University Times

An annual salary comparison survey compiled by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) for 2005-06 shows the average faculty salary at Pitt’s main campus is $79,346, higher than in comparison to their academic colleagues nationwide, who earn an average of $70,333, and higher than the $76,361 national average for faculty at public doctoral institutions.

• At Pitt, full professors earn an average of $113,239, compared with $101,620 for other public doctoral universities and $94,738 for professors nationally.

• Pitt associate professors average $75,545, compared with an average of $70,952 at public doctoral institutions and $67,187 for all associate professors.

• The average Pitt assistant professor earns $64,557, higher than the $60,440 average at public doctoral institutions and higher than the $56,298 average for all assistant professors.

• Instructors at Pitt earn an average of $41,638, higher than the $40,670 colleagues at public doctoral institutions earn and higher than the $40,952 average for instructors nationwide.

(The salary figures are drawn from data from 1,473 institutions, a much broader group than the approximately three dozen public American Association of Universities (AAU) institutions typically cited in Pitt administrators’ salary benchmarking comparisons.)

One caveat noted by former Senate budget policies committee chairman Philip Wion is that the use of average salary data is a representation of the mean, not the median earnings among faculty. “There are a lot of people at Pitt who are not doing all that well to make up for the stars and departments who pull the averages up,” he noted.

The annual AAUP study, “The Devaluing of Higher Education,” which this year focused on how faculty salaries stack up against inflation, showed that for the second year in a row, faculty salaries overall did not keep up with inflation, nor are they keeping pace with the salaries of other highly educated professionals, such as doctors, lawyers or engineers.

The report found that while faculty salaries nationwide increased in the 2005-06 fiscal year, when compared with inflation rates actual buying power went down 0.3 percentage points. And for public institutions the loss in buying power was 0.5 percentage points.

Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures cited in the AAUP report (rather than using annual CPI figures, the survey is pegged to the 12-month change between December CPIs) show inflation rose 3.3 percent in 2004 and 3.4 percent in 2005. In comparison, faculty salaries increased 2.8 percent in fiscal 2004 and 3.1 percent in 2005. But, in actual dollars, buying power fell a total of 0.8 percentage points over the two years.

According to the AAUP study, the last time inflation-adjusted salaries declined two years in a row was nearly three decades ago.

The AAUP report, available in the March/April issue of Academe and on line at www.aaup.org/surveys/06z/zrep.htm, attributed the nationwide trend partly to a lack of foresight by administrators who “did not anticipate that the inflation rate would exceed 3 percent in each of the last two years, following a decade in which inflation averaged about 2.5 percent a year.”

The AAUP study examines the salaries for all faculty, including newly hired professors, to show salary figures for the profession as a whole.

It also breaks out figures for continuing faculty, defined as those who remained in full-time positions at the same institution at which they were employed the previous year.

“The figures for continuing faculty provide a more consistent measure of changing salary levels, because they filter out some of the effects, such as changes in the composition of the faculty, that influence the overall averages but do not reflect changes in compensation,” the AAUP report stated.

“For example, senior faculty members (who typically earn higher salaries than their more junior colleagues) may retire, move to another institution or leave academe. They may be replaced by less senior full-time faculty or part- time faculty, or not be replaced at all. The pay of those who remain may (or may not) be augmented with the savings realized from their departure.”

Both nationwide and at Pitt, the average continuing faculty member’s wallet stood up to inflation better than did the larger group made up of all faculty.

Nationwide, continuing faculty saw their average pay rise 4.4 percent, outpacing inflation by 1.0 percentage points. And continuing faculty at public doctoral institutions showed an average pay raise of 4.5 percent, outpacing inflation by 1.1 percentage points.

But using the regional CPI 2005 annual inflation rate of 3.7 percent, Pittsburgh faculty pay increases were a mixed bag.

Overall, Pitt continuing faculty saw a 4 percent pay increase, beating inflation by 0.3 percentage points.

Pitt’s continuing full professors, on average, broke even with local inflation with a 3.7 percent raise. Continuing associate professors gained 0.2 percentage points against the regional rate of inflation with a 3.9 percent pay increase. Continuing assistant professors showed the biggest gains with a 4.8 percent average increase that outpaced local inflation by 1.1 percentage points. Countering those gains, however, was continuing instructors’ pay, which lagged behind with a 2.8 percent increase that left those faculty trailing the regional inflation rate by 0.9 percentage points.

In comparing salary growth in academia to other professions, the AAUP study found that while faculty may increase their pay by rising through the ranks, when adjusted for inflation faculty salaries show little growth in comparison to other professions. Over the last two decades, the survey showed average faculty salaries increased 0.25 percent, while physicians’ pay rose 34 percent, lawyers’ rose 18 percent and engineers and architects saw gains of 5 percent.

The trend may make it more difficult to draw the best and brightest into academic careers. “Although most faculty members probably do not choose a career in academe for the paycheck, increasing disparities between the compensation of faculty and that of those with graduate degrees in other professions will no doubt make it harder to recruit the best undergraduates into academic careers,” the study concluded.

—Kimberly K. Barlow