Advocate Online - Special Issue 2007

Stagnant Salaries

Faculty salaries decreased an additional 1 percent in 2005– 2006, the third straight year that increases did not keep pace with inflation, and a reversal of the previous 10-year trend of steady growth in faculty salaries. The average faculty member’s purchasing power dropped $518, from $66,641 in 2004–05 to $66,123 in 2005–06. Chart 1 shows the leveling off of faculty salaries in constant dollars from 1990–91 to 2005–06.

In this issue of the Advocate...
...… we once again provide salary data on full-time faculty in the nation’s public colleges and universities, as well as information on factors affecting salary and benefits. To the extent that data is available, we also compare the effects of unionization and tenure on part-time as well as full-time faculty and examine salary trends for non-teaching professionals.

The information in this issue of the Advocate is derived from data found in the 2007 NEA Higher Education Almanac, which contains more detailed salary information for both public and private institutions. In addition to salary data, the 2007 Almanac includes data on health benefits for Education Support Professionals, an update on family-friendly contract language for faculty and staff, a look at retirement issues and trends as an aging professoriate reaches retirement age, and some good news for a change on state support for higher education.

A highlight of this year’s Almanac is an overview of 150 years of NEA and higher education in an article celebrating the Association’s sesquicentennial anniversary. Other Almanac articles examine academic freedom and workload issues for ethnic minority faculty. Copies of the NEA 2007 Higher Education Almanac are free to NEA members. Contact the NEA Office of Higher Education, Higher Ed@NEA.org, or download a PDF containing all the articles at www.nea.org/he.

This special issue (3.6 mb) and a list of public-sector faculty salaries (222 k) are also provided in Acrobat pdf format.

Chart 1. Average full-time faculty salaries in constant dollars by academic rank, 1990-2006

No IPEDS data collected for 2000-01.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, NCES, IPEDS Salary Survey, various years