Healy Hall at Georgetown University. (Image by Brandon Kopp)
America’s college professors have a message for Vice President Joe Biden: Most of us don’t make as much money as you think we do. That’s the claim being made by the American Association of University Professors in a new survey of academic salaries, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
Biden was asked at an event in January why the cost of college keeps going up. “Salaries for college professors have escalated significantly,” he replied. “Significantly,” in Biden’s judgment, must begin somewhere before 1.8 percent, as that was the average rise on college professors’ salaries between the 2010-2011 academic year and the current school year. Inflation, meanwhile, was 3 percent over the same period.
In fact, the professors’ group points out, tuition and fee hikes have long outstripped bumps in faculty pay:
Over the past three decades, according to the report, tuition has increased at a much faster rate than full-time faculty salaries. The contrast is starkest at public institutions, where tuition and fees have increased over the past decade by 72 percent when accounting for inflation, largely in response to declines in state support. During that same time, the salaries of public-college professors, when adjusted for inflation, rose by less than 1 percent at doctoral and baccalaureate institutions and fell by more than 5 percent at master’s universities.
Being a fully tenured professor can be a good gig in many places, including many colleges and universities around here, though of our local institutions, only Georgetown University cracked the top 20 on the association’s survey of faculty pay. Harvard topped the list, with full professors earning an average of $198,400, followed by Columbia, the University of Chicago, Stanford and Princeton.
Tenured professors at Georgetown make an average of $167,100 a year, good for sixteenth highest on the list. Rounding out the list of colleges in the District was:
- American University: $156,100
- George Washington University: $152,000
- Gallaudet University: $118,700
- Catholic University of America: $113,000
- Howard University: $105,000
- University of the District of Columbia: $96,400
- Trinity Washington University: $79,100
Full professors at the University of Maryland, College Park are making $136,300, while their counterparts at the University of Virginia earn an average of $141,600.
The full results of the survey, including breakdowns for associate and assistant professors and part-time instructors can be found here.
