Harvard Faculty Earn Twice National Average

Harvard faculty members earn more than double the national average, according to a report released Friday by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

The national average, cited by the AAUP as part of its annual survey of 1,700 college campuses, stands at $62,895 without benefits. The average Harvard faculty member’s salary, including benefits, is $138,600.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, which ranks schools using the AAUP data, also ranked Harvard first in salaries paid to full professors—the average full professor at Harvard makes $144,700 per year.

Rockefeller University, Princeton, Yale and Stanford rounded out the top five, while Southern Adventist University —where the average salary for a full professor is $34,800—was ranked last.

AAUP said the average salary for a male professor at Harvard was $147,000, while women made $134,900 on average—a gap slightly smaller than the national average.

The average Harvard instructor’s salary—$70,300—is over 11 percent higher than the national average for full-time faculty members of all levels.

Harvard ranked in the top 5 percent for all five categories of faculty surveyed by the AAUP—full professor, associate professor, assistant professor and instructor.

Across the nation, faculty salaries rose 2.2 percent in real income in 2001 in what the AAUP called a “fairly substantial increase,” though the AAUP was quick to acknowledge that the survey data did not take into account the recent economic downturn.

“It’s an unusual year this year because so much has gone on in the economy,” said Scott Jaschik, editor of the Chronicle.

Jaschik said the recession has hit hard at many smaller institutions, while leaving larger universities such as Harvard largely unaffected.

Jaschik also said there was a widening gap between public and private institutions in past few decades which has impacted the quality of the faculty at public universities.

“It’s becoming harder for [public universities] to hold on to the best people,” he said.

Senior faculty salaries in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are set annually according to criteria that include scholarship, teaching, and University service, according to Vincent J. Tompkins, associate dean for academic affairs.

Salaries for junior faculty members are set by taking into account cost of living and comparing salaries at “peer institutions,” Tompkins wrote in an e-mail yesterday.