Growing Trends: Adjunct Professor Salary Levels
There are two things helping to drive adjunct professor salary levels higher each year, and that is the proportion of youth 16-24 who are still in school is rising every year, and the fact the tougher economic climate is persuading people to retrain and get more schooling.
Adjunct Professor Salary Jobs Increasing
That’s good news for the up and coming adjunct professors of the world – in fact, BLS expects over 523,000 more teaching jobs to be created in the next few years, and that’s in addition to all the grey haired professors who will need to be replaced soon.
The other good news is the percentage of adjunct professors is also rising in the colleges and universities around the nation. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
An adjunct professor is a part-time professor who does not hold a permanent position at that particular academic institution. This may be someone with a job outside the academic institution teaching courses in a specialized field, or it may refer to persons hired to teach courses on a contractual basis (frequently renewable contracts).
It is generally with a teaching load below the minimum required to earn benefits (health care, life insurance, etc.) although the number of courses taught can vary.An adjunct is generally not required (or permitted) to participate in the administrative responsibilities at the institution expected of other full-time professors, nor do they generally have research responsibilities.
The pay for these positions is usually minimal, even though adjuncts typically hold a PhD, requiring most adjuncts to hold concurrent positions at several institutions or in industry if seeking to make a living from it.
Due to the considerably lower salaries of adjunct professors, many universities in North America have reduced hiring of tenure-track faculty in favor of recruiting more adjuncts (and/or Lecturers) on a contractual basis. “Contingent faculty” (non-tenure-track faculty) now make up more than half of all faculty positions in the United States.
Average Adjunct Professor Salary
According to the latest online job postings for summer 2011, the average adjunct professor salary is $55,000. If your specialization is biology or nursing, the average adjunct teaching salary will be higher, closer to an average of $83,000/year.
The range does vary quite a bit, because some small schools pay incredibly poorly for a single course…in fact, you can find offers of an adjunct professor salary per course of just over $1,000.
That’s why it’s good to shop around, and even consider the new technologies that let you teach online, because some adjunct professors are teaching 3 courses per day without leaving their home.
Adjunct Professor Salary UCLA
If you happen to be out at Long Beach, or near UCLA, you’re in luck, because the schools in and around UCLA tend to offer very good salaries to their adjunct lecturers. Salary offers have been spotted that range from $53,200 to over $155,000.
If you are looking for adjunct professor salary scales for UCLA, you should check out the Southern California Higher Education Recruitment Consortium and the recent salary scales publication and the related note on adjunct professor salary rates, because the salary offerings vary depending whether you are on the 9 month scale or 12 month scale.
Adjunct Professor Salary CUNY
The PSC at CUNY keep very good records, and tell us the salaries of adjunct professors are based on a sliding scale, and you need to make sure you negotiate to come in at the highest level on this scale, because future adjustments will be made based on your starting level. Here are the adjunct professor salaries at CUNY, including the medical specializations (data as at October 2009, and annual salary adjustments range 3% to 4% per year):
Adjunct Professor: $87.94/hr – $107.04/hr
Adjunct Associate Professor: $79.29/yr – $97.16/hr
Adjunct Assistant Professor: $73.53/hr – $87.29/hr
CUNY Medical Series
Adjunct Assistant Medical Professor (clinical): $186.89/yr – $233.02/hr
Adjunct Associate Medical Professor (clinical): $218.24/hr – $266.98/hr
Adjunct Medical Professor (clinical): $249.67/hr – $310.11/hr
Adjunct Assistant Medical Professor (Basic Sciences): $115.54/hr – $155.82/hr
Adjunct Associate Medical Professor (Basic Sciences): $146.92/hr – $189.82/hr
Adjunct Medical Professor (Basic Sciences): $178.32/hr – $233.02/hr
As mentioned, PSC has not updated their information since October 2009, and salaries are based on collective agreements, so to estimate current salaries, use the recent historical data of salary increases of 3-4% per year.
National Adjunct Professor Salary Range
According to the American Association of University Professors, the national average adjunct professor salary range is between $37,000 and $73,000.
If you are considering work at a community college, the range will be lower.
Adjunct Professor Salary In Canada
In Canada, adjunct professors are called assistant professors.
If you are applying for an adjunct professor position in BC or Ontario, chances are you can get a reasonable offer. If you happen to apply at the University of Lethbridge, you might only get offered $36,000/year.
What this means is the university is a very important factor when it comes to how much you’ll get paid, and if you want a good offer, you should shop around and check out what the different universities pay. StatsCan have a good document to look at, and even though it is dated from 2009, the range is still valid.
Sadly, when you look at the lowest paid full professor in Canada, at roughly $60,000/year, and the highest paid full professor salary of just $160,000, you realize Canada is not the place to get the best adjunct professor salary.
Other jobs that pay more in Canada: CCNA salary, CCNP salary, optometrist salary.
Adjunct Professor Salary Summary
There are three important factors that decide your adjunct professor salary: what you study, where you work, and your experience. If you want the best adjunct professor salary possible, get your Ph.D., preferably in medicine, law, or science, publish in lots of peer-reviewed journals, and then apply at a university in California or New York state. You’ll have the very best options available to you.
If you want to discuss these adjunct professor salary facts, start the conversation below.
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I suggest this author do some additional research. Most “adjuncts” (many of us prefer the term, contingent faculty) can tell you these numbers seem quite high.
Barry Edwards
Oregon COCAL
Hi Barry, thanks for commenting. The data here identifies some of the highest paying contingent faculty positions in the US, namely UCLA and CUNY over in New York. Specifically, we didn’t pull any data for Oregon, but based on your note, I suspect the annual income is significantly lower, and in particular the adjunct jobs at community colleges are the hardest ones to make a decent living.
One thing that is common with contingent faculty is the many-jobs aspect…people who teach at multiple locations to earn a viable salary – is this the reality for the people you know? And online teaching, is this a reality in Oregon yet?
I have worked at 7 different institutions on Southern California. I make NOWHERE near what you list as salaries. Your examples are so far off the mark I am apoplectic reading them. It is NOT good news that there are more adjunct positions, because that only means they are cutting back on full time positions. Adjunct work is underpaid, with no benefits, and the instructors are expected to do the same work of those who make twice as much and receive benefits. it is a curse on the academic systems. it is a crime, really. Simply a crime.
If someone really wants to know the salaries, they need to go to the human resources pages of the individual institutions and look up the salary schedules. About 5k per class at Loyola Marymount in LA, about 4k per class (sometimes as little as 3k) at a community college in So CA. But, you never know from semester to semester how much work you will get, you have to drive all over the place to cobble together full time pay, and you have to adhere to the different administrative systems for each school, which adds to your work load. Add to all this the fact that you most likely will not get retirement or health benefits, and well, see what you think. Some states pay far less than California.
The real problem here is that the stated “hourly” pay that HR might report only applies to the hours in the *classroom*. What this means is that if you’re really lucky and teach at a place like CUNY (where at least a few office hours here and there are paid; the union really had to fight for that), the “hourly” pay STILL does not pay you for the bulk of your time — planning and responding to students work, etc. For example, if you teach first year writing (where most students are taught by adjuncts or the even worse-exploited graduate students, btw), you are working full-time hours if you’re teaching 3 classes per semester (which means a lot of individual attention you have to give to at least 60 students at a time) , but your pay only comes out to maybe $38K annually at the very most — and that’s only IF you are also lucky enough to be able to scrape together a full teaching load over the summer once the TT faculty have gotten the first shot at summer courses.