Amount spent on fulltime instructional faculty salaries per student

College Search & Selection
1

<p>from IPEDS
total fulltime instructional faculty salaries divided by the number of students, graduate plus undergraduate</p>

<p>California Institute of Technology 20597
Princeton University 15091
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 13845
Swarthmore College 13000
Williams College 12792
Pomona College 12595
Wellesley College 12427
Harvey Mudd College 12122
Amherst College 11754
Rice University 11747
Yale University 11740
Claremont McKenna College 11192
Mount Holyoke College 11147
Vassar College 10465
Stanford University 10249
Washington and Lee University 10073
Cornell University 9900
Bowdoin College 9624
Middlebury College 9462
Duke University 9452
Davidson College 9287
Carleton College 9249
Wesleyan University 9248
Smith College 9225
Brown University 9129
Oberlin College 9102
Hamilton College 9023
University of Chicago 8924
Harvard University 8717
Haverford College 8714
Grinnell College 8691
Carnegie Mellon University 8349
Dartmouth College 8318
Reed College 8252
Colgate University 8203
Colby College 7869
Connecticut College 7842
Bates College 7842
Emory University 7684
Scripps College 7619
Franklin and Marshall College 7598
Lafayette College 7546
University of Notre Dame 7519
Barnard College 7515
Bryn Mawr College 7392
Bucknell University 7354
Colorado College 7251
Northwestern University 7229
Columbia University in the City of New York 6934
Whitman College 6897
Thomas Aquinas College 6861
Occidental College 6817
College of William and Mary 6804
Vanderbilt University 6803
Sweet Briar College 6753
Pitzer College 6744
University of Richmond 6733
Wheaton College 6732
Hobart William Smith Colleges 6692
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 6690
Macalester College 6675
DePauw University 6630
Bard College 6610
Hanover College 6555
Georgetown University 6454
Denison University 6411
Kenyon College 6404
College of the Holy Cross 6354
Sewanee: The University of the South 6351
University of Puget Sound 6348
Southwestern University 6342
Skidmore College 6316
Agnes Scott College 6292
Furman University 6191
Brandeis University 6170
Lehigh University 6135
Lawrence University 6122
Virginia Military Institute 6120
Tufts University 6113
Dickinson College 6094
University of Pennsylvania 6091
Washington University in St Louis 6083
Wake Forest University 6037
Mills College 5985
Case Western Reserve University 5923
Wabash College 5906
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 5905
University of Rochester 5901
New College of Florida 5868
Gettysburg College 5727
Willamette University 5711
Centre College 5682
The College of Wooster 5678
New York University 5631
St Lawrence University 5609
Johns Hopkins University 5605
Trinity College 5565
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 5485
University of Miami 5410
University of California-Los Angeles 5406
Bennington College 5349
Beloit College 5336
Southern Methodist University 5329
Ursinus College 5313
Rhodes College 5307
Wofford College 5228
Illinois Wesleyan University 5218
Michigan State University 5180
Sarah Lawrence College 5177
Wells College 5059
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 5039
University of Connecticut 5022
University of Southern California 5010
University of Virginia-Main Campus 5009
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 4995
Austin College 4976
University of Delaware 4958
University of California-Berkeley 4948
Boston College 4929
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 4897
Randolph-Macon College 4832
St Mary's College of Maryland 4820
Hendrix College 4804
Hollins University 4785
Yeshiva University 4768
Millsaps College 4762
Clemson University 4752
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 4748
Pepperdine University 4737
Drew University 4733
Muhlenberg College 4695
Earlham College 4674
Wheaton College 4651
St. Olaf College 4628
Birmingham Southern College 4625
Allegheny College 4603
Hope College 4578
College of Saint Benedict 4522
The University of Texas at Austin 4502
University of California-Davis 4495
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 4495
Kalamazoo College 4453
Purdue University-Main Campus 4440
Fordham University 4432
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 4430
Gustavus Adolphus College 4429
Boston University 4369
Presbyterian College 4359
University of Maryland-College Park 4339
American University 4338
University of California-Santa Barbara 4333
Knox College 4329
Clark University 4311
Juniata College 4311
Spelman College 4276
Ohio Wesleyan University 4260
University of Georgia 4244
Marquette University 4165
Saint Johns University 4154
Augustana College 4141
Baylor University 4140
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 4119
University of Iowa 4092
Syracuse University 4054
The University of Tennessee 4049
University of Denver 4026
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 4002
Albion College 3984
University of California-San Diego 3886
Texas A & M University 3859
Auburn University Main Campus 3856
Miami University-Oxford 3815
Ohio State University-Main Campus 3811
University of California-Irvine 3764
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 3678
Tulane University of Louisiana 3664
Indiana University-Bloomington 3632
George Washington University 3607
Goucher College 3530
Stevens Institute of Technology 3519
University of Wisconsin-Madison 3435
University of California-Riverside 3431
University of Colorado at Boulder 3350
Iowa State University 3293
University of Florida 3205
University of Missouri-Columbia 3195
Brigham Young University 3191
University of California-Santa Cruz 3062
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 2972
SUNY at Binghamton 2926
Union College 1534</p>

2

<p>I'm not sure this data, by itself, is meaningful. There has to be some context. Don't take that to mean I think it is worthless...it is interesting but not sure what it means.</p>

3

<p>Is this the raw data that USNWR uses in its comparison/calculation of faculty salaries in the determination of a college's Faculty Resources? If not, how does it differ?</p>

4

<p>Not all professors are full time lecturers and teachers. Many professors as apart of their contracts must fulfill a certain number of hours of teachings undergrad in addition to carrying out their research. This is especially prevalent at top schools that fundamentally emphasize research and development. Many Professors are part time teachers.</p>

5

<p>CH specifically identifies this group as full-time, as does the USNWR survey. Is that in conflict with what you are saying?</p>

6

<p>Here is the description of the IPEDS variable I used. It is for all faculty regardless of rank, the "9-month equivalent" figure (whatever that means).
From the Human Resources section on the IPEDS website.</p>

<p>Salary outlays of full-time instuctional faculty for men and women combined. </p>

<p>Instruction/research staff employed full time (as defined by the institution) whose major regular assignment is instruction, including those with released time for research. For the Faculty Salaries survey, this group includes faculty designated as "primarily instruction" and "instruction, combined with research and public service."</p>

7

<p>The faculty salary data is closely related to various measures of educational quality. Here are the correlations between fulltime faculty salaries per student and:</p>

<p>peer assessment .66
graduation rate .65
retention rate .61
percent of classes under 20 .59
student-faculty ratio -.64
SAT 25th percentile .77
SAT 75th percentile .76
percent of freshmen in top 10% of HS class .51
acceptance rate -.66
financial resources rank -.57
alumni giving rank -.53</p>

<p>The multiple correlation between fulltime faculty salaries per student and a combination of the following was extremely high= .9.</p>

<p>student faculty ratio
SATs
percent of freshmen in top 10 percent of class
alumni giving
graduation rate
acceptance rate
percent of faculty who are full-time</p>

8

<p>percent of full-time faculty with full professor rank</p>

<p>California Institute of Technology 65.6%
Virginia Military Institute 61.2%
University of California-Los Angeles 55.8%
Princeton University 54.9%
Harvard University 54.8%
University of California-Berkeley 54.7%
University of Pennsylvania 53.7%
University of California-Santa Barbara 53.7%
Ohio Wesleyan University 53.7%
Yale University 53.1%
University of Wisconsin-Madison 53.0%
University of California-San Diego 53.0%
University of California-Davis 52.0%
Amherst College 50.5%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 50.1%
Mills College 50.0%
Davidson College 48.5%
Lehigh University 48.2%
Columbia University in the City of New York 48.1%
Furman University 47.5%
University of California-Santa Cruz 47.3%
Brown University 47.1%
Williams College 47.0%
Harvey Mudd College 46.6%
Brandeis University 46.2%
Smith College 45.7%
Wells College 45.5%
Occidental College 45.2%
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 45.0%
Carleton College 44.7%
University of Chicago 44.3%
Cornell University 43.9%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 43.8%
The College of Wooster 43.7%
University of California-Irvine 43.7%
Reed College 43.6%
Rice University 43.6%
University of Virginia-Main Campus 43.5%
Willamette University 43.5%
Scripps College 43.4%
University of Rochester 43.3%
Carnegie Mellon University 43.1%
Duke University 43.0%
Colby College 43.0%
Birmingham Southern College 43.0%
Sewanee: The University of the South 42.6%
Pitzer College 42.5%
Wofford College 42.5%
Earlham College 41.9%
Auburn University Main Campus 41.9%
University of Notre Dame 41.8%
Randolph-Macon College 41.8%
Colorado College 41.7%
Bates College 41.7%
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 41.6%
Swarthmore College 41.1%
Bard College 41.1%
Vanderbilt University 40.8%
University of California-Riverside 40.7%
Dartmouth College 40.7%
University of Maryland-College Park 40.7%
Northwestern University 40.5%
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 40.5%
Ohio State University-Main Campus 40.1%
University of Southern California 40.1%
Hendrix College 40.0%
Presbyterian College 40.0%
Washington and Lee University 39.9%
The University of Texas at Austin 39.9%
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 39.8%
Centre College 39.8%
Stevens Institute of Technology 39.8%
University of Georgia 39.8%
Washington University in St Louis 39.6%
Michigan State University 39.3%
University of Iowa 38.8%
Wesleyan University 38.8%
Indiana University-Bloomington 38.7%
George Washington University 38.5%
Connecticut College 38.5%
University of Florida 38.2%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 38.2%
Drew University 38.1%
Mount Holyoke College 38.1%
Texas A & M University 38.0%
DePauw University 38.0%
Case Western Reserve University 38.0%
Clark University 37.6%
Hobart William Smith Colleges 37.6%
Juniata College 37.5%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 37.4%
Pepperdine University 37.4%
Stanford University 37.2%
Hamilton College 37.1%
Bryn Mawr College 37.1%
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 37.1%
Colgate University 37.0%
Wellesley College 36.9%
Johns Hopkins University 36.6%
Oberlin College 36.5%
Boston College 36.4%
Pomona College 36.3%
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 36.1%
Hanover College 35.8%
Syracuse University 35.6%
Kenyon College 35.5%
Wake Forest University 35.5%
University of Connecticut 35.4%
Illinois Wesleyan University 35.4%
Brigham Young University 35.4%
Sweet Briar College 35.4%
Claremont McKenna College 35.3%
Middlebury College 35.3%
Lafayette College 35.2%
Wheaton College 35.2%
Hollins University 35.0%
Boston University 34.8%
College of William and Mary 34.4%
University of Miami 34.2%
University of Colorado at Boulder 33.9%
Hope College 33.9%
University of Delaware 33.8%
Macalester College 33.8%
University of Puget Sound 33.6%
Trinity College 33.5%
Tufts University 33.4%
The University of Tennessee 32.9%
Clemson University 32.8%
Austin College 32.6%
Yeshiva University 32.6%
Ursinus College 32.5%
Emory University 32.1%
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 31.9%
Allegheny College 31.8%
Augustana College 31.8%
Gustavus Adolphus College 31.6%
Purdue University-Main Campus 31.4%
Bowdoin College 31.4%
College of Saint Benedict 31.3%
SUNY at Binghamton 31.3%
Wabash College 31.2%
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 31.1%
Tulane University of Louisiana 31.1%
Saint Johns University 30.9%
Beloit College 30.7%
Miami University-Oxford 30.7%
Wheaton College 30.5%
St. Olaf College 30.4%
New York University 30.3%
Fordham University 30.2%
Iowa State University 30.0%
Southern Methodist University 29.9%
Franklin and Marshall College 29.9%
Georgetown University 29.8%
Barnard College 29.8%
Vassar College 29.4%
Union College 29.1%
Baylor University 28.4%
University of Denver 28.2%
Haverford College 28.1%
St Mary's College of Maryland 27.6%
Kalamazoo College 27.3%
Muhlenberg College 27.3%
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 27.2%
Southwestern University 27.0%
University of Missouri-Columbia 26.8%
New College of Florida 25.7%
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 25.6%
Marquette University 24.6%
Albion College 24.4%
Millsaps College 24.4%
College of the Holy Cross 24.2%
Gettysburg College 24.1%
Whitman College 23.6%
St Lawrence University 23.5%
American University 23.2%
Knox College 23.2%
Skidmore College 23.0%
University of Richmond 22.4%
Lawrence University 21.6%
Agnes Scott College 21.4%
Bucknell University 20.9%
Grinnell College 19.9%
Goucher College 18.9%
Dickinson College 17.5%
Denison University 17.1%
Rhodes College 15.4%
Spelman College 14.5%</p>

9

<p>ratio of new faculty hires to total fulltime faculty</p>

<p>California Institute of Technology 39.7%
Vanderbilt University 37.1%
Columbia University in the City of New York 34.9%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 34.4%
University of Miami 33.1%
Emory University 33.0%
University of Chicago 29.8%
Washington University in St Louis 29.0%
University of Pennsylvania 26.2%
University of Rochester 23.0%
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 23.0%
University of Missouri-Columbia 22.5%
Wake Forest University 21.8%
Stanford University 21.5%
Harvard University 19.5%
Princeton University 19.3%
New York University 19.0%
Wells College 18.2%
Tulane University of Louisiana 18.2%
Duke University 17.3%
Claremont McKenna College 17.3%
American University 17.3%
University of Colorado at Boulder 17.3%
St Mary's College of Maryland 17.1%
Rhodes College 16.8%
Union College 16.4%
Reed College 16.1%
New College of Florida 15.7%
Oberlin College 15.5%
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 15.2%
Denison University 15.2%
Wabash College 15.1%
Grinnell College 15.1%
Cornell University 15.0%
Beloit College 15.0%
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 14.3%
Yale University 14.3%
Bucknell University 14.0%
St Lawrence University 13.9%
Whitman College 13.9%
Dickinson College 13.7%
Brown University 13.7%
Rice University 13.7%
Pomona College 13.2%
Stevens Institute of Technology 13.1%
Yeshiva University 13.1%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 13.1%
Iowa State University 13.0%
Boston University 12.8%
Colby College 12.7%
Colgate University 12.5%
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus 12.3%
University of Richmond 12.2%
Sweet Briar College 12.1%
University of Southern California 11.9%
College of the Holy Cross 11.9%
Fordham University 11.8%
Hobart William Smith Colleges 11.6%
George Washington University 11.5%
Gustavus Adolphus College 11.4%
Bowdoin College 11.4%
Bard College 11.3%
University of California-Riverside 11.3%
Mills College 11.1%
Lawrence University 11.1%
Pepperdine University 11.1%
Bates College 10.9%
Colorado College 10.9%
University of California-Los Angeles 10.8%
College of William and Mary 10.8%
The College of Wooster 10.8%
Juniata College 10.6%
Case Western Reserve University 10.5%
University of Virginia-Main Campus 10.5%
University of Wisconsin-Madison 10.4%
Wofford College 10.4%
Southern Methodist University 10.3%
University of California-Irvine 10.2%
Allegheny College 10.2%
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 10.1%
Washington and Lee University 10.1%
Gettysburg College 10.1%
Drew University 10.0%
Hollins University 10.0%
Wheaton College 9.9%
Smith College 9.8%
Centre College 9.7%
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 9.7%
Wheaton College 9.7%
Vassar College 9.6%
The University of Tennessee 9.5%
Franklin and Marshall College 9.5%
DePauw University 9.3%
University of Puget Sound 9.2%
Wesleyan University 9.2%
Ursinus College 9.2%
Haverford College 9.1%
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 9.1%
University of Florida 9.0%
Knox College 8.9%
Occidental College 8.9%
Williams College 8.9%
Hendrix College 8.9%
Lehigh University 8.6%
Hope College 8.6%
Georgetown University 8.5%
Swarthmore College 8.4%
Wellesley College 8.4%
University of California-San Diego 8.3%
St. Olaf College 8.2%
Albion College 8.1%
SUNY at Binghamton 8.1%
University of Connecticut 7.9%
Millsaps College 7.8%
University of Georgia 7.7%
University of California-Davis 7.7%
Macalester College 7.6%
Bryn Mawr College 7.5%
Rutgers University-New Brunswick 7.5%
Syracuse University 7.4%
Furman University 7.4%
Ohio State University-Main Campus 7.4%
Dartmouth College 7.4%
Saint Johns University 7.4%
Purdue University-Main Campus 7.3%
Indiana University-Bloomington 7.3%
Carnegie Mellon University 7.3%
Trinity College 7.3%
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 7.2%
Kalamazoo College 7.1%
Miami University-Oxford 7.0%
Willamette University 7.0%
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 7.0%
Illinois Wesleyan University 6.8%
College of Saint Benedict 6.8%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 6.5%
Northwestern University 6.5%
The University of Texas at Austin 6.4%
Sarah Lawrence College 6.3%
University of Denver 6.3%
Marquette University 6.2%
Auburn University Main Campus 6.2%
University of California-Berkeley 6.1%
University of Iowa 5.9%
Texas A & M University 5.9%
Presbyterian College 5.9%
Earlham College 5.7%
Brandeis University 5.7%
Barnard College 5.6%
Baylor University 5.5%
Goucher College 5.5%
Muhlenberg College 5.5%
Davidson College 5.4%
Austin College 5.3%
University of Notre Dame 5.2%
Connecticut College 5.1%
University of California-Santa Cruz 5.1%
Tufts University 5.1%
Pitzer College 5.0%
Kenyon College 4.6%
University of California-Santa Barbara 4.6%
Randolph-Macon College 4.4%
Virginia Military Institute 4.3%
Middlebury College 4.3%
Hanover College 4.2%
Michigan State University 4.2%
Southwestern University 4.1%
University of Maryland-College Park 4.1%
Birmingham Southern College 4.0%
Scripps College 3.9%
University of Delaware 3.9%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 3.5%
Thomas Aquinas College 3.3%
Bennington College 3.3%
Carleton College 3.3%
Johns Hopkins University 3.0%
Boston College 2.9%
Skidmore College 2.8%
Hamilton College 2.6%
Lafayette College 1.9%
Brigham Young University 1.5%
Amherst College 1.5%
Sewanee: The University of the South 1.5%
Agnes Scott College 1.2%</p>

10

<p>Ok. Maybe I'm dense. Can someone boil this down and tell me what it actually means? I'm not sure how they play together into anything useful.</p>

11

<p>I'd make the following observations:
1. Obviously there's a connection between a school's faculty salary/student and academic quality, but it can be overstated. Note, for example, that Caltech spends more than twice as much of faculty salaries/student as Harvard, but that doesn't mean Caltech is twice as good.
2. Some of this reflects economies of scale. Generally smaller schools are going to have higher costs/student than larger ones. Note how many LACs are at the top of the list: 6 of the top 10, 15 of the top 25. And the research universities at the top of the list include a lot of relatively small ones like Caltech, Princeton, Rice. Larger schools, even very high-quality ones like Harvard and columbia, generally fall farther down the list.
3. There are basically two ways to get a higher faculty salary/student ratio: one is to have more faculty/student (i.e., a lower student/faculty ratio), and the other is to have a higher salary/faculty member. More faculty/student is generally a good thing from the student's perspective. Higher salary/faculty member is a good thing from the faculty's perspective, and it may be a good thing from the student's perspective if it helps the school recruit and retain high quality faculty, though other factors may be at play here.
4. I'm not sure if these figures are adjusted for cost-of-living, but generally schools in higher cost-of-living regions will have faculty recruitment and retention issues if they don't pay commensurately higher salaries.<br>
5. Some schools pay higher salaries because they can afford to. It would be interesting to see a correlation between faculty salaries/student and endowment/student. But that can't be the only explanation, because Harvard should be able to outbid everyone, yet it's nowhere near the top of the list.
6. Some schools pay higher salaries because they need to. Generally speaking, most serious academics are more interested in being on the top faculties in their particular field than in going with the highest bidder, both because of the prestige value and the enhanced professional opportunities that follow from being on a distinguished faculty. It could be that Harvard doesn't need to pay top dollar to recruit and retain the faculty it wants. It could be that some of the smaller LACs, prestigious as they may be in their own right, need to pay a premium to get the faculty they want, because other things equal a top physicist would rather be at a major research university, on a prestigious physics faculty, with all the labs and opportunities for major research funding that entails.<br>
7. Some schools may have raised faculty salaries in part because they've figured out that it's a quick way to boost their US News rankings. "Faculty resources" is a fairly large component of a school's overall rating, and faculty salaries are, in turn, the largest component of "faculty resources." Faculty salaries account for about 7% of a school's overall ranking, and represent one of the easiest categories to manipulate in the short term---if you've got the money to do it. This is certainly in the faculty's interest, but probably not in the interest of students, prospective students, and their parents if it sets off an "arms race" driving faculty salaries higher across the board.
8. Other things equal, faculty salaries rise with seniority. Standards for attaining the rank of full professor vary by institution, consequently cross-institutional comparisons are of dubious value for this category, but generally speaking, schools with a higher percentage of full professors are likely to have a somewhat older and consequently more expensive faculty.
9. I'm not sure the figures on new hires as a percentage of faculty tell us much of anything, especially since we don't know whether these are entry-level or lateral hires, and to what extent the hires represent an expansion of the faculty or mere replacement. A high percentage of new hires could mean the school is undergoing an aggressive expansion of its faculty, either because the entire school is expanding (holding student-faculty ratio constant) or because the school is working to bring down its student-faculty ratio. Or it could be responding to a wave of retirements, and essentially treading water by bringing in replacements. Or it could be seeing an unusually large turnover because of faculty dissatisfaction leading to lower-than-normal retention rates; in that case a high percentage of new faculty could be a sign of trouble. Depending on which of these possibilities is at play, a high percentage of new faculty could drive faculty salaries/student up (e.g., if the faculty is expanding but the student body is held constant) or down (e.g., if more costly senior faculty are retiring and being replaced by lower-paid junior faculty).</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
It could be that Harvard doesn't need to pay top dollar to recruit and retain the faculty it wants.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No. That's not it. Harvard pays the second highest average salary to a full professor in the country. Here's a sortable, searchable table of salaries at 1200 schools:</p>

<p>The</a> Chronicle: AAUP Faculty Salary Survey</p>

<p>The data earlier in this thread is driven by instructional professors per student more than anything else.</p>

<p>It's interesting data, but a lot of caveats need to be considered. For example, high salaries are sometimes an indication that a faculty is loaded down with old dinosaurs. For the most part, the best colleges are trying to move 'em on and continually bring in young blood, for both fiscal and pedalogical reasons.</p>

<p>The salaries don't tell the whole story. For example leave policies can be substantial. Swarthmore has a fully paid semester leave after every six semesters of teaching and most profs get a full year leave. That's serious money. Also, virtually every professor at Swarthmore has a college funded home mortgage at below market rates or college owned housing. Again, that's real money. I'm sure the same is true for most, if not all, of the big endowment schools.</p>

<p>The thing that ought to make folks sit up and take notice is the disconnect between the data in this thread and the alleged student/faculty ratios reported to USNEWS. I suspect there are some games being played at schools with significant numbers of profs with minimal teaching responsibilities.</p>

13

<p>bclintonk-
Your insights were very helpful. You seem to have a grasp of faculty salary issues. Very informative.</p>

<p>Do you have any insight into the relationship between faculty salary per student and selectivity (SAT)? I found a pretty high correlation.</p>

<p>higher salary=>better faculty=>attract better students
or
better students=>better faculty=>higher salary
or
complex reciprocal effects among salary, student selectivity, college reputation, faculty scholarship and teaching, and so on</p>

14

<p>collegehelp:</p>

<p>Everything in higher education correlates with per student endowment.</p>

<p>Everything. Professor pay. SATs. Graduation rates. You name it. </p>

<p>Sure, there are some anomolies within narrow bands, but in general the high per student endowment schools will top just about every list (including USNEWS).</p>

<p>Follow the money.</p>

15

<p>of course it means caltech is twice as good! everyone knows that!</p>

16

<p>


</p>

<p>I think it's largely what interesteddad says above ^^: "follow the money." But it's not just endowment, which is only one source of income. You also need to look at tuition revenue, research funding, and for publics, legislative appropriations. </p>

<p>Other things equal, most faculty would prefer to teach better students, but for most, the quality of the students is just one among several factors, and often not the most important one. Faculty salaries are a consideration to be sure, but I don't think this is the primary motivator for most academics, either; after all, you didn't go into academia to get rich, but you do need to may your mortgage and get your kids through college just like everyone else. Faculty egos are one of the biggest drivers of faculty placement decisions. Like students, faculty are drawn by an institution's overall prestige; they tend to think they're good at what they do, and in their minds they all deserve to be at Harvard, or as close as they can get. If they're serious scholars, they also want to be on a top faculty in their particular field where they can bounce ideas off the best and the brightest, more easily keep abreast of the latest intellectual currents, have better professional networking and collaborative research opportunities, perhaps have better labs and better library collections, and be recognized by their peers in the discipline as a member of a top faculty. Often those two--the institution's overall prestige, and faculty strength in one's own discipline--go hand-in-hand, but not always. There are some very strong departments at overall weaker schools, and disciplinary weak spots at even the very best schools.</p>

<p>In general, the richest schools can buy all this at once. They can afford to pay top salaries (helps in the US News rankings) and hire lots of faculty, simultaneously keeping student-faculty ratios down (helps in the US News rankings) and keeping faculty happy by reducing their teaching load. They can pile on lavish amenity after lavish amenity, boosting expenditure-per-student (helps in the US News rankings) and dazzling prospective students with the prospect of a cushy life. They can provide financial aid to make college affordable for the best and brightest (more expenditures-per-student, helps in the US News rankings), and if necessary induce those with the right SAT scores with "merit aid" targeted to boost their 25th and 75th percentiles and consequently their US News rankings. And in general, that's a nice, attractive package for both students and faculty---the faculty get good students, good salaries and benefits, not too onerous teaching requirements, good labs and libraries, good colleagues, prestige, while the students get a highly regarded faculty, financial aid, good libraries, plush amenities. And it's self-reinforcing because the (perceived) quality of the faculty is reflected in higher PA scores, and the SAT scores, selectivity, and the money expended in pursuit of better students and better faculty all factor into US News rankings that everyone reads, making the school just that much more attractive to prospective students and prospective faculty alike. </p>

<p>So the richer get richer, and everyone else struggles to keep up.</p>

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<p>If I'm understanding this right, it counts just fulltime faculty, not FTE faculty. If that's the case, then PT faculty count for zero. Some might support that as appropriate, either because there aren't many PT faculty in the programs/schools they most care about, or because they assume PT faculty are substandard in some way. </p>

<p>But in some programs, the use of PT instructional staff is valid and valuable. This measure would then be an under-reporting of what a school spends on faculty per student.</p>

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<p>This is interesting data, but needs to be kept in context. If a college has high numbers of nomadic part-time faculty, that is usually bad for students. However, if a college has high numbers of highly experienced persons who come to the college to teach one course at a time, that is very positive. Too many full-time professors do not have enough experience in the real world.</p>

<p>For example, American University and Georgetown University are known for having many persons teaching a course who have top positions in the Federal government or other large organizations, or who are recently retired. That is a good thing, but counts against them in the US News rankings.</p>

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<p>Charles,
You are absolutely, positively correct. Part-time profs, who have extensive experience practicing in the field in which they are teaching, can often be a great source of information for undergraduate students. They understand the theoretical, but more importantly they understand the reality of the workplace/industry and what is and is not important and can put it in a meaningful context for the student. The student can be a big winner with the right part-time professors. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, academia doesn’t give a lot of value to this experience. Georgetown and American are good examples of this. Their Peer Assessment ratings are 4.0 and 2.9. LOL. Yet another reason to get rid of the nefarious PA ratings.</p>