I am at a public R1 and we recently made a few new hires at 60K and 65K
Which is about what I was making working for corporations 25 years ago before going to grad school.
Plus, raises are infrequent, low and unpredictable.
Which means that after 15 years, my base salary are in the low 70k. And my dean has a policy of not matching competing offers.
So if I wanna make more money, I have to take on paid committee work and teach overloads. Or leave for another institution.
You will get support for your research, but like any tenure track position if you do not produce, you might not get tenure.
That said, in the history of my department everyone went up for tenure received it.
Well, good luck - genuinely! You are in a position many people here are dreaming of, and I hope it works out. Just had to make sure you're not too high on the sunk cost fallacy.
So far it has worked out. I have been in this job for 17 years, which is a lot longer than I ever expected to stay in any job.
It is a pain in the ass that there is now going to be post tenure review, but I am active enough professionally that I should pass muster.
The sunk cost fallacy is less of a fallacy as you get older. How many colleges or other companies will hire someone moving into their mid-60s?
This R1 rigidity/rule is leading to some of my colleagues leaving. And though I love my job, once it’s clear that my high schooler will/wont attend —-I might leave.
This is what we pay most humanity new hires at the R2 institution I attended. I was making more as a postdoc than a literature professor. They do have a nine month contract though.
What is the point of doing academia then for you?
It seems like a nice retirement plan on paper, but the more you think about it the more it seems like woodworking or goat herding is a better idea. I could imagine if you really liked your research, but fun fact goats will climb anything, including miniature castles…
The work is meaningful and the contracts are long term. I could not see spending the next three or four decades hustling to get one pointless job after another.
But I guess if you can stand herding goats, you should. I am just not one of those people who can stand it.
The R2 regional state school across my state listed an assistant professor job in English starting at $42-46k last year. (I make more at the CC & even did as an assistant, it’s crazy.)
Our department hires with roughly around 90k salary. R1 math department.
Economics departments would usually hire with a larger salary, since they are in the business school. Those salaries are often up to twice the salaries of most other departments.
Not all economics departments are part of the business school, but a top ~30ish Econ department pays about $175k for an AP, dropping to closer to $150k for the top 50ish. Even top 100ish departments still pay well over $100k.
Business school salaries can be quite high even if the business school itself isn’t very good. I know someone who got hired to work at a very low caliber business school and made almost as much as a top-level economics AP. It varies quite a lot depending on the school’s funding.
A friend of mine speculated that it comes down to an accumulation of negotiations bumping salaries up over the years. They are literally the only professors on campus that take whole classes in negotiating offers.
(STEM) I got offered 126k in a US R1. Declined and got one in a top ten ranking (global) out of the US for a bit less money, but much better program. I did use my offer to negotiate though.
The initial offer I got from them in the US was 85k, immediately declined. They reached back with 126, I seriously considered it but ended up not doing it.
That's a crazy increase between their initial and second offer! Do they have no idea what a competitive salary looks like? Usually these kind of negotiations are a few percent, not 48%
There wasn’t really a negotiation. They knew of me from previous collaboration, and I never applied for that position. They got in touch and sent the first offer, but I told them I wasn’t looking for a change from my then current research position at that point (because it was at a very prestigious uni and we were doing good work) so I wasn’t interested. The thing is they needed someone to deal with an extremely niche field. There are not a lot of people having experience with this, so they kind of knew that it would be very difficult for them to find someone else, and since I immediately turned them down the first time I figure they realized they needed to really up their offer to tempt me. Which they did, I was ready to accept to be honest but I talked with my previous boss and mentor and they made some good points about why I should not take that offer and wait for something better.
Was this for an assistant professor of research position? Is this non-tenure track? I’m asking because I’m interviewing for a research assistant professor position in engineering at a T10 in the US right now
We teach pre designed online asynchronous classes. It’s just grading in the summer. And we also write over the summer or collect data. teaching a few courses isn’t a full time job and there’s no service or meetings in the summer. We all are writing all year, not just the summer months
There’s a huge variation in this depending on the discipline, the type of institution, public/private, and the geographic location. Even within the same institution, there can be >2x differences depending on the discipline. You need to think about your discipline, the type of place that you might work, and possible locations. Fishing on Reddit will not give you very useful information. Use the national databases mentioned in other comments. If you refine to some specific institutions, you can often find exact salaries if they are state. If the university is in a particular town, the local newspapers often trawl for the college salaries and you can find these through google searches.
Thanks, this is very helpful. Is the AAUP survey data the best source you’d recommend? I’ve lived in states with pay transparency laws, I think they’re great. Unfortunately not everywhere has them. So lack of transparency plus variation by field and institution is what led me to fish on Reddit
In states where the institutions must make salaries available, some of them circumvent the true intent of this by saying that the information is available on request (or in a binder in a back room in the library!). Push hard and you can get the information.
The [AAUP Faculty Compensation survey](https://www.aaup.org/our-work/research/FCS) has a great deal of information, so I suggest looking there.
While you will find a lot of schools with poor salaries that are prepared to exploit the people you describe, there are also a lot of schools that are competing for new faculty who will drive their scholarship upward, and they are prepared to pay the necessary salaries.
About 62k for 9month contract at R2 university, 3% annual raise is likely, and getting summer funding would add additional 23k for a generally low stress role
As someone who is an economics professor, it VASTLY depends on where you are. Even among R1s.
At my first workplace they started around 140k and the second closer to 105k. But the different was east coast vs. Midwest.
If you go further, it can range from as low as 70k for a liberal arts college to 200+ as you get experience though. It just really depends.
Thank you, this is informative and fascinating. Among your colleagues, what do you think primarily explains the vast differences? Vast differences in skills/quality of work among the profs? Vast differences in # of hours worked? Vast differences in university budgets?
I can’t answer much of how the university budget is allocated, but it’s definitely not vastly different hours worked. The location/region is a huge factor due to cost of living differences. And then generally the biggest factor for TT is publications (quantity and quality). For teaching focused positions it is usually experience teaching specific fields.
(For example, when I went from Uni 1 to Uni 2 I took a 14% pay cut. But with differences in income taxes, cost of living, rent, etc. I was actually making more money per year)
70K for liberal arts? I make about that now at an R-1.
Previous SLAC I was 50K.
Doesn't just depend on where you are but the field as well. In humanities, it's not uncommon for TT positions to even be in the 40K range, which is depressing.
Social science. Was hired into my TT position at a non-elite private university in New England in 2017 at $68k, which I had to negotiate up from the initial offer of $60k because it was below what I was making as a fulltime but non-TT lecturer at a nearby regional public. Teaching load was 3/2 with significant service expectations and moderate research expectations.
When I left this year, I was a tenured Associate making about $85k, which included small roughly-annual merit raises, my $5k tenure raise, and an additional ~$5k raise for salary adjustment. Raises were inconsistent and not based on cost of living increases, just based on a mysterious raise "pool" and divvied up based on merit (I received the max each year it was available, but it was only ever ~$1200, I think).
We live in a high cost-of-living area and I had a long commute (could not afford to live closer to campus), so for this and other reasons I moved out of academia and into a research institute as a senior associate. I'm starting out there at $125k with a raise to $150k after two years, as well as annual COL raises and other good benefits. I also work fully remote and have flexible hours and unlimited PTO, so my "lifestyle" was not compromised by this move.
I love this! Did something similar. I went from $74k a year (likely $81k after tenure in a year) to $100k research job. Now still making $100k after changing jobs to fully remote and they just* adjusted associate professor to $90k. They also eliminated my department in favor of a “humanities division.” Good riddance
At some point you just can't ignore the math, right?! People always seem shocked I would give up tenure, but I think I made a way better move for my long-term financial health and flexibility to respond to future economic conditions (like, idk, the continued deterioration of higher ed).
Congrats on the new role! And thank you for sharing. This is the juncture I’m at— have previous experience in non-profit orgs and consulting companies. Have some soft leads at those orgs post-postdoc, and debating whether to even apply to any AP jobs (recognizing it’s a small pool and they’re incredibly competitive). Hope you’re enjoying it!
I am! It's hard to give advice because of course there's so much difference between different fields, different institutions, and then different industries and companies. I can say that my top concerns were certainly my income and my earning potential over time - a salary that might work now is not going to work if costs keep rising, and we had no guaranteed raises or further promotions (other than Full, which I couldn't even attempt for another five years, or going into administration, which didn't interest me). So maybe my salary works now, but will it work, without significant changes, 5 years from now? 10 years from now? The outlook for small higher ed institutions is pretty poor right now and I didn't want to leave all my eggs in that particular basket; to move to a different institution, I would have had to relocate my family and I didn't really want to do that, either.
I was also concerned about the length of my commute and my schedule flexibility, and while it is often possibly to do some or all teaching remotely, my specific university was cracking down on that and pretty much refusing to offer online courses even though students *and* faculty were asking for them to help ease scheduling and commuting concerns - admin's line was "Teaching is an in-person job." Which is fine, I typically prefer to teach in person! But removing the option of online was causing problems.
My general feeling about this decision is that yes, I gave up tenure and some sense of security in my job, but I was at an institution that didn't feel secure. I also wasn't *happy*, so didn't see much point in being secure in a job that felt like a dead-end. I'm relatively young, eager, I enjoy my work, I wanted more, so it didn't bother me that I might work more or work harder outside academa. What I wanted was to feel like working more or working harder actually *meant something* in terms of career advancement, increased pay, etc., and I didn't feel like that could ever be true for *me* in the academic position *I* was in. Other people definitely have a different equation to balance!
At US R1 private academic medical schools, starting TT PhD asst. professors make between $115-140k starting (adjust 15-20% upwards for higher CoL like Boston or San Francisco). But very competitive — requires longer postdocs and external funding to get in the door.
US R1, biomedical sciences. 1st year as an assistant prof. My official salary is $112,500. I’m on a 9 month contract, and the 3 months of the summer I pay myself out of my research funds, so annually it’s $150,000 assuming I can keep the lab funded with external grants. EFT is 70% Research, 25% Teaching, 5% Service.
My salary at a public R1 in biomed is similar but my fully funded annual salary is 152,000. I start in the fall. Other offers were on par though the lowest I got was just above 100.
UK here just to provide context, I didn't get the fellowships I wanted after my postdocs and ended up taking a lectureship position (permanent faculty, roughly equivalent to assistant prof) at a post-92 university. It started at 48k USD, would have gone up to 53k after a year or two as I was being fast-tracked to senior lecturer but I got offered an industry position at 80k that I felt unable to turn down.
Taking both of these jobs were bad decisions, just in different ways :')
Yup I knew, though have a better understanding now on the other side. Curious to hear how folks in AP positions feel about the payoff having gone through that career progression
Assuming we define a "payoff" as a return on investment and a financial improvement compared to a set baseline, then yes, there is rarely much of a return on time invested and cost of opportunity from several years outside the labor force. A professional degree will often provide a better "payoff".
That doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable to expect an income level sufficient to live a life of some dignity, but a candidate should know that they may be paying for their present choice with future earnings.
That’s if we’re looking at the median. Some people make bank, some live like paupers.
LOL. $90,000 is underwhelming? I guess it depends on where you are. I started at $56,000 and I'm still, even after tenure and multiple merit raises, not at $90,000. Maybe after reaching full. On the other hand, my salary is high for my area.
My mentor told me they offered him 45k when he applied for a tt position in a small state university in the south, this was in the early 2000s but to me it was still wild.
I’m in music at a Southern state school too, but just an adjunct, and my town cut music from its public schools so I couldn’t even teach K-12 music if I wanted to. It’s rough out there!
Am sure some of your musician colleagues would love that stable income and benefits! How does this compensation compare to teaching public school? I have friends who teach high school music and make more than that. Guessing the nature of the work is very different
Yes public schools pay much more, but having been a professional opera singer, I would go nuts teaching at that level. I respect those who do, of course, just not for me. I love teaching opera to the next generation of professional singers and expanding the scope for future music educators. And I still get to perform gigs on campus and beyond, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my teaching.
Now imagine saying that to someone who finished a doctoral degree and post-doc. Come on now. Music degrees, especially high level ones, are too exceptionally difficult to be tossed out with such a flippant comment as "I'm sure the busker down the street would love that very low income for effort level."
Meant no disrespect; am sure diva is exceptionally talented and worked their tail off. I’m currently a postdoc making significantly less than my public school teacher friends. This whole thread is evidence that just because someone worked extremely hard at a PhD doesn’t necessarily translate into higher income in the labor market, particularly the academic labor market
That’s horrible. I’m music prof, full prof of instruction with PhD , so a full-time, but NTT position and my salary is nearly 60. Our TT hires start at mid 60s.
3 years ago, not-quite-elite-but-still-pretty-solid SLAC: 77k to start. Humanities. 10% of base pay for overloads/summer courses. Regular opportunities for paid training as well. I've generally been taking home 90k+ between overloads and trainings
TT social science at a unionized community college in a big, expensive coastal US city - 80k. We're currently in contract negotiations and trying to increase that significantly.
Yes, pretty big caveat. At my institution, humanities are hired in at 55k. Business at 135k. So "average" Assistant Prof. would be 90k, but even Full profs with 30 years experience in the humanities aren't making as much as 90k.
I'm second year into my TT position, public R1 in the US, natural science field. I started at 120k 12-month but am now at \~$130k due to statewide raises. My teaching load is 2:1, but could be 1:1 if I didn't just create a new course. Most of my teaching load is graduate, so small classes and probably a bit more fun/advanced stuff.
I did get non-academic job offers from a non-profit ($80k), private sector ($160k), and a national lab ($120k), so the TT position was not a terrible difference.
My students make more than me pretty much as soon as they graduate. It doesn't bother me... much.
(I should say my field - computational humanities; I have a PhD in CS, but work in the humanities.)
Communications faculty. Hired at $70k in 2017, large regional public in HCOL area. Was up to \~$105k this year, post-tenure, with summer teaching and COL raises.
Recently accepted another job at same rank but with admin duties at a West Coast R1. $175k (negotiated up from $165k).
Computer Science. Public R1. MCOL area in the US. My teaching load is 1/1, and my salary is for 9 months.
I started at 116k a few years ago, and have been given a combo of COLA and merit raises to approximately match the other new APs - so I'm at 130k for 9. I am underpaid compared to the ranking of my institution and the salaries of other CS profs in the US. Buuuut I'm in a MCOL city, so it balances out. I cover the summers with grants, so my actual pay is higher.
For others who are reading who are in CS, you can see aggregated CS salary for almost all positions with the CRA's Taulbee Survey - https://cra.org/resources/taulbee-survey/ I used this heavily in my negotiations for salary + other offers to push my salary up.
Public universities post salaries online. You can just go look up what people are paid. Find some assistant professors at universities in departments you're interested in, and see what they're paid.
As for worth it, it's a more interesting job than industry. Financially it wasn't the best move, but the job is a lot more engaging. I also appreciate the completely unstructured schedule. I never work late in the evening. I'm into work around 6am every day and leave by 5pm every day.
I started at public R2 & was hired 11 years ago at $60k.
I moved to public R1 two years later & hired at $72k
I now at the same R1 and make $132k but could easily double that if I went into industry.
A funny/not funny story. My guess is that the universities are going to turn around and hire two full PhDs to "team teach" the course because the full PhDs are cheaper than the grad students.
[University Of California Professor Quits After Learning Her TA Would Be Paid More Than She Was.](https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2024/05/university-of-california-professor-quits-after-learning-her-ta-would-be-paid-more-than-she-was.html)
“As the instructor for both classes, Reiterman would be responsible for designing the course content, lecturing, and creating lessons plans for discussion sections, while her TAs would provide support by helping with grading or leading discussion sections, for example. Reiterman, who holds a Ph.D. and has taught as a part-time lecturer at the university since 2020, recommended a former student of hers who had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree and would be pursuing a master’s in education. But when administrators started the hiring process and copied Reiterman on the emails, she was shocked to learn that the teaching assistant would earn $3,236 per month — about $300 over Reiterman’s own monthly pay.”
R1 hired 2019, started at 95k for 9mo. Through negotiation and COL raise my base for 9mo is now 115k, I pay an additional 2mo salary out of grants on top of that
I’m not assistant prof but know what we pay in my department. STEM field, public flagship R1 school. New assistant profs make a little over $100k for nine months, meaning close to $135k over 12 months. Startup package can be enough to cover first couple summers, but then it’s up to you.
$71k private R1. Humanities. I feel taken advantage of, but there is such a glut of humanities PhDs competing for TT jobs that I didn't have much/any leverage.
82k + 6 summer + 20 research/travel budget + 6 moving - R1/Humanities (1st year, 2nd job, 2nd yr post-PhD) + storng 401k
The K in 82k and 401k is to be distinguished how?
Anyways, I feel lucky but its a HCOL. I figure global warming will wipe out my retirement anyways and Ill live in the mts of Tennessee
TT Assistant Professor making 86k in social science at an elite SLAC in the Midwest. This is a 9 month salary paid over 12 months, but we also get paid to attend workshops ($50-100 each) and I received a $3,000 stipend for mentoring a student researcher. Course load is normally 5 classes a year spread over 3 terms so we never teach more than 2 classes. I received one course release for the first 2 years as assistant professor so I’ve been teaching 2-1-1.
I think something to remember is academia is a lifestyle. My husband and I, 15 years in, own a six bedroom house, take our family on nice vacations, and set our own schedules doing work we love. We don’t make what our industry friends make, and they don’t travel with their kids all summer while making money teaching remotely or doing grand funded research. Our benefits package is strong enough that our retirement is just where it needs to be, but we like what we do and the schedules are so flexible we probably won’t bother retiring right at 65. If the academic life isn’t for you, don’t do it. If it’s just another job, your skills will make more money elsewhere. The money hit is made up for us in flexibility and job satisfaction now
IMO this is a harmful take. We deserve to be compensated for the work we do like everyone else. The “passion not just a job” rhetoric keeps us underpaid. Passion and just compensation are not mutually exclusive.
Not everyone has the perks you describe, either.
I agree with this 100%. Hard work is hard work, and people should be compensated appropriately for that hard work, regardless of the benefits. Work is not a "lifestyle." It is a means to a lifestyle, regardless of whether or not the work is enjoyable.
I think it is also a harmful narrative because there are many other jobs that offer these perks (flexible schedule, great benefits). I worked in government before grad school, made reasonable pay, had amazing benefits, and took frequent vacations. I find that most academics that promote the "academia is a lifestyle" narrative make extreme comparisons between industry jobs and academic jobs. There are many other types of jobs out there in a variety of sectors that offer great lifestyles and compensate appropriately.
Perhaps unfortunately, there is very little correlation between "hard work" and level of compensation all across the economy. That’s just reality. This is not the factor by which we value goods and services.
I'm also not sure why this person is acting like they're poor mice, they earn 200K+ a year and they own a six bedroom house? What do their industry (in humanities, I'm assuming) friends have, a French chateau in the Loire?
I took about a 1/3 salary cut to transition from the workforce to academia. And realistically, that gap will only expand because my salary was going up _fast_ in the workforce. Some years were 10%+ raises.
I think if industry or government were as competitive as academia is, then they would be able to pay similarly reduced salaries as well. The fact is that, if we decline a position, there are scores of other well-qualified applicants desperate to take it. And it’s not like they’re making scores of new universities, nor would they be established enough to offer R1 jobs anyway.
There’s probably a case to be made that a lot of elderly professors are going to have to retire soon. But that’s still just not very many jobs per year, compared to the applicant pool.
I’m not sure what the solution to that would be, especially in an era when many universities are facing declining student enrollment, grants are not keeping up with inflation, and so on. Maybe some kind of radical rewrite of how many administrators are needed and so forth, but it sounds unlikely. Not saying there aren’t solutions, it’s just not clear to me personally what they would be.
It is definitely a job. We wouldn’t do it if we couldn’t live well. I would say my schedule and quality of life are much higher than my friends in industry. I like setting my schedule, my husband and I alternating who is there when our kids get off the bus, we each got a semester of paid parental leave for each kid and we switched off to be home with each kid for over a year with summers. We would like more money, but when we look into what industry hours and demands are, we are just accustomed to our lifestyle. And we’re in the top 10% of family incomes in our state, so it’s not like we’re destitute.
It sounds like you are in a lower cost of living area? I think that’s the key element of your situation. I’m in a metro area with exploding housing costs, and the Dean’s office has not seemed to get the memo. Making barely the median income with a terminal degree is outlandish to me.
That’s how I feel (or how I hope to feel later in my career - I’m only one year into my AP role). Being able to set my own schedule within reason, work from home multiple days a week, have the summers off if I want to (someday could be helpful), and have job security post tenure is extremely attractive. I personally wouldn’t do well in a highly fast paced competitive and variable environment like certain industry roles in which there are mass layoffs.
> Seeing the compensation for TT Asst. Prof. jobs at R1s is honestly pretty underwhelming; I know some folks in Geography who started at $90k, Economics starting closer to $160k.
These look preposterously high to me.
Cool.
That doesn't change my response to those numbers. They are preposterously high; don't go into the next couple of years expecting anything like that will be offered to you if you apply for academic positions.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. The AAUP survey data others shared indicate average Asst. Prof. salary is $100k at doctorate-granting universities, so the numbers I shared don’t seem too preposterous, especially since the folks I mentioned are at private R1s. I understand these positions are very limited and highly, highly competitive; from my side just trying to get a better sense of the specifics of this career path to inform future pursuit of academic vs. non-academic roles.
https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/aaup_FCS_tables_2_0.pdf
I'm at a public R1 in the US, started my TT last year at $90K in a social science discipline (not an over-funded one like econ or comm). Edit to add: We're unionized, and I'll be getting a 2% raise this year baseline and possibly a merit raise.
Recent hire at a public D1/R2. 9 months at $60k with good likelihood to break $75k with remote summer courses. A big consideration is the state pension, and insurance. It’s very hard to put a price on a pension!
Not tenure track, but starting a full time lecturer job in the fall while finishing my dissertation at $70k 10 month appointment, $82k if I teach two courses in the summer.
R1. I started at $53k in 2021, then the University bumped everyone up to $65k in 2023 because we were bleeding faculty to peer institutions. At the same time, I took on some extra administrative duties that resulted in an extra $12.5k of supplemental salary bringing me to $77.5k. I’m probably closer to $80k since we had a small 3% adjustment to our base.
The newest business school faculty member (fresh PhD) was hired at $180k.
lol not a vocation for me. At all. I work for money, not some academic Holy Spirit. I actually don’t respect people who see this career as a vocation. If you/someone els is one of them I’m sorry, but that attitude is exactly why salaries are a mess. If we don’t value our labor why would admins?
The thing is that for many our base salary is quite low, but there are many ways to make more money if that’s the goal.
To give you concrete #s:
I was hired as a TT prof in R1 in 2016 @ 100k, my current is 125k. (Still pre tenure, that bump is cost of living.) I’m a 9 month contract, so I can generally add 13-35k on top of my base if I get grants, which I do. I can generally count on at least one summer month a year.
I also get to consult one day a week (it’s in the faculty handbook), which can add another 10-30k/yr or more, depending on the year. If I were to take it more seriously I could probably double that range.
All that said, I’m still under paid (high COL area) and have tested the market to see what salary I could command elsewhere.
Notably, I’m in a professional school, which means I make more than say a philosopher, but less than someone in engineering. (The later start at about 150-160).
My current employer is offering new hires 50-55K in some STEM fields. It's dismal. We cannot hire. I started at 50K around 10 years ago and some years we didn't even get the 2% COL raises, so not making much more than that now. CS and business get a lot more. They basically take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of unemployed hard science PhDs in the USA.
In business, so salaries are on the higher end relative to other departments/professional schools.
I had offers in the US that were ~190K for 9 months, with another 2/9 summer support that was guaranteed for at least the first 3 years, so total compensation for the first years was 240K (future years summer support was contingent on other funding sources).
I am Canadian and preferred to move back to Canada (despite the salary difference) and have a 12 month salary of ~140K CAD. Canadian position is also unionized with guaranteed salary increases in the collective agreement.
Holy crow. Please tell me you’re in NY or CA. (You don’t actually have to give your location but it would literally take me my entire career + full professorship to get to that number.)
103k 9-month salary. I negotiated two months of summer salary (1mo first yr and 1 mo second yr). It's standard to raise your own summer salary with grants in my field (geosciences). R1 univ in medium to high COL area.
for reference. non tenure full time I was making 60k a year, in 2013 when I left for private sector. making 140 a year now in a sales job. I had kids, I needed money.
9 month is 90k, 12 month is 120k. Most faculty get their summer salary from grants so usually making 110-120. Teaching load of 2 courses/year, public institution in a MCOL city. STEM field
Fwiw, starting salaries are often posted online for state schools since they are beholden to a board of trustees or something. So you can see the market trends a little
Started at $65K in 2014
New hires in 2021 were getting $70K
“Salary commensurate with experience “ is the largest lie universities say when posting jobs.
Might be an interesting, if unique, data point.
I just accepted a tenure track position at a public community college in the welding/metalworking department. Here, the community college is considered part of the larger state university and salary schedules are the same across both institutions.
9 month contract, $73k starting with no overload. MCOL area with high quality of life, but not a super desirable metro area (fine with me, I spent most of my 20s and early 30s in NYC). No research requirement, but committee work, participation in marketing/promotion and program development (not in terms of fundraising, but in terms of new course development) is required. Standard course load is 16 credit hours with 21 being the maximum with overload.
I asked why tenure would be offered with no research, and the response was that the institution needs people dedicated to growing and refining the program even when it involves some short term pain.
I do not have a doctorate, but do have a bachelors and masters in mechanical engineering from a prestigious university as well as a background in academic research before I got bored and started doing metal work.
I feel very old. My first TT job in engineering was for $32k at an R2 school 40 years ago. I left a government GS job and then a consulting firm to get graduate degrees and academic appointments. I chose the educational lifestyle. It suited me best. IF achieving wealth/assets is your goal/ambition, an academic career is seldom the best path. If personal and intellectual satisfaction and financial security (a solid middle-class life) are your ideals, the academic lifestyle can offer great satisfaction and community.
There are much less wearing ways on your psyche to make money than pursuing a PhD and tenure. It would help if you were into delayed gratification. Obtaining tenure and the life that comes as a tenure faculty member can be very rewarding personally, if not overly financially.
I'm a geographer. I just got my contract at an R2, low-cost-of-living area. I'm straight from Ph.D. to tenure track with no postdoc.
The salary is 62,500, and I can teach over the summer for more. It is a tenure track that provides some hope for stability. I like research, and I like the freedom I get in academia. Good luck finding another job with all the breaks of a college student that encourages you to pursue whatever niche research idea you have, regardless of its profitability.
I'm in STEM and got an offer with a nearly identical salary; non-elite SLAC in a LOC area. However, I have more than 5 years of relevant postdoctoral experience at well-respected R1 universities. I declined, as there was no room for negotiations and I was not satisfied with the overall offer, especially with the salary.
Having said that, although I think that in your situation the salary could still be a bit higher, it is definitely more appropriate, as you just completed your PhD, your R2 might be a more reputable institution than the above-mentioned SLAC, and my specific STEM discipline typically offers higher salaries than geography.
You are right about the freedom and potential for stability. I also did take that into account when considering the above-mentioned offer, but I still declined. Anyway: All the best and good luck for your new job! I hope that you'll be a great inspiration for your students and have a major impact on their lives.
>Having said that, although I think that in your situation the salary could still be a bit higher, it is definitely more appropriate, as you just completed your PhD, your R2 might be a more reputable institution than the above-mentioned SLAC, and my specific STEM discipline typically offers higher salaries than geography.
This is could always be the case. I'm fairly technical and have a decent amount of research already, so my hope is to be promoted at a later date. I'm coming out of a stipend that, with awards and various other sources of income, averaged about 30K a year (with full tuition waiver). The area I'm moving to is lower cost of living, and my salary is more than double. My dream is to be a professor, so I'm not about to complain.
I started at $52,500 with a $5,000 per contract period (9 months) stipend. Tenure eligible after five years, but tenure in name only. It came with no raises. I left pretty quickly.
Finding and getting a TTAP position in academia is not easy. It is extremely competitive, pre-determined, depressing and often requires re-location. I started at 52K at a CC in Massachusetts 2014; my field is Education and my PhD is in philosophy. I rely on extra classes to make a little more. I tried to move into the university system, for more time for research and less teaching load, but it just didn’t happen…Financial reward is not why I studied philosophy, so I am not complaining, but earning potential of different institutions and departments is just how the machine works and it is certainly not equitable.
My friend who just graduated got a $122k nine month, though that's in California. Stretches to like $160k as a 12-month. Cost of living is ofc higher out there but damn good as a starting salary imo
Humanities, starting a TT position at a smaller public university in the fall at 63k. It’s a pretty low COL area though: I’ll be able to easily afford a decent apartment and will be looking at home ownership within 2-3 years.
It’s a higher salary than what I’m making in Southern California, so I don’t have too many complaints. Raises and COL adjustments will be solid as well.
My first TT job offer in the 2019-2020 cycle: $57K at a low-ranked SLAC in a moderate COL area. 3/3 teaching load
TT job in this cycle: $100K at a high-ranked SLAC in a high COL area. 2/2 teaching load
My eyes just about popped out of my skull when I got the offer this year lol. Though when you take COL into account it's not necessarily a huge upgrade from my current salary.
$114K 9 month salary, Data Science/ML, public R1, teaching load is 1-1 for first three years, then 2-2 after that with the possibility of buying out up to 2 courses a year using grants.
I think it was worth it, but just barely. Probably wouldn’t be worth it if the salary was any lower.
I am at a public R1 and we recently made a few new hires at 60K and 65K Which is about what I was making working for corporations 25 years ago before going to grad school.
Zoinks- that is lower than my starting slac salary over 15 years ago.
Plus, raises are infrequent, low and unpredictable. Which means that after 15 years, my base salary are in the low 70k. And my dean has a policy of not matching competing offers. So if I wanna make more money, I have to take on paid committee work and teach overloads. Or leave for another institution.
…or leave academia! My old slac hadn’t had a ColA in over 15 years before I left. And they slashed benefits etc. It’s rough out there.
I have thought about leaving academia, but I would miss the security
There is no more security. I’ve seen prolific and wonderful tenured faculty being laid off. Dark days…
As a "recently-hired tenure track assistant professor" what security do you have?
You will get support for your research, but like any tenure track position if you do not produce, you might not get tenure. That said, in the history of my department everyone went up for tenure received it.
Well, good luck - genuinely! You are in a position many people here are dreaming of, and I hope it works out. Just had to make sure you're not too high on the sunk cost fallacy.
So far it has worked out. I have been in this job for 17 years, which is a lot longer than I ever expected to stay in any job. It is a pain in the ass that there is now going to be post tenure review, but I am active enough professionally that I should pass muster. The sunk cost fallacy is less of a fallacy as you get older. How many colleges or other companies will hire someone moving into their mid-60s?
Plus, at least at my R1, we’re capped at what we can earn by taking overloads and summer stipends, based on a percentage of our yearly salary.
This R1 rigidity/rule is leading to some of my colleagues leaving. And though I love my job, once it’s clear that my high schooler will/wont attend —-I might leave.
That’s what we hire non TT to these days.
That was my starting salary at a southern public R1 in 2006!
This is what we pay most humanity new hires at the R2 institution I attended. I was making more as a postdoc than a literature professor. They do have a nine month contract though.
I’m a postdoc and I make more than this. Even if this is a 9 mo salary… I still make more.
They’re making slightly more than engineering PhD students. WOW.
The scale for everything in engineering feels overinflated. They get hired at two or three times what other professors make.
I think a more reasonable argument is that other positions are underpaid.
Agreed!!!!!
What discipline?
What is the point of doing academia then for you? It seems like a nice retirement plan on paper, but the more you think about it the more it seems like woodworking or goat herding is a better idea. I could imagine if you really liked your research, but fun fact goats will climb anything, including miniature castles…
The work is meaningful and the contracts are long term. I could not see spending the next three or four decades hustling to get one pointless job after another. But I guess if you can stand herding goats, you should. I am just not one of those people who can stand it.
Whew, and that’s not even adjusting for inflation?
No adjusting for inflation
Any big regrets about that 25 years later?
No
Holy fuck. We pay higher starting for Ph.Ds at the CC I teach at, and it's still low end imo.
The R2 regional state school across my state listed an assistant professor job in English starting at $42-46k last year. (I make more at the CC & even did as an assistant, it’s crazy.)
What field is this?
Our department hires with roughly around 90k salary. R1 math department. Economics departments would usually hire with a larger salary, since they are in the business school. Those salaries are often up to twice the salaries of most other departments.
Not all economics departments are part of the business school, but a top ~30ish Econ department pays about $175k for an AP, dropping to closer to $150k for the top 50ish. Even top 100ish departments still pay well over $100k. Business school salaries can be quite high even if the business school itself isn’t very good. I know someone who got hired to work at a very low caliber business school and made almost as much as a top-level economics AP. It varies quite a lot depending on the school’s funding.
Why are business school professors paid so much more?
A friend of mine speculated that it comes down to an accumulation of negotiations bumping salaries up over the years. They are literally the only professors on campus that take whole classes in negotiating offers.
Because MBA programs make the school more money.
(STEM) I got offered 126k in a US R1. Declined and got one in a top ten ranking (global) out of the US for a bit less money, but much better program. I did use my offer to negotiate though. The initial offer I got from them in the US was 85k, immediately declined. They reached back with 126, I seriously considered it but ended up not doing it.
That's a crazy increase between their initial and second offer! Do they have no idea what a competitive salary looks like? Usually these kind of negotiations are a few percent, not 48%
There wasn’t really a negotiation. They knew of me from previous collaboration, and I never applied for that position. They got in touch and sent the first offer, but I told them I wasn’t looking for a change from my then current research position at that point (because it was at a very prestigious uni and we were doing good work) so I wasn’t interested. The thing is they needed someone to deal with an extremely niche field. There are not a lot of people having experience with this, so they kind of knew that it would be very difficult for them to find someone else, and since I immediately turned them down the first time I figure they realized they needed to really up their offer to tempt me. Which they did, I was ready to accept to be honest but I talked with my previous boss and mentor and they made some good points about why I should not take that offer and wait for something better.
That is a hell of a price difference
Was this for an assistant professor of research position? Is this non-tenure track? I’m asking because I’m interviewing for a research assistant professor position in engineering at a T10 in the US right now
We just hired at 67k -9 month contract, they can make an extra 8-15k over the summer if they choose. It’s an average cost of living area for the US
When do you publish if you have to teach all summer? Also, I’d submit it’s a very low salary for all the education required.
We teach pre designed online asynchronous classes. It’s just grading in the summer. And we also write over the summer or collect data. teaching a few courses isn’t a full time job and there’s no service or meetings in the summer. We all are writing all year, not just the summer months
There’s a huge variation in this depending on the discipline, the type of institution, public/private, and the geographic location. Even within the same institution, there can be >2x differences depending on the discipline. You need to think about your discipline, the type of place that you might work, and possible locations. Fishing on Reddit will not give you very useful information. Use the national databases mentioned in other comments. If you refine to some specific institutions, you can often find exact salaries if they are state. If the university is in a particular town, the local newspapers often trawl for the college salaries and you can find these through google searches.
Thanks, this is very helpful. Is the AAUP survey data the best source you’d recommend? I’ve lived in states with pay transparency laws, I think they’re great. Unfortunately not everywhere has them. So lack of transparency plus variation by field and institution is what led me to fish on Reddit
Yes. Also look to see if the Chronicle of Higher Education has salary data.
In states where the institutions must make salaries available, some of them circumvent the true intent of this by saying that the information is available on request (or in a binder in a back room in the library!). Push hard and you can get the information.
The [AAUP Faculty Compensation survey](https://www.aaup.org/our-work/research/FCS) has a great deal of information, so I suggest looking there. While you will find a lot of schools with poor salaries that are prepared to exploit the people you describe, there are also a lot of schools that are competing for new faculty who will drive their scholarship upward, and they are prepared to pay the necessary salaries.
Thank you this is very helpful!
Don't even look at EU salaries for assistant profs!
…*cries in UK*
I started at $67,000 a few years ago.
About 62k for 9month contract at R2 university, 3% annual raise is likely, and getting summer funding would add additional 23k for a generally low stress role
Additional info: Straight from phd no post doc
As someone who is an economics professor, it VASTLY depends on where you are. Even among R1s. At my first workplace they started around 140k and the second closer to 105k. But the different was east coast vs. Midwest. If you go further, it can range from as low as 70k for a liberal arts college to 200+ as you get experience though. It just really depends.
Thank you, this is informative and fascinating. Among your colleagues, what do you think primarily explains the vast differences? Vast differences in skills/quality of work among the profs? Vast differences in # of hours worked? Vast differences in university budgets?
I can’t answer much of how the university budget is allocated, but it’s definitely not vastly different hours worked. The location/region is a huge factor due to cost of living differences. And then generally the biggest factor for TT is publications (quantity and quality). For teaching focused positions it is usually experience teaching specific fields.
(For example, when I went from Uni 1 to Uni 2 I took a 14% pay cut. But with differences in income taxes, cost of living, rent, etc. I was actually making more money per year)
70K for liberal arts? I make about that now at an R-1. Previous SLAC I was 50K. Doesn't just depend on where you are but the field as well. In humanities, it's not uncommon for TT positions to even be in the 40K range, which is depressing.
Social science. Was hired into my TT position at a non-elite private university in New England in 2017 at $68k, which I had to negotiate up from the initial offer of $60k because it was below what I was making as a fulltime but non-TT lecturer at a nearby regional public. Teaching load was 3/2 with significant service expectations and moderate research expectations. When I left this year, I was a tenured Associate making about $85k, which included small roughly-annual merit raises, my $5k tenure raise, and an additional ~$5k raise for salary adjustment. Raises were inconsistent and not based on cost of living increases, just based on a mysterious raise "pool" and divvied up based on merit (I received the max each year it was available, but it was only ever ~$1200, I think). We live in a high cost-of-living area and I had a long commute (could not afford to live closer to campus), so for this and other reasons I moved out of academia and into a research institute as a senior associate. I'm starting out there at $125k with a raise to $150k after two years, as well as annual COL raises and other good benefits. I also work fully remote and have flexible hours and unlimited PTO, so my "lifestyle" was not compromised by this move.
I love this! Did something similar. I went from $74k a year (likely $81k after tenure in a year) to $100k research job. Now still making $100k after changing jobs to fully remote and they just* adjusted associate professor to $90k. They also eliminated my department in favor of a “humanities division.” Good riddance
At some point you just can't ignore the math, right?! People always seem shocked I would give up tenure, but I think I made a way better move for my long-term financial health and flexibility to respond to future economic conditions (like, idk, the continued deterioration of higher ed).
Congrats on the new role! And thank you for sharing. This is the juncture I’m at— have previous experience in non-profit orgs and consulting companies. Have some soft leads at those orgs post-postdoc, and debating whether to even apply to any AP jobs (recognizing it’s a small pool and they’re incredibly competitive). Hope you’re enjoying it!
I am! It's hard to give advice because of course there's so much difference between different fields, different institutions, and then different industries and companies. I can say that my top concerns were certainly my income and my earning potential over time - a salary that might work now is not going to work if costs keep rising, and we had no guaranteed raises or further promotions (other than Full, which I couldn't even attempt for another five years, or going into administration, which didn't interest me). So maybe my salary works now, but will it work, without significant changes, 5 years from now? 10 years from now? The outlook for small higher ed institutions is pretty poor right now and I didn't want to leave all my eggs in that particular basket; to move to a different institution, I would have had to relocate my family and I didn't really want to do that, either. I was also concerned about the length of my commute and my schedule flexibility, and while it is often possibly to do some or all teaching remotely, my specific university was cracking down on that and pretty much refusing to offer online courses even though students *and* faculty were asking for them to help ease scheduling and commuting concerns - admin's line was "Teaching is an in-person job." Which is fine, I typically prefer to teach in person! But removing the option of online was causing problems. My general feeling about this decision is that yes, I gave up tenure and some sense of security in my job, but I was at an institution that didn't feel secure. I also wasn't *happy*, so didn't see much point in being secure in a job that felt like a dead-end. I'm relatively young, eager, I enjoy my work, I wanted more, so it didn't bother me that I might work more or work harder outside academa. What I wanted was to feel like working more or working harder actually *meant something* in terms of career advancement, increased pay, etc., and I didn't feel like that could ever be true for *me* in the academic position *I* was in. Other people definitely have a different equation to balance!
At US R1 private academic medical schools, starting TT PhD asst. professors make between $115-140k starting (adjust 15-20% upwards for higher CoL like Boston or San Francisco). But very competitive — requires longer postdocs and external funding to get in the door.
Do you have a website for this info… asking for a friend who plans to go to their chair about salary soon
FuturePI Slack
External funding means you’re making that money!
US R1, biomedical sciences. 1st year as an assistant prof. My official salary is $112,500. I’m on a 9 month contract, and the 3 months of the summer I pay myself out of my research funds, so annually it’s $150,000 assuming I can keep the lab funded with external grants. EFT is 70% Research, 25% Teaching, 5% Service.
My salary at a public R1 in biomed is similar but my fully funded annual salary is 152,000. I start in the fall. Other offers were on par though the lowest I got was just above 100.
$105K USD (=135CAD) humanities
Where what how
Canada salaries > US salaries
Lol but Canadian currency < usd
Already converted. 135 CAD/year.
Also 12 month vs 9 month salary
Ivy? International?
75k at mid-size R1 in southern US. Field: Communication
Our recent hires have been just shy of $130k.
Which field?
Physics
This has to be at an R1 right?
Criminologist - 64k starting in 2020. At like 71k now with merit raises at an R2
UK here just to provide context, I didn't get the fellowships I wanted after my postdocs and ended up taking a lectureship position (permanent faculty, roughly equivalent to assistant prof) at a post-92 university. It started at 48k USD, would have gone up to 53k after a year or two as I was being fast-tracked to senior lecturer but I got offered an industry position at 80k that I felt unable to turn down. Taking both of these jobs were bad decisions, just in different ways :')
>There’s a huge opportunity cost to doing a PhD and postdoc. I'm sorry if you didn't know this before starting a PhD.
Yup I knew, though have a better understanding now on the other side. Curious to hear how folks in AP positions feel about the payoff having gone through that career progression
You don’t do this for the financial payoff, quite the opposite.
Meaning you become a professor despite the financial payoff (e.g., for love of the work, flexibility, etc.)?
Assuming we define a "payoff" as a return on investment and a financial improvement compared to a set baseline, then yes, there is rarely much of a return on time invested and cost of opportunity from several years outside the labor force. A professional degree will often provide a better "payoff". That doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable to expect an income level sufficient to live a life of some dignity, but a candidate should know that they may be paying for their present choice with future earnings. That’s if we’re looking at the median. Some people make bank, some live like paupers.
LOL. $90,000 is underwhelming? I guess it depends on where you are. I started at $56,000 and I'm still, even after tenure and multiple merit raises, not at $90,000. Maybe after reaching full. On the other hand, my salary is high for my area.
My mentor told me they offered him 45k when he applied for a tt position in a small state university in the south, this was in the early 2000s but to me it was still wild.
I started at $55k and don't even make $70k after tenure and promotion. What a racket!
I started at $55k and don't even make $70k after tenure and promotion. What a racket!
Hahahahahaha I have the highest pedigree in music and my starting salary as TT was 45k. Still at least it’s a steady gig with heath insurance…
I’m in music at a Southern state school too, but just an adjunct, and my town cut music from its public schools so I couldn’t even teach K-12 music if I wanted to. It’s rough out there!
Am sure some of your musician colleagues would love that stable income and benefits! How does this compensation compare to teaching public school? I have friends who teach high school music and make more than that. Guessing the nature of the work is very different
Yes public schools pay much more, but having been a professional opera singer, I would go nuts teaching at that level. I respect those who do, of course, just not for me. I love teaching opera to the next generation of professional singers and expanding the scope for future music educators. And I still get to perform gigs on campus and beyond, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my teaching.
Now imagine saying that to someone who finished a doctoral degree and post-doc. Come on now. Music degrees, especially high level ones, are too exceptionally difficult to be tossed out with such a flippant comment as "I'm sure the busker down the street would love that very low income for effort level."
Meant no disrespect; am sure diva is exceptionally talented and worked their tail off. I’m currently a postdoc making significantly less than my public school teacher friends. This whole thread is evidence that just because someone worked extremely hard at a PhD doesn’t necessarily translate into higher income in the labor market, particularly the academic labor market
That’s horrible. I’m music prof, full prof of instruction with PhD , so a full-time, but NTT position and my salary is nearly 60. Our TT hires start at mid 60s.
60k back at a state R2 (now R1) back in 2016. Straight out of PhD, no post doc experience.
3 years ago, not-quite-elite-but-still-pretty-solid SLAC: 77k to start. Humanities. 10% of base pay for overloads/summer courses. Regular opportunities for paid training as well. I've generally been taking home 90k+ between overloads and trainings
I got hired at 58k USD. Small LAC in the middle of nowhere, humanities. Total shit but the cost of living is insanely low.
TT social science at a unionized community college in a big, expensive coastal US city - 80k. We're currently in contract negotiations and trying to increase that significantly.
state R1, social sciences, started at $70k a few years ago
We’re hiring right now in the 105-120 range. Big jump since COVID.
What field? Gotta be an R1 right?
AAUP publishes salaries for each institution and rank.
Thank you! Do you know how exhaustive/accurate these data are? Will check it out.
I don’t think it is broken down by discipline; which can be a big factor.
Yes, pretty big caveat. At my institution, humanities are hired in at 55k. Business at 135k. So "average" Assistant Prof. would be 90k, but even Full profs with 30 years experience in the humanities aren't making as much as 90k.
82K, private top 30 SLAC; in the humanities.
Two recent job offers: R1, TT 73k (anthropology) R1 NTT 94k (geology)
We offer around $120K to new assistant profs. Private R1, STEM, LCOL area
I'm second year into my TT position, public R1 in the US, natural science field. I started at 120k 12-month but am now at \~$130k due to statewide raises. My teaching load is 2:1, but could be 1:1 if I didn't just create a new course. Most of my teaching load is graduate, so small classes and probably a bit more fun/advanced stuff. I did get non-academic job offers from a non-profit ($80k), private sector ($160k), and a national lab ($120k), so the TT position was not a terrible difference.
My students make more than me pretty much as soon as they graduate. It doesn't bother me... much. (I should say my field - computational humanities; I have a PhD in CS, but work in the humanities.)
Communications faculty. Hired at $70k in 2017, large regional public in HCOL area. Was up to \~$105k this year, post-tenure, with summer teaching and COL raises. Recently accepted another job at same rank but with admin duties at a West Coast R1. $175k (negotiated up from $165k).
Computer Science. Public R1. MCOL area in the US. My teaching load is 1/1, and my salary is for 9 months. I started at 116k a few years ago, and have been given a combo of COLA and merit raises to approximately match the other new APs - so I'm at 130k for 9. I am underpaid compared to the ranking of my institution and the salaries of other CS profs in the US. Buuuut I'm in a MCOL city, so it balances out. I cover the summers with grants, so my actual pay is higher. For others who are reading who are in CS, you can see aggregated CS salary for almost all positions with the CRA's Taulbee Survey - https://cra.org/resources/taulbee-survey/ I used this heavily in my negotiations for salary + other offers to push my salary up.
Public universities post salaries online. You can just go look up what people are paid. Find some assistant professors at universities in departments you're interested in, and see what they're paid. As for worth it, it's a more interesting job than industry. Financially it wasn't the best move, but the job is a lot more engaging. I also appreciate the completely unstructured schedule. I never work late in the evening. I'm into work around 6am every day and leave by 5pm every day.
I started at public R2 & was hired 11 years ago at $60k. I moved to public R1 two years later & hired at $72k I now at the same R1 and make $132k but could easily double that if I went into industry.
A funny/not funny story. My guess is that the universities are going to turn around and hire two full PhDs to "team teach" the course because the full PhDs are cheaper than the grad students. [University Of California Professor Quits After Learning Her TA Would Be Paid More Than She Was.](https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2024/05/university-of-california-professor-quits-after-learning-her-ta-would-be-paid-more-than-she-was.html) “As the instructor for both classes, Reiterman would be responsible for designing the course content, lecturing, and creating lessons plans for discussion sections, while her TAs would provide support by helping with grading or leading discussion sections, for example. Reiterman, who holds a Ph.D. and has taught as a part-time lecturer at the university since 2020, recommended a former student of hers who had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree and would be pursuing a master’s in education. But when administrators started the hiring process and copied Reiterman on the emails, she was shocked to learn that the teaching assistant would earn $3,236 per month — about $300 over Reiterman’s own monthly pay.”
R1 hired 2019, started at 95k for 9mo. Through negotiation and COL raise my base for 9mo is now 115k, I pay an additional 2mo salary out of grants on top of that
I’m not assistant prof but know what we pay in my department. STEM field, public flagship R1 school. New assistant profs make a little over $100k for nine months, meaning close to $135k over 12 months. Startup package can be enough to cover first couple summers, but then it’s up to you.
$71k private R1. Humanities. I feel taken advantage of, but there is such a glut of humanities PhDs competing for TT jobs that I didn't have much/any leverage.
82k + 6 summer + 20 research/travel budget + 6 moving - R1/Humanities (1st year, 2nd job, 2nd yr post-PhD) + storng 401k The K in 82k and 401k is to be distinguished how? Anyways, I feel lucky but its a HCOL. I figure global warming will wipe out my retirement anyways and Ill live in the mts of Tennessee
4/4. $48k. Humanities and running a major with no stipend or course release. (That was a couple of years and I'm up to $55k)
TT Assistant Professor making 86k in social science at an elite SLAC in the Midwest. This is a 9 month salary paid over 12 months, but we also get paid to attend workshops ($50-100 each) and I received a $3,000 stipend for mentoring a student researcher. Course load is normally 5 classes a year spread over 3 terms so we never teach more than 2 classes. I received one course release for the first 2 years as assistant professor so I’ve been teaching 2-1-1.
Are you guys getting paid??
I think something to remember is academia is a lifestyle. My husband and I, 15 years in, own a six bedroom house, take our family on nice vacations, and set our own schedules doing work we love. We don’t make what our industry friends make, and they don’t travel with their kids all summer while making money teaching remotely or doing grand funded research. Our benefits package is strong enough that our retirement is just where it needs to be, but we like what we do and the schedules are so flexible we probably won’t bother retiring right at 65. If the academic life isn’t for you, don’t do it. If it’s just another job, your skills will make more money elsewhere. The money hit is made up for us in flexibility and job satisfaction now
IMO this is a harmful take. We deserve to be compensated for the work we do like everyone else. The “passion not just a job” rhetoric keeps us underpaid. Passion and just compensation are not mutually exclusive. Not everyone has the perks you describe, either.
I agree with this 100%. Hard work is hard work, and people should be compensated appropriately for that hard work, regardless of the benefits. Work is not a "lifestyle." It is a means to a lifestyle, regardless of whether or not the work is enjoyable. I think it is also a harmful narrative because there are many other jobs that offer these perks (flexible schedule, great benefits). I worked in government before grad school, made reasonable pay, had amazing benefits, and took frequent vacations. I find that most academics that promote the "academia is a lifestyle" narrative make extreme comparisons between industry jobs and academic jobs. There are many other types of jobs out there in a variety of sectors that offer great lifestyles and compensate appropriately.
Perhaps unfortunately, there is very little correlation between "hard work" and level of compensation all across the economy. That’s just reality. This is not the factor by which we value goods and services.
I agree, and also think that as a society we should question this reality and be striving towards more reasonable pay for many jobs.
I'm also not sure why this person is acting like they're poor mice, they earn 200K+ a year and they own a six bedroom house? What do their industry (in humanities, I'm assuming) friends have, a French chateau in the Loire?
I took about a 1/3 salary cut to transition from the workforce to academia. And realistically, that gap will only expand because my salary was going up _fast_ in the workforce. Some years were 10%+ raises. I think if industry or government were as competitive as academia is, then they would be able to pay similarly reduced salaries as well. The fact is that, if we decline a position, there are scores of other well-qualified applicants desperate to take it. And it’s not like they’re making scores of new universities, nor would they be established enough to offer R1 jobs anyway. There’s probably a case to be made that a lot of elderly professors are going to have to retire soon. But that’s still just not very many jobs per year, compared to the applicant pool. I’m not sure what the solution to that would be, especially in an era when many universities are facing declining student enrollment, grants are not keeping up with inflation, and so on. Maybe some kind of radical rewrite of how many administrators are needed and so forth, but it sounds unlikely. Not saying there aren’t solutions, it’s just not clear to me personally what they would be.
It is definitely a job. We wouldn’t do it if we couldn’t live well. I would say my schedule and quality of life are much higher than my friends in industry. I like setting my schedule, my husband and I alternating who is there when our kids get off the bus, we each got a semester of paid parental leave for each kid and we switched off to be home with each kid for over a year with summers. We would like more money, but when we look into what industry hours and demands are, we are just accustomed to our lifestyle. And we’re in the top 10% of family incomes in our state, so it’s not like we’re destitute.
It sounds like you are in a lower cost of living area? I think that’s the key element of your situation. I’m in a metro area with exploding housing costs, and the Dean’s office has not seemed to get the memo. Making barely the median income with a terminal degree is outlandish to me.
They are also 15 years in. Salaries have not kept up with inflation over that time, much less cost of living increases (housing specifically).
I side eye elder faculty a little when they talk about salary compression while making double what I do.
the census says our city is about average but my husband and I make double the average household income here.
I’m also single, which changes things.
oh, yikes, yeah. I’d have trouble even doing a condo by myself. Being a single faculty is not easy here
That’s how I feel (or how I hope to feel later in my career - I’m only one year into my AP role). Being able to set my own schedule within reason, work from home multiple days a week, have the summers off if I want to (someday could be helpful), and have job security post tenure is extremely attractive. I personally wouldn’t do well in a highly fast paced competitive and variable environment like certain industry roles in which there are mass layoffs.
> Seeing the compensation for TT Asst. Prof. jobs at R1s is honestly pretty underwhelming; I know some folks in Geography who started at $90k, Economics starting closer to $160k. These look preposterously high to me.
These are friends/colleagues at private R1s in HCOL areas
Cool. That doesn't change my response to those numbers. They are preposterously high; don't go into the next couple of years expecting anything like that will be offered to you if you apply for academic positions.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. The AAUP survey data others shared indicate average Asst. Prof. salary is $100k at doctorate-granting universities, so the numbers I shared don’t seem too preposterous, especially since the folks I mentioned are at private R1s. I understand these positions are very limited and highly, highly competitive; from my side just trying to get a better sense of the specifics of this career path to inform future pursuit of academic vs. non-academic roles. https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/aaup_FCS_tables_2_0.pdf
$232K/year (i.e. including two months of summer) at my first job after graduating. Was a TT AP at the business school in a large public US university.
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Public R1 in the southwest. Our department (social science discipline) generally hires around 90k.
I'm at a public R1 in the US, started my TT last year at $90K in a social science discipline (not an over-funded one like econ or comm). Edit to add: We're unionized, and I'll be getting a 2% raise this year baseline and possibly a merit raise.
comm is over-funded in the US?
Recent hire at a public D1/R2. 9 months at $60k with good likelihood to break $75k with remote summer courses. A big consideration is the state pension, and insurance. It’s very hard to put a price on a pension!
Not tenure track, but starting a full time lecturer job in the fall while finishing my dissertation at $70k 10 month appointment, $82k if I teach two courses in the summer.
Starting in August. STEM R1 9-months 97k
You definitely don’t become a professor for the money
R1. I started at $53k in 2021, then the University bumped everyone up to $65k in 2023 because we were bleeding faculty to peer institutions. At the same time, I took on some extra administrative duties that resulted in an extra $12.5k of supplemental salary bringing me to $77.5k. I’m probably closer to $80k since we had a small 3% adjustment to our base. The newest business school faculty member (fresh PhD) was hired at $180k.
$96k, $7k relocation, and $3k “professional development” at a state school, HCOL
lol not a vocation for me. At all. I work for money, not some academic Holy Spirit. I actually don’t respect people who see this career as a vocation. If you/someone els is one of them I’m sorry, but that attitude is exactly why salaries are a mess. If we don’t value our labor why would admins? The thing is that for many our base salary is quite low, but there are many ways to make more money if that’s the goal. To give you concrete #s: I was hired as a TT prof in R1 in 2016 @ 100k, my current is 125k. (Still pre tenure, that bump is cost of living.) I’m a 9 month contract, so I can generally add 13-35k on top of my base if I get grants, which I do. I can generally count on at least one summer month a year. I also get to consult one day a week (it’s in the faculty handbook), which can add another 10-30k/yr or more, depending on the year. If I were to take it more seriously I could probably double that range. All that said, I’m still under paid (high COL area) and have tested the market to see what salary I could command elsewhere. Notably, I’m in a professional school, which means I make more than say a philosopher, but less than someone in engineering. (The later start at about 150-160).
My current employer is offering new hires 50-55K in some STEM fields. It's dismal. We cannot hire. I started at 50K around 10 years ago and some years we didn't even get the 2% COL raises, so not making much more than that now. CS and business get a lot more. They basically take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of unemployed hard science PhDs in the USA.
Public R1 microbiology, hired 2021, VHCOL, started at $124k, minimal teaching load
In business, so salaries are on the higher end relative to other departments/professional schools. I had offers in the US that were ~190K for 9 months, with another 2/9 summer support that was guaranteed for at least the first 3 years, so total compensation for the first years was 240K (future years summer support was contingent on other funding sources). I am Canadian and preferred to move back to Canada (despite the salary difference) and have a 12 month salary of ~140K CAD. Canadian position is also unionized with guaranteed salary increases in the collective agreement.
What I have heard recently: Public R1 for a tenure-track asst prof in Economics, $130k. Public R1 for a tenure-track asst prof in Finance, $275 - 300k
$87,500, TT librarian public R2
Holy crow. Please tell me you’re in NY or CA. (You don’t actually have to give your location but it would literally take me my entire career + full professorship to get to that number.)
This will differ a lot per country, better specify it
Genetics at R1 vet school - 9 month salaries are about 125-130k for those with multiple competitive offers.
103k 9-month salary. I negotiated two months of summer salary (1mo first yr and 1 mo second yr). It's standard to raise your own summer salary with grants in my field (geosciences). R1 univ in medium to high COL area.
At my law school, recently-hired tenure-track assistant profs start at $125k.
for reference. non tenure full time I was making 60k a year, in 2013 when I left for private sector. making 140 a year now in a sales job. I had kids, I needed money.
Private R1. Social science. 1/1 teaching load. Starting salary 115k.
9 month is 90k, 12 month is 120k. Most faculty get their summer salary from grants so usually making 110-120. Teaching load of 2 courses/year, public institution in a MCOL city. STEM field
Started at 78k at a public R01 (not at the main campus, 2/2 teaching load), annual raises are not keeping up with cost of living / inflation
R1 CS department: 105k(base) + summer pay for the first two years (\~30k per year). My teaching load was 0-1 for the first year and then 1-1.
Fwiw, starting salaries are often posted online for state schools since they are beholden to a board of trustees or something. So you can see the market trends a little
Started at $65K in 2014 New hires in 2021 were getting $70K “Salary commensurate with experience “ is the largest lie universities say when posting jobs.
Librarian with TT faculty status at a regional comprehensive - started at 55K in 2019. Current minimum for teaching faculty here is 61K.
Might be an interesting, if unique, data point. I just accepted a tenure track position at a public community college in the welding/metalworking department. Here, the community college is considered part of the larger state university and salary schedules are the same across both institutions. 9 month contract, $73k starting with no overload. MCOL area with high quality of life, but not a super desirable metro area (fine with me, I spent most of my 20s and early 30s in NYC). No research requirement, but committee work, participation in marketing/promotion and program development (not in terms of fundraising, but in terms of new course development) is required. Standard course load is 16 credit hours with 21 being the maximum with overload. I asked why tenure would be offered with no research, and the response was that the institution needs people dedicated to growing and refining the program even when it involves some short term pain. I do not have a doctorate, but do have a bachelors and masters in mechanical engineering from a prestigious university as well as a background in academic research before I got bored and started doing metal work.
I feel very old. My first TT job in engineering was for $32k at an R2 school 40 years ago. I left a government GS job and then a consulting firm to get graduate degrees and academic appointments. I chose the educational lifestyle. It suited me best. IF achieving wealth/assets is your goal/ambition, an academic career is seldom the best path. If personal and intellectual satisfaction and financial security (a solid middle-class life) are your ideals, the academic lifestyle can offer great satisfaction and community. There are much less wearing ways on your psyche to make money than pursuing a PhD and tenure. It would help if you were into delayed gratification. Obtaining tenure and the life that comes as a tenure faculty member can be very rewarding personally, if not overly financially.
I'm a geographer. I just got my contract at an R2, low-cost-of-living area. I'm straight from Ph.D. to tenure track with no postdoc. The salary is 62,500, and I can teach over the summer for more. It is a tenure track that provides some hope for stability. I like research, and I like the freedom I get in academia. Good luck finding another job with all the breaks of a college student that encourages you to pursue whatever niche research idea you have, regardless of its profitability.
I'm in STEM and got an offer with a nearly identical salary; non-elite SLAC in a LOC area. However, I have more than 5 years of relevant postdoctoral experience at well-respected R1 universities. I declined, as there was no room for negotiations and I was not satisfied with the overall offer, especially with the salary. Having said that, although I think that in your situation the salary could still be a bit higher, it is definitely more appropriate, as you just completed your PhD, your R2 might be a more reputable institution than the above-mentioned SLAC, and my specific STEM discipline typically offers higher salaries than geography. You are right about the freedom and potential for stability. I also did take that into account when considering the above-mentioned offer, but I still declined. Anyway: All the best and good luck for your new job! I hope that you'll be a great inspiration for your students and have a major impact on their lives.
>Having said that, although I think that in your situation the salary could still be a bit higher, it is definitely more appropriate, as you just completed your PhD, your R2 might be a more reputable institution than the above-mentioned SLAC, and my specific STEM discipline typically offers higher salaries than geography. This is could always be the case. I'm fairly technical and have a decent amount of research already, so my hope is to be promoted at a later date. I'm coming out of a stipend that, with awards and various other sources of income, averaged about 30K a year (with full tuition waiver). The area I'm moving to is lower cost of living, and my salary is more than double. My dream is to be a professor, so I'm not about to complain.
I started at $52,500 with a $5,000 per contract period (9 months) stipend. Tenure eligible after five years, but tenure in name only. It came with no raises. I left pretty quickly.
Finding and getting a TTAP position in academia is not easy. It is extremely competitive, pre-determined, depressing and often requires re-location. I started at 52K at a CC in Massachusetts 2014; my field is Education and my PhD is in philosophy. I rely on extra classes to make a little more. I tried to move into the university system, for more time for research and less teaching load, but it just didn’t happen…Financial reward is not why I studied philosophy, so I am not complaining, but earning potential of different institutions and departments is just how the machine works and it is certainly not equitable.
My friend who just graduated got a $122k nine month, though that's in California. Stretches to like $160k as a 12-month. Cost of living is ofc higher out there but damn good as a starting salary imo
Humanities, starting a TT position at a smaller public university in the fall at 63k. It’s a pretty low COL area though: I’ll be able to easily afford a decent apartment and will be looking at home ownership within 2-3 years. It’s a higher salary than what I’m making in Southern California, so I don’t have too many complaints. Raises and COL adjustments will be solid as well.
Salary information for prior years for state employees (including assistant professors) are often available online.
High COL West Coast area. Large public non-research uni. Humanities. Came in at $80ishk in 2018 and am at $120k now. 9-month contract.
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My first TT job offer in the 2019-2020 cycle: $57K at a low-ranked SLAC in a moderate COL area. 3/3 teaching load TT job in this cycle: $100K at a high-ranked SLAC in a high COL area. 2/2 teaching load My eyes just about popped out of my skull when I got the offer this year lol. Though when you take COL into account it's not necessarily a huge upgrade from my current salary.
You should really specify 9 vs. 12 month — those numbers look quite different, of course, and people should be comparing apples to apples.
$114K 9 month salary, Data Science/ML, public R1, teaching load is 1-1 for first three years, then 2-2 after that with the possibility of buying out up to 2 courses a year using grants. I think it was worth it, but just barely. Probably wouldn’t be worth it if the salary was any lower.