Where Do Female Full Professors Earn the Highest Salaries Relative to Men’s?

Among the colleges that paid female full professors the most relative to male full professors in 2018 was the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, whose average nine-month salary for female full professors was more than $20,000 higher than that for women at all public master’s institutions, and nearly 120 percent that of their male counterparts. Accounting for the difference, a university spokeswoman says, are that a higher percentage of female than male full professors at the university were in STEM fields, and a higher percentage were competitively recruited as faculty members through the University of Texas system’s Science and Technology Acquisition and Retention program, or STARs. STARs professors receive start-up funds to bring major research projects to the university and tend to receive the highest salaries. Among other colleges where female full professors’ average salaries exceeded men’s were those that had some female full professors in nursing. Nursing professors’ relatively high pay at those institutions reflects, in part, a nationwide shortage of faculty members in that field.

* Figures represent a correction of data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. Twelve colleges were contacted because their wage gaps were unusually large and seemed inconsistent with past years. Five sent corrections, two confirmed the accuracy of the data, and five did not respond.

Note: Data cover full-time full professors on nine- to 12-month contracts at 1,209 degree-granting four-year institutions in the United States that participate in Title IV financial-aid programs and are classified as doctoral, master’s, or baccalaureate institutions by the 2018 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The salaries, which are current as of November 1, 2018, are adjusted to a standard nine-month work year, and averages are weighted. Medical-school instructional-staff members are excluded. Percentages are rounded, but institutions were ranked before rounding. More-detailed institutional and summary faculty-salary data can be viewed online at data.chronicle.com. Questions or comments on the Chronicle List should be sent to Ruth Hammond or the data team.