TCCTA Releases 2022 Faculty Salary Survey

The annual TCCTA Survey of Faculty Salaries is now live online, at tccta.org/survey-of-faculty-salaries-2022.

The online survey includes the same important data as always, plus supplemental benefits such as release time, sabbatical leave, on-site child care, and paid dependent insurance coverage. College officials had asked to include this additional data, allowing their schools to explain benefits that do not lend themselves to quantification and ranking.

TCCTA began conducting the annual Survey of Faculty Salaries in 1976. Since 2002, the association has collected and tabulated salary figures from Texas community colleges using four distinct “ranges,” from “lowest quarter” to “highest quarter” paid. The lowest and highest actual salaries for bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees are presented for each range.

Ranges were based on the total salary range for each degree, subtracting the lowest salary from the highest, then dividing the result into four equal monetary quarters. (More detailed instructions are available here.)

In addition, each school’s average salaries are reported and ranked with other colleges in Texas. Significantly, this study of full-time faculty salaries measures actual salaries paid instead of a sample or hypothetical model.

The study assumes a nine-month contract, with 12-month contracted salaries adjusted accordingly at 75 percent. Colleges were asked not to include teaching overloads, administrative stipends, or grant-funded positions in their calculations.

Members are urged to view the ranking in the context of the entire survey. Factors beyond average salary, including the breakouts into ranges, should be considered in making comparisons. Readers should weigh a host of other factors, such as the “additional” benefits reported by the schools in narrative form. Many of these benefits cannot be measured in dollars and cents. A link providing a “cost of living” calculator is also offered at the site.

Faculty salary studies commonly calculate mean or average salaries. Such analyses tend inadvertently to give an advantage to “older” colleges over schools formed more recently, since large numbers of veteran faculty members are found at the higher end of reported earnings. Although the TCCTA study also employs the mean as a measurement tool, it is hoped that, when segregated into four internal “ranges,” with designations for academic degrees, the result enables a more valid interpretation than what is otherwise available.

“No study will be perfect for everyone,” said TCCTA Executive Director, Richard Moore, “But we think this method of calculating and reporting faculty salaries and supplemental benefits allows comparisons to be made with more authority.”

The components of the survey can be downloaded and printed conveniently.

Thanks to all of the colleges who participated and Happy Thanksgiving!