The latest report on college faculty salaries is out this week from the Chronicle of Higher Education, and in general the data gathered by the American Association of University Professors show a wide discrepancy between public and private institutions.
For example, the average salary for a full professor at Middlebury College is $129,800. At the other end of the scale, a full professor at Lyndon State College makes, on average, $68,400.
Within institutions, there is a growing gap between top salaries for veteran faculty, and the earning power of slightly less experienced professors in mid-career. As colleges and universities bump up starting pay to attract new assistant professors, and also reward the most senior faculty more generously, associate professors seem to be, according to the Chronicle, “stuck in the middle” with stagnating pay.
The latest report also tracks gender equity. At Norwich University, for example, women make about 83 cents for every dollar paid to men. At Lyndon State, the data show no differences based on gender. And at UVM, the gender salary gap is less than 2 percent, in favor of men.
Of course, salary data don’t tell the whole story about the way college professors are paid for the work they do. Work loads vary greatly from one institution to another, as do benefit packages. Overall, while college tuition continues to rise, faculty salaries have not seen s similar spike. This year, for the first time, according to the Chronicle, “on average, faculty salaries rose faster than inflation for the first time in five years.”
In Vermont, those salary increases have been modest, even at the highest levels. The largest average raise was at Middlebury, at 4 percent. Salaries at UVM rose on average 2.5 percent. And at most of Vermont’s state colleges, there was little to no average salary increase at all, as administrators struggled to hold the line on spending in the face of limited state appropriations.
The Chronicle report does not include data on administrative pay.
Information about public school teacher salaries can be found at the Vermont Agency on Education’s interactive website.
