While University Presidents Earn Millions, Many Professors Struggle

As the salaries of both public and private university presidents continue to rise, so do the number of adjunct professors working on wages described as 'unlivable.'

In a survey of private US universities released Sunday by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the typical president at a private university earned an annual salary of $436,429 in 2013, up 5.6 percent from the year before. In all, 32 private university presidents earned $1 million or more in compensation in 2013. And private college presidents aren’t the only ones raking it in. The average public college president earned over $428,000 in 2014, reported the Chronicle.

“Many times when I talk to trustees, they refer to university presidents as running companies – which they could also do if they chose to enter the private sector – so to keep a president at the university they will pay what it takes,” Sandhya Kambhampadi, the lead author of the Chronicle report, tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview Tuesday. “They will pay the market value.”

But the cushy salaries of both public and private university presidents stands in stark contrast to the lifestyle of adjunct professors, a growing demographic in institutions of higher education. "Adjunct" is a term used for non-tenured, part-time professors, who receive no benefits, no office and typically paid between $3,000 and $5,000 per course. In 2013, NPR reported that these itinerant teachers make up 75 percent of college professors, and their pay averages between $20,000 and $25,000 annually. And this trend may be long term, as three in four college professors are not on a tenure track, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reports...