The Persisting Gender Gap in Faculty Salaries at American Colleges and Universities

New data from the U.S. Department of Education offers a look at the gender gap in salaries of full-time instructional faculty members at degree-granting institutions of higher education in the United States for the 2016-17 academic year.

For all four-year, state-operated colleges and universities, the average salary for all male faculty members was $91,666. For all women faculty members the average faculty salary was $75,210. Women are underrepresented at the highest faculty levels and this explains some of the gender salary gap. But the gender gap is still present when we look at full professors only. During the 2016-17 academic year, male full professors had an average salary of $121,247, whereas the average salary for women full professors was $106,629. The gender pay gaps are small but still exist for associate professors, assistant professors, instructors, and lecturers.

At public two-year colleges, the gender gap still exists but is very small. In the 2016-17 academic year, male faculty earned an average salary of $63,637 compared to an average salary of $61,907 for women. Even for full professors at two-year colleges, the salary gap was less than $3,000.

The story is much the same at private four-year colleges and universities. For all full-time faculty, the average salary for men was $95,917 compared to $78,120 for women. For male full professors, the average salary was $132,020. For women full professors the average salary was $114,436.

The full report, Enrollment and Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2016; and Financial Statistics and Academic Libraries, Fiscal Year 2016, may be downloaded by clicking here.