The average salary for a UC Berkeley professor is $149,100 which puts the university at 13th place in a recently published ranking of the highest paying colleges in America.
Harvard University professors are the top-earning educators in the country, garnering an average annual salary of $193,800, according to the report by American Association of University Professors.
While the sums involved may seem relatively healthy, the report concludes that compensation levels at U.S. universities are stagnating, and that the outlook generally on the financial front is bleak. “Although the worst recession since the Great Depression is now technically over, our analysis of faculty compensation and forecasts for state revenues indicates that the negative impact on higher education will continue for years in many states,” it states.
The survey cuts the data in a multitude of ways, analyzing how factors such as tenure, gender, and experience affect compensation levels.
It also asks who, outside the professoriate, should care what happens to faculty salaries and benefits during a recession. The report’s answer: “Everyone who hopes to be employed in the future, bring home a paycheck, and have something left over to put into savings should care. In the second decade of the 21st century, we live our lives in a global knowledge economy.”
Read the full report here.
