Inflation jumps – Professor pay doesn’t

Full-time faculty salaries increased 2% this academic year over last, according to annual faculty compensation data gathered by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). This is one of the smallest year-over-year increases the AAUP has recorded since it began tracking the measure in 1972 – and that’s before factoring in this year’s surging inflation, writes Colleen Flaherty for Inside Higher Ed.

Adjusted for inflation, real average salaries decreased 5% year over year, representing the greatest decrease in real-wage growth seen since 1979-80, according to the AAUP. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or CPI-U, increased 7% in 2021 and 12.5% in 1979, the AAUP said in a preliminary analysis of its data.

The association plans on releasing a much more detailed analysis of its full-time and part-time faculty salary survey data later this year, in the form of its “Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession.”
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site