The average salary of an instructional faculty member is $97,054. But how far that salary goes can vary depending on where you teach and where you live. The Chronicle looked at how the salaries of instructional faculty stack up, and how the cost of living affects spending power.
The average salary of an instructional faculty member is $92,823. But how far that salary goes can vary depending on where you teach and where you live. The Chronicle looked at how the salaries of instructional faculty stack up, and how the cost of living affects spending power.
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The average salary of an instructional faculty member is $97,054. But how far that salary
goes can vary depending on where you teach and where you live.
The Chronicle looked at how the salaries of instructional faculty stack up, and
how the cost of living affects spending power.
Compared with your peers at , your pay is the average
pay for
, which is .
Now let's look at the pay at colleges in your county. Of the institutions in , your
salary is the average of other
.
Now let's look statewide. Your pay is . These
institutions,
however, are located in across , where the pay has varying levels of purchasing power.
When we adjust the salary at each college in the state for the cost of living in its respective county, your
$
salary would become . It would be .
, which you had expressed interest in above, is included
in this group. Its average salary for
was the typical faculty member's salary in .
Let's now see how your salary stacks up against similar colleges.
Compared to the pay at the peer institutions chosen by your college, your salary is
the typical faculty member.Let's now see how your salary stacks up against similar
colleges.
Among the comparison group in which IPEDS put George
Washington
University, your salary is
the typical
.
It seems that you have an interest in similar types of institutions. Your chosen
institution
of was selected as your institution's peer.
Some of these peer institutions also include institutions from your chosen county of .
Earlier, you expressed an interest in . Let's take a closer look at the pay there and in
.Earlier, you had expressed an interest in . Let's take a closer look at the pay at the colleges in that county.
Institutions in have an
average
salary
of $. To have a
similar
standard of living to your current salary, you would need to make there.
Nationwide, your salary is when compared with the average
salary at
3,000 colleges that are eligible to receive federal student aid.
Interested in specific types of institutions? You can filter by
or
, or you can continue below to explore the data by county.
See how your salary stacks up nationwide
These are the counties where the average salary for is higher or lower than your adjusted pay of at , once the cost of
living is calculated. Click on a county on the map below or pan to zoom in.
has with faculty members
who have an average adjusted salary of $.
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has with faculty members
who have an average adjusted salary of $.
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Explore the faculty-pay transparency tool.
Methodology
This analysis looks at over 3,100 Title IV, degree-granting institutions in the United States. Salary and institutional data come from the Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System for the 2023-24 academic year. Average salaries represent full-time, nonmedical instructional staff. While we refer to this group as “faculty,” not all instructional staff have faculty designation and not all members of the faculty, like presidents or provosts, are instructional staff. Salary figures are equated to a nine-month contract, and they include only staff members on nine-, 10-, 11-, or 12-month contracts. An additional 542 institutions with fewer than 10 instructional staff members reported for each rank were not included in the charts, but are included in the county aggregations. Not every institution reports instructional staff from every academic rank.
Cost-of-living data come from the Council for Community and Economic Research’s April 2025 Cost of Living Index, which reports cost-of-living data at the county and county-equivalent level for 3,141 areas. County equivalents include Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Md., St. Louis, Mo., Carson City, Nev., and several independent cities in Virginia. These cost-of-living values are estimates, and small differences should not be seen as meaningful. Cost-of-living figures represent a specific point in time and are not meant to be used for an analysis of change over time.
The Chronicle is not independently collecting salary data used in this story.
Jacquelyn Elias is a news applications developer for The Chronicle of Higher Education. She builds data visualizations and news applications. Follow her @jacquelynrelias, or email her at jacquelyn.elias@chronicle.com.
