The AAUP office reopened on September 7, 2021. Contact information for all staff, including those working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, is available here.
The AAUP office reopened on September 7, 2021. Contact information for all staff, including those working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, is available here.
With the COVID-19 pandemic currently raging through the country, higher education has entered grim and uncertain times. This year’s Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession recaps the key findings from the AAUP’s 2019–20 Faculty Compensation Survey, initially released in April, presenting salary data for full-time faculty members as well as information on gender inequities, retirement and medical benefits, part-time faculty pay and benefits, and administrator salaries. The report also highlights key data points related to the economy, institutional finances, enrollment, and the makeup of the academic workforce. The findings provide a snapshot of faculty compensation for the 2019–20 academic year, as the country was on the brink of what may be the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression.
On average, salaries for full-time faculty members at US colleges and universities are 2.8 percent higher in 2019–20 than they were in the preceding academic year. With consumer prices growing by 2.3 percent during the year, the increase in real terms was 0.5 percent.
The 2019–20 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession discusses key data points relevant to monitoring the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. Some areas of concern discussed in the report include the following:
In addition, the report describes improvements that were made to the AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey this year, including full-time faculty benefits data collection and the inclusion of regional price parities to account for cost-of-living differences between states and metro areas.
The US economy is facing a crisis that is unprecedented in recent memory, with an estimated unemployment rate higher than at any time since the Great Depression. The findings presented in the 2019–20 Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession provide a snapshot of faculty compensation for the 2019–20 academic year. In the coming months and years of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis, the AAUP Research Office will study key data points related to the economy, institutional finances, enrollment, the academic workforce, and salaries.