Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty by Academic Rank and Geographic Division, 2016–17
- In 2017, the median salary for tenured/tenure-track professors was $99,033.1,2 Associate professors' median salary was $75,471, while assistant professors' was $64,529 and new assistant professors' was $63,000.3 When adjusted for inflation, 2017 median salaries increased slightly from the 2016 academic year, up 1 percent for professors, 0.8 percent for associate professors, 0.9 percent for assistant professors and 0.4 percent for new assistant professors.4
- Faculty in the Pacific and New England divisions5 had the highest median salaries, across all academic ranks. The lowest median salaries were reported in the West North Central and East South Central divisions.
By Peggy Christidis, PhD, Luona Lin, MPP, and Karen Stamm, PhD
For more information, contact APA's Center for Workforce Studies at cws@apa.org.
1 2016–17 academic year. Data were provided to APA by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), which collects annual salary data for faculty at four-year institutions.
2 Collapsed across all geographic divisions of the United States. Does not include for-profit academic institutions. "Median salary" in the legend refers to median salaries collapsed across all academic ranks within each geographic division.
3 CUPA-HR defines "new assistant professors" as new hires for the academic year being surveyed.
4 Constant dollars for the 2015–16 academic year were adjusted for inflation using consumer price index data for the year 2016.
5 There are nine geographic divisions, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Geographic divisions include the following states: Pacific: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington. Mountain: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming. West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas. West North Central: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota. East South Central: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee. East North Central: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin. South Atlantic: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia. Mid-Atlantic: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. New England: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont.