2017-18: Psychology Faculty Salaries

Each year, the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) conducts compensation surveys for faculty in higher education. Salary data are broken down by several variables, including academic discipline, academic rank, tenure status, institution type, presence of collective bargaining units and Carnegie Classification of the institution.

This report focuses on salaries collected by CUPA-HR for psychology faculty employed full-time in four-year colleges and universities during the 2017-18 academic year.

• When adjusted for inflation, median salaries between 2016-17 and 2017-18 did not increase much for most faculty. In many cases, salaries remained stagnant, or even decreased slightly (between 0.9 and 3.7 percent). Depending on the academic rank, salaries did not always keep pace with inflation, and psychology faculty from all academic ranks and at all types of Carnegie classifications saw smaller increases in their salaries between 2017 and 2018, than they did between 2016 and 2017.
• Tenured/tenure-track psychology faculty employed at private independent institutions earned the highest salaries – more than faculty at public and private religious institutions – across all academic ranks. Psychology faculty employed at private religious institutions had the lowest median salaries.
• Tenured/tenure-track psychology faculty working in the Pacific division of the United States (i.e., Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington) earned the highest median salaries. The lowest median salaries were reported for faculty in the West South Central (i.e., Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas) and West North Central (i.e., Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) geographic divisions.
• For psychology tenured/tenure-track positions, the majority of faculty in the academic ranks of new assistant professor, assistant professor, and associate professor were female. However, there were more male faculty than female faculty in the position of professor. In addition, male and female tenured/tenure-track psychology faculty earned nearly equivalent salaries across all academic ranks.
• Racial/ethnic minority psychology faculty in tenured/tenure-track positions earned salaries that were similar (or slightly surpassed) the salaries of White psychology faculty. However, fewer racial/ethnic minorities held these faculty positions, particularly in higher academic ranks, such as associate professor and professor.
• Psychology faculty working at public institutions with collective bargaining units earned more than psychology faculty who worked at public institutions without collective bargaining units. Collapsed across all academic ranks, unionized faculty who were tenured/tenure-track earned almost 9 percent more than their non-unionized counterparts. Non-tenured psychology faculty with collective bargaining earned almost 15 percent more than those without collective bargaining.
• Collapsed across academic rank and institution type (i.e., public, private independent and private religious), non-tenure-track teaching faculty earned approximately 76.2 percent of the salaries earned by tenured/tenure-track faculty.
• In general, psychology faculty earned less than faculty working in other social science disciplines, as well as faculty in other science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) or STEM-related disciplines.

American Psychological Association (2017). Psychology faculty salaries for the 2016-2017 academic year: Results from the 2017 CUPA-HR survey for four-year colleges and universities.  Washington, DC: Author.

Bichsel, J., Li, J., Pritchard, A. & McChesney, J. (2018). Faculty in Higher Education Salary Report: Key Findings, Trends, and Comprehensive Tables for Tenure Track, Non-Tenure Track Teaching, Non-Tenure Track Research Faculty; Academic Department Heads; and Adjunct Faculty at Four-Year Institutions for the 2017-18 Academic Year. Research report. Knoxville, TN: CUPA-HR. Available from https://www.cupahr.org/surveys/results.

Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (2010). The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup_listings/standard.php.

College and University Professional Association for Human Resources [CUPA-HR] (2016). Faculty in Higher Education Salary Survey for the 2015-16 Academic Year: By Discipline, Rank and Tenure Status in Four-Year Colleges and Universities. Knoxville, TN: Author.

Landivar, L. C. (2013). The Relationship between Science and Engineering Education and Employment in STEM Occupations. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2013/acs/acs-23.html.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016). CPI Detailed Report: Data for December 2017.  Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_01122018.pdf.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016). CPI Inflation Calculator. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System [IPEDS] (2013). IPEDS glossary.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).  Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cipcode/browse.aspx?y=55.

• Appendix A: Technical Documentation (PDF, 99KB)
• Appendix B: Supporting Data for Figures (PDF, 127KB)

• Table 1: Number of Faculty and Institutions that Provided Salary Data for Psychology Faculty by Tenure Status, Institution Type and Academic Rank, 2017-18 (PDF, 110KB)
• Table 2: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Academic Rank and Carnegie Classification of Institution (Constant and Adjusted Dollars), 2016-17 and 2017-18 (PDF, 82KB)
• Table 3: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Academic Rank and Institution Type, 2017-18 (PDF, 112KB)
• Table 4: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Academic Rank for Public Institutions with and without Collective Bargaining Units, 2017-18 (PDF, 101KB)
• Table 5: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Gender and Academic Rank, 2017-18 (PDF, 66KB)
• Table 6: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Race/Ethnicity and Academic Rank, 2017-18 (PDF, 67KB)
• Table 7: Median Salaries for Non-Tenure-Track Psychology Teaching Faculty by Academic Rank and Institution Type, 2017-18 (PDF, 145KB)
• Table 8: Median Salaries for Non-Tenure-Track Psychology Teaching Faculty by Academic Rank for Public Institutions with and without Collective Bargaining Units, 2017-18 (PDF, 102KB) 
• Table 9: Percentages of Median Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty Salaries Earned by Non-Tenure-Track Psychology Teaching Faculty, 2017-18 (PDF, 81KB)
• Table 10: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty and Faculty in other Social Science Disciplines by Academic Rank and Institution Type, 2017-18 (PDF, 80KB)

• Figure 1: Percent Differences in Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Academic Rank and Carnegie Classification of Institution, 2016-17 to 2017-18 (PDF, 75KB)
• Figure 2: Median Salaries and Salary Ranges for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Academic Rank, 2017-18 (PDF, 53KB)
• Figure 3: Percent Differences in Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Academic Rank and Institution Type, 2017-18 (PDF, 86KB)
• Figure 4: Percent Differences in Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty Employed at Public Institutions with and without Collective Bargaining Units, 2017-18 (PDF, 58KB)
• Figure 5: Median Salaries and Salary Ranges for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty by Type of Institution, 2017-18 (PDF, 67KB)
• Figure 6: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty by Academic Rank and Geographic Division, 2017-18 (PDF, 66KB)
• Figure 7: Percent Differences in Median Salaries for Non-Tenure-Track Psychology Teaching Faculty by Academic Rank and Institution Type, 2017-18 (PDF, 86KB)
• Figure 8: Percent Differences in Median Salaries for Non-Tenure-Track Psychology Teaching Faculty Employed at Public Institutions with and without Collective Bargaining Units, 2017-18 (PDF, 59KB)
• Figure 9: Percent Differences in Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty and Faculty in other Social Science Disciplines by Academic Rank and Institution Type, 2017-18 (PDF, 84KB)
• Figure 10: Median Salaries for Tenured/Tenure-Track Psychology Faculty and Faculty in other STEM and Non-STEM Disciplines by Academic Rank and Carnegie Classification of Institution, 2017-18 (PDF, 89KB)

Recommended citation: American Psychological Association (2018). Psychology faculty salaries for the 2017-2018 academic year: Results from the 2018 CUPA-HR survey for four-year colleges and universities. Washington, DC: Author.

This report describes research and analysis conducted by staff members of the American Psychological Association’s Center for Workforce Studies. It does not constitute official policy of the American Psychological Association.

The authors thank Jackie Bichsel and Jasper McChesney for providing additional special analyses on psychology faculty presented in this report, and Jim Diaz-Granados and Howard Kurtzman for valuable input on previous drafts of this report.