Faculty Salaries Are Up 1.9%

The median salary of full-time faculty members in 2011-12 is 1.9 percent higher than it was a year ago, according to a study by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.

Continuing a pattern from recent years, the median increase was greater at private institutions (2.3 percent) than at publics (1.1 percent). With a gain in the Consumer Price Index of 3.2 percent, the typical faculty member -- whether at a private or public institution -- lost spending power in the last year.

CUPA-HR does a series of salary surveys around this time of year. Last month, the association reported that the average salary for top administrators increased by 2 percent in the last year (again with greater gains at private than at public institutions).

Two organizations -- CUPA-HR and the American Association of University Professors -- release annual reports on the state of faculty salaries. The CUPA-HR study features analysis by discipline, while the AAUP report features salaries by institution. The AAUP study is due out next month. John W. Curtis, director of research and public policy at the AAUP, said that preliminary analysis at that association suggests an "overall finding very similar to the CUPA number, and also with private colleges and universities continuing to increase salaries more rapidly on average."

The CUPA-HR survey shows -- this year, as in past years -- the extent to which professors' salaries vary widely by discipline. The disciplines with the highest salaries, across rank, are the same this year as they have been for the last four years: law, engineering and business.

A new assistant professor in computer science can expect a salary in the range of $74,000. A counterpart in the foreign languages would be looking at salaries $20,000 smaller. The average for a full professor of engineering is nearly $118,000. For history, the average is about $83,000.