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Average faculty salaries at selected colleges

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Average faculty salaries at selected colleges

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The Chronicle of Higher Education's edition for faculty salaries came out.What is interesting is that most universities with strong research departments pay their professors more than just masters level institutions ( 90K vs 75K). I was checking, however, the average salaries of professors at some selected art schools,which I found very illuminating. I also did some research on the web for schools not mentioned by the Chronicle of Higher Education:
1.Carnegie Mellon $136,000 ( but would doubt that art professors are paid same as other professors)
2. RISD about $82,000
Rochester Institute of Technology $73,012
3. Calarts $63,400
4. Pratt Institute $62,900
5. Ringling $61,900
6.SCAD $61,055
7. Academy of Art University $57,581
8. Otis $56,741
9. Digital Media Arts college $56,000
10. Digipen Institute of Technology ~ $54,000
11. Laguna College of Art $54,276
12. School of Visual Arts: a horrible $47,800. In fact, most "for profit" schools pay their faculty much less than that of non-profits.
13.Ex'pression College For Digital Arts $33,777
14. Full Sail: $ A horrible $31,540

Also, these numbers should be factored in with cost of living. For example, Florida has no income tax, which makes Ringling's salaries a lot better than it looks. Calarts is in an expensive area as is Academy of Art University, etc.
Also notice that, for the most part, non profit institution tend to pay their faculty much better than "for-profit" institutions.

I have published this list because, in theory, the more well-known teachers will probably gravitate to the better paying institutions. I would think that if an institution pays well below the national average, a more intensive scrutiny should occur before enrolling there.

There's a fallacy with these numbers: namely that you are assuming these positions are all full-time --which is NOT always the case. Many positions for instructors have them holding classes only on certain days of the week, not every day of the week.
Also the school could run either the entire calender year, or a part-year with a summer break.
Don't forget that tuition can also determine teacher pay--because higher tuition costs mean the school is making more income--and can offer higher rates.
One of the schools I taught at paid a rate that works out to $100,000 a year ( given that they operated year-round, assume a 50 week year with 2 weeks off--teaching full-time) but I did not make anywhere near that--and I was not teaching fulltime.
Every instructor got paid the same rate, but because of their scheduled classes, some would earn more and others would earn less.

None of these things have ANY BEARING on the quality of the instructor
(and frankly, I think its a bit insulting to suggest they do...)

If you want to gauge the quality of the instructor, determine the following:
-Their ability as an instructor as evaluated by alumni.
-Their industry experience, and time in industry--AND are they currently ( or very recently) working on projects in the industry.
And to a lesser degree;
-Their actual artistic ability.
-Their time in the position as an instructor.

Also bear in mind that the most qualified person is not necessarily hired for these teaching positions--often its the person most available with adequate qualifications. Most of the very best candidates choose not to teach and remain on animation projects instead--simply because it pays more than teaching does.
Many excellent instructors teach part-time as a matter of choice, and remain working on industry projects at the same time ( in some schools, its a contractual requirement)
I did this for many years myself--the teaching income supplemented my freelancing income.

So, please, do yourself the favour of not drawing conclusions based on supposedly "easy numbers" like this--there's a LOT of other factors to consider here.

( just as an aside to this and the dangers of interpreting stats: I now live in what is now called the 9th most dangerous city in the world. This is something of a running joke locally, because my city is certainly NOT dangerous.
The reason for this erstwhile title is that some dimwit took some statistics and misread them, and then published them.
They based the numbers on population or something like that, and considered that the 2 murders we had last year made our city more "dangerous" than another that had 40 murders in the same year.:rolleyes:
You figure it out....)

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

It seems to me. that I have

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