The More You Know: How much does your professor get paid?

Jeffrey Kelly | @jeffkellyjr, Assistant Culture Editor

An analysis of the College of Communications and Information Sciences faculty pay for 2019 showed that female professors made an average annual salary of $126,059.91 while male professors made an average of $159,340.70. 

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Female instructors made $64,590.92 on average while male instructors averaged $62,249.44.

In associate professor positions, women averaged $86,593.54 to the male average of $90,800.66, and male assistant professors averaged $159,340.70 while women averaged $126,059.91.

However, women do not make less than men in all positions. Assistant professors who are women averaged $73,595.31. Men averaged $70,254.12. In adjunct positions, women averaged $70,752.46 and men averaged $50,447.72.

The C&IS Dean, who also works as a professor, earned $307,802.54 in 2019, putting him near the middle of the pack of deans across all colleges. The highest paid dean on campus is Mark Brandon, dean of the UA School of Law, who walked away with $397,475.04 last year. Brandon’s salary comes in at just under half of the $805,041.27 UA President Stuart Bell made in 2019. Comparing Bell’s monthly paycheck in 2019 to his pay over the last several months, it does not appear that Bell had to take a pay cut in the midst of COVID-19-related revenue losses.

Across all colleges, non-tenure track faculty made up more of the workforce than tenured and tenure-track faculty combined in 2019. Average salaries for full-time professors vary per college. At the Honors College, professors rack in an average of $244,419 – nearly twice as much as professors who work in colleges of social work, nursing, education, arts and sciences and communications. 

Want to know how much your professor gets paid? Follow these instructions: 

  • Visit open.ua.edu. 
  • Click on “payroll” in the categories dropdown menu.
  • Enter a date range. To find a professor’s salary, make sure the date range spans a year.
  • Enter the professor’s name. Sometimes, the database includes middle initials, so if you are unsure of a professor’s full name, enter their last name and see what comes up. Then, you can copy the output into the search again.

Writer Javon Williams contributed reporting to this story.