Salaries for Full-Time Faculty Have Barely Budged in Four Years

Faculty salaries show no signs of growth, according to data from the AAUP’s annual Faculty Compensation Survey released today. After adjusting for inflation, salaries for full-time faculty members at US colleges and universities were just 0.5 percent higher in 2019–20 than they were in the preceding academic year.

Following the Great Recession of the late 2000s, nominal salary growth remained below inflation (based on consumer price growth) until 2015–16, and it has remained flat ever since.

The AAUP collected data from 928 colleges and universities across the United States, including community colleges, small liberal arts colleges, and major research universities. The 2019–20 survey covers almost 380,000 full-time and more than 96,000 part-time faculty members, as well as senior administrators at nearly 600 institutions. Complete analyses of this year's results will be presented in the upcoming Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2019–20, to be released in May. While we cannot predict the precise effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the economic status of faculty, the annual report will review some of the lessons learned from previous economic crises.

Access the survey report  here.