The HIGHEST-PAID Professors By Subject Area (PHOTOS)

Ever wonder how much your professors make, or which subject fields pay the big bucks? Ponder no more. The Chronicle of Higher Education mapped out which professors rake in the dough -- relatively speaking -- using data from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. See the full chart, including average salaries for associate professors, assistant professors and lecturers, here.

What do you think? Are you surprised by any of these averages? Leave a comment with your opinion.

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Law $134,146

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Alan Dershowitz has been a professor of law at Harvard since 1967.

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Alan Dershowitz has been a professor of law at Harvard since 1967.

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Comments

[RudyHaugeneder]

02:20 AM on 07/09/2010

The pay is pretty lousy compared to the salaries ordinary professors are paid in other countries, like Canada for example, after putting in a couple of years in front of sometimes barely literate students..

[missouriwatcher]

05:41 PM on 07/07/2010

At my institution, it is Physical Therapists and Business who get the "big bucks". I noticed that several of those mentioned here were "celebrities"; I seriously doubt that the run-of-the-mill prof in the same area gets paid anywhere near the same. Also, I was surprised to not see former DOJ Secretary González in the lineup. He was hired to teach 1 class (that's right - 1) at an public university located in the Texas Panhandle South Plains for an outrageous amount of $$.

[agxphoto]

10:46 PM on 07/05/2010

The architecture professor would draw straight lines if someone paid him as much as those Wall Street tycoons.

[Dennisrf]

12:55 AM on 07/02/2010

Gee, how come they get so much less than investment bankers? I guess they don't contribute as much.

[missouriwatcher]

05:43 PM on 07/07/2010

It's more like: what our country/society thinks is important. (It isn't education.)

[sempronia]

05:52 PM on 06/26/2010

Oh good -- in 5 years, if I'm lucky enough, I can join the ranks of the lowest-paid...

[rmendoza58]

07:29 AM on 06/26/2010

The headline is wrong. This article probably talks about average pay, not the highest paid professors. There are plenty of professors around the country who make over 200k, and some, specially in medicine, make over 500k. For instance, in the university where I work, Jack G. Copeland, surgery professor, earns $536,393.

Disclaimer: This is information that's in the public domain, since this is a state university.

[timetocookdinner]

05:14 PM on 06/30/2010

Okay, but talk to anyone who is professor in Arts and Letters (soft sciences, etc) and the story is VERY different. 50 to 60,000 is a good salary, IF you can get a job. And this is after the ten years going to school.

[missouriwatcher]

05:45 PM on 07/07/2010

Exactly!! And in my thinking, that is just SO wrong.

[FT882003]

11:18 PM on 06/24/2010

The highest-paid professor is Chris Murray who is paid around $500,000.
He is at the University of Washington at Seattle.
That is more than President Obama's salary of $400,000.

Murray's salary is entirely funded by a massive grant of over $100 million
from the Gates Foundation. So much for "fighting poverty." !!
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/292240/gates_gives_huge_grant_to_the_university.html?cat=5

[bccmeteorites]

10:48 PM on 06/23/2010

Lots of medical school professors make millions when you factor in the honorariums paid by pharmaceuticals for ghost writing fake medical studies. And the beat goes on.

[bccmeteorites]

10:50 PM on 06/23/2010

Signing on to and endorsing ghost written medical studies.

[michelv]

02:01 AM on 06/25/2010

Not quite millions, but some select engineering professors draw salaries from two and sometimes even three departments. They can also make money from consulting jobs or their own small businesses.

[mrm3]

04:42 PM on 06/22/2010

Gender/ethnic studies??!?! I just LOL'd x9000. Though I guess a lot of students take those courses, so they are big money makers for schools

[missouriwatcher]

05:53 PM on 07/07/2010

No way do they make anything like what the novelist mentioned in the slide show is making. In fact, most schools don't even have positions for professors to teach JUST gender/ethnic studies since these are multi-disciplined degree fields (some courses in anthropology, sociology, economics, languages, geography, etc.).

[lcr999]

08:53 PM on 06/21/2010

ANOTHER erroneous headline. The headline says "highest paid", the article is about "average pay".

[alliee hope]

11:58 PM on 06/21/2010

it's the highest paid professors when comparing the average pay for each field.

[lalin vong]

03:36 AM on 06/21/2010

Wow. Legal professions and studies professors have a big buck of annual salary (134,146 bucks). I think it suppose to be Business or Science professors have a highest salary. You know it is kind of weird to me that professors can earn a very high salary like this because in Cambodia, professor earn the money according to the class they teach. I mean a common payment for university professors is 10 to 15 bucks per class, and mostly a full time professor have 4 to 6 classes. Therefore, their annual salary is around 15,000 to 20, 000 bucks after the income tax.

[Yeyeboy]

06:44 AM on 07/01/2010

That's in Cambodia. Labour is expensive in the U.S.A., hence cost of living is more expensive as well.

[missouriwatcher]

06:00 PM on 07/07/2010

I don't know about the situation in Cambodia; but in many countries, professors are only part-time in education while working a full-time job in their field of expertise.

[formerroadie]

12:20 PM on 06/19/2010

Interesting list. I was surprised at the Gender Studies since most Humanities in this country get the shaft. Culture is often pushed aside for money making sorts of positions like medical and science, but, by pushing aside culture, reasoning skills are harmed. Sad really.

[FredKnowsBest]

12:24 PM on 06/29/2010

I would say medicine and sciences have more to offer then "Gender Studies."

[missouriwatcher]

06:12 PM on 07/07/2010

I would say it has more to do with what they can earn outside academia, not because those areas are so much more important than others. Languages, for example; without them, we would have a really difficult time with the fields of medicine and sciences.

[AbeMartin]

09:40 AM on 06/18/2010

By most folks' standards, these must seem like pretty high salaries, but generally reflect the earning power of associate and full professors. The faculty and staff are the glue that holds the university together, over time, and this role is rarely recognized. Undergraduate and graduate students may be on campus for four to six years. Executive leadership usually leave after about five years.

What is most troubling is the very rapidly expanding disparities between the ham-'n-eggers who actually teach or do research and the presidents and football and basketball coaches whose compensation package may reach into the millions. Even a total mediocre president, who has never really taught, never engaged in research, or a coach like Indiana's Tom Crean who has yet to have a winning season there, routinely receive compensation packages between half a million and millions of dollars.

While these "princes and princesses" of the academy get salaries, a housing allowance, company cars, expense accounts, and opportunities to serve on corporate boards, get endorsement deals and consult, hundreds of thousands of instructors, assistant professors, and adjuncts make barely enough to make ends meet.

[formerroadie]

12:22 PM on 06/19/2010

What is also problematic is the fact that University Professors' salaries are the ones that get cut, not the President's or sports personnels'. It really does baffle. When I am done, I will have 18 years of school and yet I will be in the humanities. My salary will not reflect the amount of work I have put in to train to be a good professor and researcher in my field.

[missouriwatcher]

06:04 PM on 07/07/2010

But most of us don't teach or do research because it pays a lot: rather, because it is what we enjoy doing. Job satisfaction is priceless.

[LogicOnlyPlease]

01:05 AM on 06/18/2010

Overpaid. Their pay comes at the expense of millions of debt crippling students.

[Faust Part 3]

07:33 AM on 06/18/2010

Its a bloated administration that is the real problem in my opinion.

[formerroadie]

12:24 PM on 06/19/2010

I have to say that you are incredibly wrong. It's the President, et al, that are usually overpaid. Many of these people have multiple degrees themselves and have worked hard to earn such a, in my opinion, low salary in comparison to the work they put in. They do it because they love it. I am one of those people.

[MJVs Common Sense]

07:42 PM on 06/17/2010

Com on HuffPo, you are seriously lowballing these numbers. I'm not sure what your metric is, but I know a number of professors who make much more than this, especially once they start adding titles like Dean, Director, etc.

In fact, I'm pretty sure some professors in the sciences at Harvard and Yale make 7 figures as a result of the recent fights between the two over the best research faculty. That is in addition to all the other awesome stuff they get (state of the art research labs, and army of grad students, and major research funding).

I'm not sure I take this seriously...

[Faust Part 3]

07:33 AM on 06/18/2010

There are a lot of crappy colleges out there whose professors don't make that much.

[Uncle Bill]

07:28 PM on 06/18/2010

There are adjunct and non tenured track instructors at Ivy League and other prestigious universities that earn far less than the averages presented here. Many of these people have left academia for blue collar jobs in the trades or middle management jobs because they made more money for that work. Some of those jobs have disappeared like their co workers who never spent money on advanced degrees and don't have the student loan burden.