Leigh Guidry

lguidry@gannett.com

How much you make as a professor depends on criteria and competence, of course.

But it also depends on location.

Pay differs drastically from larger institutions that produce research, for instance, to smaller schools in the Bayou State, according to 2015-16 salary averages from the Louisiana Board of Regents.

The best place to work when it comes down to salary is at Louisiana State University, the state's flagship and largest four-year university.

The 425 professors at LSU last year made an average of $115,443. Figures do not include benefits and other compensation.

But those are the highest-ranking teachers. At most universities, the majority of teachers fall in the associate and assistant professor categories. And the number of part-time faculty is growing.

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Salaries for the 303 associate professors at LSU averaged out to $82,467. The average salary of the 281 assistant professors was $75,609. Instructors made an average of $47,520. There were 247.

The lowest-paid professors are at Southern University in New Orleans.

Salaries of 18 professors averaged $49,176. There were 24 associate professors with an average salary of $47,385 and 64 assistant professors at an average of $42,462. SUNO had 40 instructors with an average salary of $10,782.

Several factors go into salary levels like size and programs offered.

For instance, doctoral-granting universities offer higher salaries and are "research institutions." In Louisiana, four-year schools are divided into categories of flagship, statewide and regional and into six tiers.

The nine schools in the University of Louisiana System had salaries averaging $80,645 for full professors, $65,445 for associate professors and $58,594 for assistant professors.

UL System President Jim Henderson said data from the Southern Regional Education Board show faculty salaries at some ULS schools pay $8,000 to $12,000 less per year than their peer institutions in the SREB.

"That's problematic," Henderson said. "It can hamper efforts in recruiting. It can hamper retention. Anecdotally, I hear stories about professors being cherry-picked."

Within the system, University of Louisiana at Lafayette saw the highest average salaries, second only to LSU for full professors.

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The average pay for full professors at Grambling State were the lowest in the UL System at $67,212 and for assistant professors at $49,779.

But GSU's average salary for associate professors was higher than that at two of its sister schools, Northwestern State and Nicholls State.

The topic of salary is one Henderson said will be addressed.

"We're working on a plan now to find a way to address this," he said. "We need to look at our business model. We need to find alternative ways to generate revenue. ... We have to be business-minded in our approach."

How does Louisiana compare?

Looking at flagship universities in other states, the average pay for a full professor is $142,800 at the University of Alabama, $118,900 at Auburn University, $116,900 at the University of Mississippi and $105,300 at Mississippi State, according to AAUP.

LSU professors average on par with Auburn and Ole Miss, top Mississippi State and fall nearly $30,000 below those at Alabama.

The average pay of a United States professor across all ranks was $79,424 in 2015-16, according to the American Association of University Professors’ Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession.

The two highest-paying schools hover near that average, with LSU right about at $80,259 and UL Lafayette a little below at $75,804 a year. Averages include salaries for part-time faculty.

At SUNO, the average of all ranks is $37,451. Excluding the low salary for instructors ($10,782) that average goes up to $46,341.

The national average in professor pay is up 2.7 percent over the previous year.

"Instructors" saw the biggest increase at 3.6 percent, followed by assistant professors (3.1 percent), associate professors (3 percent) and full professors (2.2 percent), according to the AAUP report and Inside Higher Ed.

Employment is projected to grow 13 percent from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations, as enrollment in post-secondary institutions continues to increase, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Many jobs are expected to be for part-time instructors, a sector that has been growing for years.