AAUP survey: faculty salaries fail to keep pace with rate of inflation

Black Issues in Higher Education, May 19, 2005

WASHINGTON

For the first time in eight years, increases in college faculty salaries failed to keep up with inflation, according to a new survey.

The 2.8 percent increase in average salaries this year exceeded last year's 2.1 percent gain, but real salaries fell because of higher inflation, according to the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) annual survey released in April.

Titled "Inequities Persist for Women and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty," the author of the report, Dr. John Curtis, director of research at AAUP, presented the findings at a media conference in Washington D.C.

Average faculty salary for all ranks at all institutions was $68,505. Salaries for full professors at private universities rose 4 percent to $127,214, while at public research institutions they rose 3.5 percent to $97,948.

Overall, women faculty earned on average $59,508, about 80 percent of the $74,004 average for men a ratio that is the same as it was in 1996-1997. At the level of full professor, women earn on average 88 percent of men's salaries.

The report by the Washington-based AAUP said a disproportionate number of women hold lower-ranked faculty positions, and they are more concentrated at associate degree or baccalaureate colleges, where salaries are generally lower than at research universities.

But the AAUP also said the discrepancy is likely even higher than its measurements indicate, because the survey only includes full-time faculty, and women are also disproportionately represented among part-time, or adjunct faculty.