How much does an assistant professor really make?

[ScienceGiraffe]

so...a lot of of universities publish their professors' salary. assistant professor in physical science major, which is what i study, makes about 70k to 80k a year. i assume top tier schools will pay better. but still...a BS graduate with a good engineering degree could make that.

 

does an assistant professor really just make that much? is there an error in the reporting? are there hidden sources of income for professors that i am not aware of?

[fuzzylogician]

No errors. Professors don't make that much.

[Gvh]

No errors. Professors don't make that much.

 

Generally, academia does not pay well at all - though there can be exemptions if you're doing computational work (e.g. computational genetics, biology, etc) or work closely in medicine/clinical subfield, but generally you would need another degree over your PhD to be able to qualify (e.g. MD, OD). 

Edited July 9, 2014 by Gvh

[geographyrocks]

Here's a fun trick. Go check out how much the business department professors make. If it's anything like my undergrad, it'll be 2-3 times as much.

Can you tell I'm a little bitter? My dept barely had labs and computer programs...

Edited to add: and there were only two professors in my department that made over $55,000 a year. One was the dept chair and the other had been there for 35 years. And we had a temp professor (he was straight out of grad school) that only made $30,000. $30,000! People choose academia because they love it NOT for the money.

Edited July 10, 2014 by geographyrocks

[bhr]

So, I did a breakdown of this for an undergraduate journalism class. We broke down all the salary data for professors at our small state school (it's worth noting that the state's flagship university pays on the same scale, just with a cost of living increase for the more expensive area. This is for a school where almost every professor is 4/4, with a few research slots in the environmental and green engineering side. (I wish I had the published link but it looks like the prof took it down after the semester)

 

The University of Maryland has a base of 50k for all professors in the system (TT), regardless of department. In the humanities, education, math and phys ed, assistant profs start right around the base (English started a little over 55k for their last few hires.) Associates (which can happen as soon as year five for fast track) jump another 8k or so (on top of any annual increases), with another jump for full professors.

 

In sciences like bio and chem you can add 5-15k to the starting point. Programs like engineering and computer science will be another 5-10k on top of that (so, a start of 70kish). Business and Accounting will start over 80k. All the step increases will scale up in relation to the starting point.

 

The top dozen paid profs consisted almost exclusively of business types, with a poli sci and engineering prof mixed in (The poli sci prof was the most recent provost, so he retained some of those bumps).

 

In my department, the full profs ranged from 75k for the newest promotions (10 years in or so) to a pair making over 120k. One of those was a former provost himself, while the other was an associate dean of the college of arts and sciences, and had 30 years on staff.

 

Now, this is also in a poor area, so that's a lot of buying power, but it will never touch what most of these folks will make on the corporate side, if they chose to go that way. Keep in mind that this is in Maryland, which is a high paying state in general.  Most schools won't be near this, except for the very best private schools.

 

Now, there are ways to supplement your income that won't show in salary. Professors at my alma mater made ~3k per summer or intersession course, and I know some who taught five or six of them a year (usually pre-tenure). Department heads received a bump of 4-5k (along with course relief). Publications, conference keynotes, editing, and the like all can pay money, and I know professors (lecturers and adjuncts, but I'm guessing TT profs as well) who would adjunct at local CCs over the summer or do GRE/GMAT/MCAT tutoring for money as well.

 

You're never going to get rich as a prof outside of a few fields, at least not from teaching, but if your debt load is reasonable you can live a very comfortable life, and the benefits are usually pretty good (defined benefit pensions, decent insurance, job security).

 

 UT-Austin has all this published http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/the-university-of-texas-at-austin/departments/department-of-english/17862/ They top out higher than we did, but they have much larger departments, bigger class size and graduate programs (which pay a bit better, sometimes.)

[TakeruK]

You can see how much Canadian schools pay their universities here: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-595-m/81-595-m2009076-eng.pdf (data is from 2008-2009 so the pay rates should be a few percentage points higher now). [Make sure you read the second table for each school; i.e. the ones that exclude medical/dental profs]

 

Maybe there is a similar study/survey for US schools or other countries you may be interested in? At top Canadian schools, assistant profs in the physical sciences start around $80k ish per year and full professors make about $110k-$120k. If you have admin duties, like Dean status, you might make up to $160k. In some cases, you keep the pay raise even after you go back to "regular prof" status. All major Canadian schools are public and provincial governments require all public entities to publish the pay for all of their employees greater than some amount ($75k in some places, $100k in others) and these numbers above are from looking up profs in the physics department at my school. 

 

By "assistant professor", I mean an entry level tenure track position. There are lecturers in Canada that are not normally labelled as "assistant professor" (or any "professor" rank at all) and they would generally be employed simply to teach. At bigger schools in Canada, their pay range is around $50k to $60k. I know at my MSc school, an entry level lecturer is paid about $8000/course and they might teach 6 courses per year (3/3 load). This seems to be the right ballpark rate because non-research colleges in Canada (i.e. "community colleges" in the US) pay their full time teaching staff at a starting rate of about $50k-$60k and the pay scales up to around $90k once you have been there a long time.

 

So I think how much a prof gets paid depends a lot on field and location. I'm not in academia "for the money", as in I'm not doing it to make big bucks. As you pointed out, most PhDs have enough education/skills to make much more than starting salary ranges. I love my work but I don't love it so much to be willing to do this for $30k / year!

 

My goal is to find some balance where I make enough to live comfortably and also do work that I enjoy. Unless I needed the money, I wouldn't give up all job satisfaction in order to make $150k+ but I also wouldn't give up a reliable income in order to do what I want! So I try to not worry too much about "what if I had a BS in engineering" and just set reasonable income goals before deciding to move on in academia. When I decided to do a PhD program after a MSc program, I made the decision factoring in the low stipend that PhDs get paid. One big factor in whether I continue in academia post-PhD will really depend on my ability to find a decent paying postdoc (my target salary is around $60-$65k, and probably my minimum is $55k; I think typical postdocs in my field get paid around $50k-$60k per year, so these numbers high goals but not unrealistic).

[Eigen]

Entry level TT in the physical sciences strongly depends on geographical location and school rank. 

 

Entry level TT at say, a state R2? You're probably looking at 45-50k per year. 

 

At a good R1? Probably closer to the 70-80k mark. 

 

SLAC's will fall between the two, depending. 

 

Now with the R1 or any research job, you can also supplement your income with grants. Stated income is traditionally for a 9 month salary, September-May, with June-August not included. You can either pick up summer teaching gigs, or pay yourself out of your grants if you're doing research. Some schools also have summer research salaries available, but most of these won't be reported in yearly incomes. 

 

But yeah, professors don't make much. You take moderate steps up from grad school making about 30-35k to a post-doc making 40-45k to a faculty member making 50-60k, and then go up from there.

[rising_star]

The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes faculty salaries. For state universities, you can find them available online. One of the things to note is "salary compression", which means that the salaries of those just starting are often close to or higher than those who have been there for several years.

 

If you're in the physical sciences, it's not just about salary but also about the entire startup package. Are they going to give you the funds to set up the lab, buy the equipment, or whatever else you may need initially? The level of support will vary widely from teaching-intensive colleges to SLACs to R1s. It's not technically salary but, having that already set up may make your grants more competitive, thereby giving you the opportunity to increase your salary through summer pay as Eigen already explained.

 

I'm in the social sciences so a lot of salaries are more in the 40-55K range, rather than 70-80. As my sister often reminds me, I could make more money with my PhD if I got a federal government job (and she's right!). It's similar to how K-12 teachers don't make a lot of money even though their work is incredibly important both to them and to society as a whole.

[bhr]

 

I'm in the social sciences so a lot of salaries are more in the 40-55K range, rather than 70-80. As my sister often reminds me, I could make more money with my PhD if I got a federal government job (and she's right!). It's similar to how K-12 teachers don't make a lot of money even though their work is incredibly important both to them and to society as a whole.

 

In the county I grew up, a PhD at the HS level starts at 52.6k, teaching certs only gets 42k starting. (Both 10-month rates).

[loginofpscl]

Entry level TT in the physical sciences strongly depends on geographical location and school rank. 

 

Entry level TT at say, a state R2? You're probably looking at 45-50k per year. 

 

At a good R1? Probably closer to the 70-80k mark. 

 

SLAC's will fall between the two, depending. 

 

Now with the R1 or any research job, you can also supplement your income with grants. Stated income is traditionally for a 9 month salary, September-May, with June-August not included. You can either pick up summer teaching gigs, or pay yourself out of your grants if you're doing research. Some schools also have summer research salaries available, but most of these won't be reported in yearly incomes. 

 

But yeah, professors don't make much. You take moderate steps up from grad school making about 30-35k to a post-doc making 40-45k to a faculty member making 50-60k, and then go up from there.

 

Thanks, this is the only response that mentions paying out from grants. In the physical sciences (or chemistry really) what percentage of the grant is this typically? At one point I heard 5-10% but I'm not quite sure.

[Eigen]

Depends on how many people are getting paid off of it. 

 

You have the PI's salary, usually lower salaries for Co-PIs, maybe collaborators (I've even seen down to 1/16th month salary per year) staff, admins, graduate students, etc. 

[Guest |||]

80k a year for an assistant and youre worried about that being too little?

 

I've got bad news for you when looking at average pay for assistant profs

[Gvh]

Depends on how many people are getting paid off of it. 

 

You have the PI's salary, usually lower salaries for Co-PIs, maybe collaborators (I've even seen down to 1/16th month salary per year) staff, admins, graduate students, etc. 

 

Eh, I think this varies - for instance, research assistants are unionized at my MA institution which generalizes to all hospitals/research institutes working under that institution. As a result, all RAs start out with the same base salary, regardless of the grant they are getting paid out of.

[loginofpscl]

Interesting, so it's pretty nominal. In this case, the bulk of the funds would probably go to graduate student pay, no? Which brings me to another question: do PIs typically get support from universities to fund RAships?

[Gvh]

Interesting, so it's pretty nominal. In this case, the bulk of the funds would probably go to graduate student pay, no? Which brings me to another question: do PIs typically get support from universities to fund RAships?

 

Sometimes it's independently up to the department to fund RAs, other times directly from the PIs grant(s), other times from the allowance the PI is given from the department. So, I think it really depends once again on the school's system and the PI's arrangement within the department. 

Edited July 18, 2014 by Gvh

[fuzzylogician]

Interesting, so it's pretty nominal. In this case, the bulk of the funds would probably go to graduate student pay, no? Which brings me to another question: do PIs typically get support from universities to fund RAships?

 

This varies greatly by institution and field. In some fields (physical/natural sciences, some other fields), once they are somewhat established and have spent their startup money, professors are basically expected to bring in grant money to support their own students, technicians, RAs, and (partly) their own salary, at least as far as summer funding is concerned. In other fields, there isn't that much grant money to be had, and in those fields students tend to be globally funded by their department, not by an individual PI. In those fields, there is sometimes some funding for RAs which comes from the university/department, but generally there is less funding for RAs than in fields that have a lot of grant money. This also depends on the individual arrangements PIs have with their departments, and probably varies by institution, etc. 

[Eigen]

Eh, I think this varies - for instance, research assistants are unionized at my MA institution which generalizes to all hospitals/research institutes working under that institution. As a result, all RAs start out with the same base salary, regardless of the grant they are getting paid out of.

 

I'm not exactly sure how this relates to what I said. I said nothing about salaries, I was talking about the percent they make up of grant funds. 

 

As to where the funding is coming from, I don't know any departments in the physical sciences where the school or department pays for the RA- it all comes out of grants. 

 

That's not to say departments don't fund graduate students, they just don't generally fund them as RAs. It's either fellowships or TAs.

[TakeruK]

Interesting, so it's pretty nominal. In this case, the bulk of the funds would probably go to graduate student pay, no? Which brings me to another question: do PIs typically get support from universities to fund RAships?

 

Like everyone else said, it really depends. 

 

Also, to add: many schools will charge overhead on all external grants that PIs bring into the school. Profs tell me that the overhead is something that is usually in employment contracts and it is a fairly high amount (like 30% to 50%). Sometimes this money goes into the general department fund for things like paying for seminar speakers, recruiting students, paying RAships etc. Other times, the agreement might be that a professor's base salary is X amount and then Y percentage of incoming grants is added to the prof's salary. In soft-money institutions, overhead is much lower but you will have to depend on grants for all (or almost all) of your salary.

 

What fraction each grant goes to each expense just depends a lot on everything. In most grants, you provide a budget breakdown, and I've seen grants in my field where the prof decides this project needs a graduate student to work on it for 24 months (or whatever). The most common unit of labour I've seen is "person-month" (i.e. a grant for 36 person-months can fund 3 people for 1 year or 1 person for 3 years etc.). But you can even have 0.5 person-month or as Eigen said, in theory, 1/16th person-month too! So in some fields, where most of the cost is in paying people to run computer code, the majority of the grant is to pay students/postdocs/Co-Is. In others, where you need money to get equipment or materials, the salary portion might take up a much smaller percentage!

 

Finally, there may be additional rules about what the money from grants can be spent on. For example, it used to be that in Canada, NSERC (equal to NSF) provides fellowships to PhD students (just like the GRFP) and the rule was that a student on a NSERC grad award cannot be paid an RAship out of a PI's NSERC grant. So this can cause complications as well.

[FlyingDutchman]

I'd be interested to learn the average salary for a university administrator as opposed to the average salary for an assistant professor. I'm guessing it's a much more lucrative career path. Anyone have any concrete info on this?

[Eigen]

At my school, overhead is around 55% of grant income, and that's considered fairly good. 

 

We actually see a bill of the charges, and it's amazing how much the yearly rent per square foot on our lab space is... Not to mention the fact that our tap water must be special for it to cost that much. 

[Gvh]

I'd be interested to learn the average salary for a university administrator as opposed to the average salary for an assistant professor. I'm guessing it's a much more lucrative career path. Anyone have any concrete info on this?

 

I'm not 100% sure about university admin, but when I first started my research assistant/lab manager job, I was being paid more than the first-year postdocs - unfair as it is! I know this because I manage all the funding info for our lab - I wouldn't be surprised if admin, which tend to be more long-term than RA-ships, started at an even higher base salary.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Gvh

[TakeruK]

I'd be interested to learn the average salary for a university administrator as opposed to the average salary for an assistant professor. I'm guessing it's a much more lucrative career path. Anyone have any concrete info on this?

 

I looked up some people in my old department because your question made me curious too. For this school, assistant profs tend to start around $80k. 

 

I found that someone like the Director of Finance/Operations of a department was paid around $90k. 

 

At the University level, I found that the Director of HR was paid around $100k. 

 

However, perhaps these comparisons are not quite fair. I would imagine that these director level positions would require many years of work experience and perhaps some professional postgraduate training while an assistant prof is a new university employee. On the other hand, an assistant prof does have graduate school + postdocs = many years of experience as well. 

 

In my opinion though, jobs like Professor and Director of Finance are both equally important/vital to the University's success and I think it's fair that both types of positions have pay ranges within 10%-20% of each other.

[loginofpscl]

At my school, overhead is around 55% of grant income, and that's considered fairly good. 

 

We actually see a bill of the charges, and it's amazing how much the yearly rent per square foot on our lab space is... Not to mention the fact that our tap water must be special for it to cost that much. 

 

This is incredible to me. I had no idea this happened. The employer is charging the employee for his space to work in?? Granted it's not a direct comparison but I've never heard of Microsoft or Google charging their project managers for their cubicle space and supplies and w/e. For universities to have to resort to shaving grants, the fundraising ops must really suck.

 

I am really confused. Considering that it would be an achievement in itself to land a $350,000 3-year grant, and 50% of that goes to universities... that translates to, assuming all of it is spent on grad student funding, ~3 years of funding for ~2 students at an average university. what?????

Edited July 20, 2014 by loginofpscl

[TakeruK]

This is incredible to me. I had no idea this happened. The employer is charging the employee for his space to work in?? Granted it's not a direct comparison but I've never heard of Microsoft or Google charging their project managers for their cubicle space and supplies and w/e. For universities to have to resort to shaving grants, the fundraising ops must really suck.

 

I am really confused. Considering that it would be an achievement in itself to land a $350,000 3-year grant, and 50% of that goes to universities... that translates to, assuming all of it is spent on grad student funding, ~3 years of funding for ~2 students at an average university. what?????

 

This is pretty normal. One way to think about it is that part of the professor job description at some schools is to bring in $X in grants each year. So I don't think it is that the university "resorts" to shaving grants--it's actually standard practice. This is why universities grant tenure in the first place--because they are confident in the professor's ability to continue to produce good research and continue bringing in grants. It's also a good deal for professors, because when overhead is a percentage, then if you have an off year where you are not bringing in as many grants, you are still protected and you don't lose your job or your salary!

 

At "soft-money" places, where you get to keep almost all of your grant money, the downside is that you might lose your position if you can't fund it yourself. Some soft-money places have a hybrid scheme where the institute itself has some money it can "grant" to its employees in case of a bad year. But too many of these "bad years" and you may lose your job too.

 

There's definitely pros and cons to both! I think that many grants do allow for you to consider overhead when you apply for the money in the first place.

[bhr]

This is incredible to me. I had no idea this happened. The employer is charging the employee for his space to work in?? Granted it's not a direct comparison but I've never heard of Microsoft or Google charging their project managers for their cubicle space and supplies and w/e. For universities to have to resort to shaving grants, the fundraising ops must really suck.

 

I am really confused. Considering that it would be an achievement in itself to land a $350,000 3-year grant, and 50% of that goes to universities... that translates to, assuming all of it is spent on grad student funding, ~3 years of funding for ~2 students at an average university. what?????

As someone who has managed people, believe me that my budget included overhead for all my people. I can guarantee you that every department in a tech company has to pay their own budget for supplies and equipment, and the general overhead is considered when they look at how much profit a unit generates.