About the Data

The compensation data above are collected annually by the American Association of University Professors. Participation in the AAUP survey is optional; over 950 institutions submitted data for the 2018-19 academic year. 

The salary and compensation data cover instructional and research staff members who work full time and whose primary role (more than 50 percent) is instruction, regardless of their official faculty status. The calculations exclude part-time faculty members, medical school faculty members, professors at military institutions who are compensated on a military pay scale, those with faculty status who are primarily administrative officers, and graduate teaching assistants. Some institutions include data for professional school faculty members. 

Salary figures exclude summer teaching, stipends and other non-contracted forms of remuneration. When instructors are compensated for 11 or 12 months' work, their salaries are adjusted to a nine-month academic-year basis. Salary figures are rounded to the nearest $100. 

The compensation figure for a faculty member includes an institution's contribution to benefits as well as salary; it does not include faculty contributions. The counted benefits include retirement contributions, medical insurance, disability income protection, tuition for faculty dependents, Social Security, unemployment insurance, group life insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, and other benefits with cash value such as moving expenses and housing allowances.

"Salary Equity" refers to the ratio between the average salary for women by rank divided by the average men’s salary, times 100. For example, if an institution had an average woman’s salary for an assistant professor of $100,000 and an average man’s salary for an assistant professor of $100,000, the gender equity ratio would be at 100.0, or parity. A ratio below 100 indicates the cents on the dollar of an average woman’s salary below a man’s average salary at that rank, and a ratio above 100 indicates the average woman’s salary above a man’s average salary at that rank.

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