Reference: Higher Education: AAUP Releases Findings From Annual Faculty Compensation Survey (Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2017-18)
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In 2017–18, average salaries for full-time continuing faculty members increased by 3.0 percent over the previous academic year, or by 1.1 percent after adjusting for inflation. Presidents of institutions participating in the AAUP’s Faculty Compensation Survey are paid 4.78 times more than fulltime faculty members, on average.
Accompanying this year’s report are two data snapshots that serve to situate the report’s results within the larger national discussion about retirement benefits, state funding of higher education, and early-career faculty. Drastic cuts in state appropriations have often affected faculty at public colleges and universities more than other public employees as legislators have targeted higher education budgets. And states with catastrophic decreases in support for higher education have typically faced a corresponding financial crisis caused by the underfunding of public pensions. The coming retirement crisis for employees under forty is worsened for early-career faculty because of their late entry into the workforce relative to other employees.
Data Highlights
Source: AAUP Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession 2017-2018
Arriving on the heels of Equal Pay Day, this year’s report shows that 93 percent of all reporting institutions pay men more than women at the same rank. Previously, the AAUP took an in-depth look at persistent gender pay inequity, and many AAUP chapters, including Rutgers AAUP-AFT, are currently calling for improvements in gender and racial equity.
Only 5 percent of reporting institutions indicated that they offer all part-time faculty members benefits. Another 33 percent of reporting institutions offer some benefits to part-time faculty.
Between the 2016–17 and 2017–18 academic years, average salaries for full-time ranked faculty members (assistant, associate, and full professors) increased by 1.1 percent after adjusting for inflation.
At reporting institutions between the 25th and 75th percentile, the average retirement contribution for full-time faculty ranges from 7.7 to 11.8 percent.
Data snapshots included with this year’s report examine retirement security challenges facing faculty and state funding of higher education and underfunding of public pensions.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
The results of the AAUP’s annual Faculty Compensation Survey are now in.
