Parsing Profs' Pay

According to the American Association of University Professors' 2012 annual salary survey, "the higher education recession could not plausibly be described as a thing of the past." The AAUP says "2011 [to 20]12 represents the continuation of a historic low period in faculty compensation," adding that "if this is the recovery, we may be in for a long ride — and we have to wonder whether we'll ever get back to where we were before the crash." In discussing its data, the AAUP says that while academic faculty members are among the top 10 percent of US workers in terms education, their "salaries clearly don't put most of them in the top 10 percent of the income distribution."

Over at Inside Higher Ed, Kaustuv Basu adds that the AAUP survey data show that salaries at private universities increased more than public institutions, much like they have in previous years, and that "average salaries for assistant professors at private doctoral universities went up by 4.1 percent, while assistant professors at public doctoral institutions saw a 2.2 percent increase."