost sections (and corresponding income) during the economic downturn.
Second, the report is based on salary, not actual pay received by faculty members. Furloughs, which have been widespread in higher education during the past few years and which have cut take-home pay by substantial sums at some institutions, do not (in a technical sense) affect one's salary, just one's paycheck (or lack thereof for days furloughed). As a result, many institutions that are reporting modest increases in average salaries probably have paid out less to faculty members.
"Even though we are showing the last two years as already being historically low" in salary gains, "they are probably an overestimate of what the salaries are," said John Curtis, AAUP's director of research and public policy. He said that there are no available data on the national impact on salaries of furloughs, but that some states (California) have been particularly hard-hit, and that the use of furloughs has been greater in public than in private higher education.
Asked if there are any silver linings or optimistic points in this year's salary report, he said, "I don't really see it."
Public-Private Gaps
The report notes with alarm changes in the faculty make-up and pay levels of public and private colleges and universities. In terms of salaries, the average increase across ranks and institution types was 0.9 percent at public institutions, 1.8 percent at religious colleges, and 2.1 percent at private, non-religiously affiliated colleges.
But in terms of who is getting hired, the report notes other significant shifts. For instance, the AAUP examined the type of faculty hiring going on between 2007-8 and 2010-11. Gaps were particularly notable at the doctoral level.
See tables @: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9_KwJdDOiGrNmRmMjQ3OTItYzk0Yy00ZTU2LTk1ZjYtNzg2ZTc5MWE2YTU1&hl=en
— Scott Jaschik
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