College Professor Salaries: Tenure Track vs. Adjunct Pay

Higher education faculty wages tell two very different stories depending on which end of the academic labor market you examine. Tenured and tenure-track professors at research universities earn comfortable wages; adjunct and contingent faculty teaching much of the same content often earn poverty wages. BLS OEWS data blends these groups in ways that can obscure the divide.

Postsecondary Teachers in BLS Data

BLS classifies postsecondary teachers broadly, with subdivisions by discipline. Wages across disciplines vary significantly — business, engineering, and law faculty tend to earn more than humanities faculty. Browse wages in the Educational Instruction and Library Occupations group.

Discipline Matters

Business school professors earn the highest median wages, followed by engineering and law faculty. The premium reflects the outside option — a finance professor with industry earning potential commands a higher salary than a medieval literature professor without comparable non-academic employment alternatives.

Research vs. Teaching Institutions

R1 research universities pay more than teaching-focused colleges and community colleges. The combination of grant revenue, prestige competition, and outside offers from peer institutions drives wages at major research universities above what purely educational mission institutions pay.

Geographic Variation

California, New York, and Massachusetts — with their concentration of elite universities — rank among the top-paying states for postsecondary faculty.