Profs Net $169K

Harvard professors are once again the second best-paid faculty in the country.

Full professors receive an average paycheck of $168,700, a figure that trails only the New York-based biomedical science research center Rockefeller University, where professors get paid $172,800 on average, according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Associate professors at Harvard average a $97,100 salary, and assistant professors garner $87,300 in pay, according to the AAUP data.

Harvard’s traditional rivals lag far behind, with Yale University ranking sixth on the list—as professors net an average salary of $151,200. Princeton University can boast a third-place finish with average full-professor pay of $156,800 a year.

But while Yale ranks behind Harvard, professors in New Haven receive significantly higher salaries than at public research universities, according to the AAUP.

University of California, Los Angeles tops the list of highest salary pay to professors at public research universities, receiving an average of $128,400 a year, according to the AAUP. The lowest paid professors in the U.S. are far worse off, only receiving $28,000 at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo.

Harvard professors’ salaries rose in step with inflation. The current pay rate for Harvard’s full professors rose 3.4 percent from 2004-2005, when they earned an average of $163,200, according to AAUP data. The Consumer Price Index for the Boston metropolitan area rose 3.3 percent over the past 12 months, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.