Professors at four-year colleges and universities are getting better raises this year than they did last year.

A new survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources found that the average salary increased by 3.2 percent in 2004-5, compared to a 2.1 percent average increase last year.

At private colleges, this year's raises are only marginally better than last year's -- 3.4 percent on average this year compared to 3.3 percent last year. But at public institutions, this year's average of 3.1 percent is significantly better than last year's average: 1.4 percent.

Professors in public higher education did particularly well at doctoral institutions, where the average increase was 3.4 percent, higher than the 3.1 percent increase at private institutions. Private institutions outpaced the publics at master's universities (3.5 percent to 3.0 percent) and bachelor's colleges (3.2 to 3.0).

The CUPA-HR survey does not provide average salaries for individual colleges and universities (the American Association of University Professors' survey does provide those figures). But the CUPA-HR study includes averages by rank, by collective bargaining status (comparing institutions with and without unions), and by disciplines.

Average Salaries at 4-Year Colleges by Rank and Union Status, 2004-5

By disciplines, the highest average salaries were in law ($111,909 across all ranks), engineering ($86,758), and business ($82,700). (The survey does not include data from professors of medicine.) By contrast, average salaries across ranks were much lower for general liberal arts faculty members ($52,981); English language and literature ($55,765), and the visual and performing arts ($56,219).

The following table shows the average salaries, across all types of institutions and faculty ranks, by discipline:

A summary of the report and information about ordering it may be found on CUPA-HR's Web site.