Professors' salaries at top colleges

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>According to the American Association of University Professors, 2008-2009 salaries for college professors (excluding medical school, law school, etc.) show the private research universities at the top. </p>

<li>Harvard 192,600</li>
<li>Stanford 181,900</li>
<li>Princeton 180,300</li>
<li>Chicago 179,500</li>
<li>Columbia 175,200</li>
<li>Yale 174,400</li>
<li>Caltech 172,500</li>
<li>NYU 170,700</li>
<li>Penn 169,400</li>
</ol>

<p>Other notables were:
Duke 161,200
MIT 160,300
Dartmouth 154,500
Cornell 154,300
Brown 146,400</p>

<p>Salaries at liberal arts schools and state schools lag behind the research universities:</p>

<p>Public Universities:</p>

<li>UCLA: $144,500</li>
<li>UC-Berkeley: $143,500</li>
<li>North Carolina: $142,700</li>
<li>Michigan: $142,100</li>
<li>Maryland: $141,200</li>
<li>New Jersey Institute of Technology: $141,200</li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology: $139,800</li>
<li>Rutgers-Newark: $139,000</li>
<li>Rutgers-New Brunswick: $137,500

<li>Rutgers-Camden: $136,000</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>

<p>Liberal Arts Colleges:</p>

<li>Wellesley: $145,500</li>
<li>Barnard: $135,700</li>
<li>Pomona: $135,300</li>
<li>Amherst: $135,200</li>
<li>Williams: $132,700</li>
<li>Claremont McKenna: $131,100</li>
<li>Harvey Mudd: $130,800</li>
<li>Wesleyan: $130,300</li>
<li>Smith: $129,600

<li>Swarthmore: $129,600</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>

2

<ol>
<li><p>These are for full professors not assistant/associate. </p></li>
<li><p>It seems that one can make a pretty decent living as a professor, that is, if you are good enough to get tenured at a top research university. </p></li>
<li><p>Does this pay scale seem unfair to anyone or is this a reasonable reflection of the abilities/accomplishments of the faculty at the corresponding schools?</p></li>
</ol>

3

<p>Also, these are the TOP salaries. There are many colleges where full professors make $60,000-70,000 a year and community colleges where full professors make $50,000.</p>

4

<p>That’s why college professors always write 50 books a year!
But anyhow, they make a lot more than I expected! I wonder if all the professors
at, for example, Harvard earn this much… Or only the more established names (the Lawrence Summers’ and Amartya Sens etc.)</p>

5

<p>^Only tenured professors. Associate/Assistant don’t break 6 figures.</p>

6

<p>For many cases, there is NO question to me that these guys are more accomplished than their salaries indicate. The math department at top programs is populated by several freaks of nature whom I can nothing short of worship.</p>

7

<p>Note these are averages. Some paragons do much better, some spear carriers do much worse, even at Harvard.</p>

<p>It is not a fixed salary scale like the military where all 3 star generals with the same years of experience get the same salary.</p>

<p>Some publics do have a salary schedule, but this is usually flexible. </p>

<p>This information was gleaned from casual gossip among friends and relatives in academia and the military</p>

8

<p>These are averages. Lecturers and assistant professor don’t break 6 figures for FAS. Some top proofs make several hundred thousands. Law and Business salaries are much higher then these. These people aren’t doing it for the money though.</p>

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<p>Harvard assistant and associate professors do make over 100K, just barely. </p>

<p>Harvard associate, assistant - $112,300, $101,400
Stanford associate, assistant - $128,000, $100,800
Princeton associate, assistant - $114,300, $85,800
Yale associate, assistant - $99,800, $86,000</p>

<p>So Harvard leads at the assistant professor level as well. Associate professors at Harvard don’t get paid much better than assistants, although at other schools they get significant raises.</p>

10

<p>My guess is that the higher salary at the assistant level presumably helps with recruitment, and once they are at Harvard, the assistants are pretty unlikely to move to another school for an associate professor position, so there is virtually no competition at that level.</p>

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<p>If you’re qualified and recognized enough to be a fully tenured professor at universities of that caliber, you’re not really there for the paycheck. I’m sure that with their level of expertise, they can earn a lot more in the professional field or private sectors.</p>

12

<p>BTW, professors in areas with serious private sector alternatives make more than humanities professors. eg: business,economics, engineering, computer science. In addition to law & medicine, which they say have been excluded. But I wonder how “clean” the numbers really are; could be lots of profs with joint appointments. Those people make lots more.</p>

<p>And regional cost of living differentials hugely impact the buying power of those salaries.
After paying for housing and utilities, some of those seemingly big salaries in the Northeast and California may not look all that great.
I looked at this once, using one of those cost of living adjustment websites, and IIRC it looked like, on a net basis, profs at Washington University in St. Louis could be making more than harvard profs.</p>

13

<p>Yeah – two things are important to notice. First, salary is only part of a professor’s income. Some people only have that, but some people have a LOT more than that. Economics professors do lots of consulting, etc. But even English professors earn extra cheddar. Ever notice how many things have Harold Bloom’s or Henry Louis Gates’ name attached to them? It don’t come free!</p>

<p>Second, Ann Arbor or New Haven are much cheaper to live in than Boston/Cambridge or Palo Alto. Stanford assistant profs probably wind up living in university housing; I’m not certain a $100,000 salary lets you rent anywhere within 30 minutes’ commute of Stanford.</p>

14

<p>Professors with joint appointments almost always have a primary home department, because they cannot be expected to perform administrative duties for two or more departments. The other departmental affiliations will be secondary appointments and contribute a minor or no portion of the salary. So it’s unlikely that they will be counted twice.</p>

<p>I’m not sure if Yale professors all live in New Haven. Some might live in NYC. Conversely, Harvard professors don’t all live in Boston; many commute from the suburbs.</p>

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<p>^Housing in the Boston suburbs is actually more expensive, in general, than housing in Boston itself. I know several Harvard professors who live in Brookline, which is both very nice and obscenely expensive.</p>

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<p>One Crimson writer proposes Harvard profs take a pay cut: [The</a> Harvard Crimson :: Opinion :: Budget Cutting for Dummies](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=527741]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=527741)</p>

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<p>That crimson writer also thinks that financial aid is also too generous, and is obviously not someone who has to worry about paying for college.</p>

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<p>Uh, no, there’s actually a more basic reason. Harvard is one of the few schools that won’t tenure its profs at the associate level, whereas most other schools do. Hence, there’s basically little practical difference between being an assistant and associate prof. You have to climb all the way to full prof to be tenured.</p>

19

<p>I had a professor who scoffed at student for saying 200k a year is good money.
This mech E. professor was head of funding for something in the department of defense…teaching on the side, these brilliant people who teach aren’t in it for the money.</p>

<p>was rumored that he made almost 7 figures working for DoD…his curr. vita thing claims he appropriates over 300 million dollars in funding.</p>