Guest Editorial

Dave Castle
Lamar University

Faculty Salary Compression in Texas: The Best and Worst Public Universities

Faculty salary compression is a continuing problem at many Texas public universities.  TACT reported in January 2001 that nearly 90% of Texas public universities failed to meet the national average difference between the salaries for professors and assistant professors.¹  The salary compression situation has improved little since then, with only six of 34 Texas public universities (an 82% failure rate) meeting the $30,127 difference between average salaries for professors and assistant professors at public, non-collective bargaining higher education institutions nationally.²  Table 1. below shows the best and worst Texas public universities for FY 2004 based on this measure of faculty salary compression.  The data are from The Chronicle of Higher Education (April 22, 2005), supplemented by the 2004 Statistical Report of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Table 1.  Difference Between Average Salaries of Professors and Assistant Professors at Selected Texas Public Universities 

Rank	University	Difference		Rank	University	Difference
1	UT-Austin	$43,000		25	UT-Pan American	$19,400
2	Texas A&M	$39,600		26	Stephen F. Austin	$18,500
3	University of Houston	$38,100		27	Midwestern State	$17,900
4	Texas Tech	$35,700		28	West Texas A&M	$17,800
5	A&M-International	$33,400		29	A&M-Texarkana	$17,100
6	UT-San Antonio	$31,800		30	A&M-Corpus Christi	$17,000
7	Texas Woman’s Univ.	$28,700		31	UT-Brownsville	$16,100
8	Univ. of North Texas	$28,600		32	A&M-Kingsville	$15,800
9	A&M-Galveston	$28,200		33	Angelo State	$15,200
10	UT-Dallas	$26,700		34	UH-Victoria	$14,900

            The best Texas public universities in terms of the least salary compression are nearly all Category I doctoral institutions, whereas all of the ten worst are Category II (master’s or baccalaureate) institutions.  This difference between research universities and teaching universities in Texas is not surprising; national faculty salary data show the same pattern.  The extent of salary compression at the ten worst Texas public universities on this measure is shocking, however.

            Short term salary compression at any particular university can, of course, have relatively benign causes.  High retirement rates among senior faculty in a given year or two can pull down the average difference in salaries, as can a university’s decision to hire  more new assistant professors to bolster new or expanded programs.  Midwestern State University, for example, increased the number of assistant professors from fewer than 40 to more than 55 in just the last two years, while the average salary of full professors at the university declined due to retirements.  Hiring new assistant professors at competitive, market-based salaries, inflates the average salary for the entire group of assistant professors at a university.  The University of Houston-Victoria more than doubled the number of assistant professors during the last five years, with no change in the number of full professors.  As a result of the new hires, average assistant professor salaries there are nearly the highest among Category II Texas public universities.

            Long term faculty salary compression is, however, much less excusable.  And there are a number of Texas public universities that exhibit chronic salary compression.  Six of the universities on the ten-worst list for FY 2004 were also the worst in FY 1999:  Angelo State, University of Texas-Brownsville, and the Texas A&M campuses at Corpus Christi, Kingsville, and Texarkana, plus West Texas A&M.  Another A&M system university, Tarleton State, barely escaped making the ten-worst list in both FY 2004 and FY 1999.  These universities can unkindly, but not unfairly, be called the “worst of the worst” when it comes to faculty salary compression.  The reason for salary compression at these universities is not comparatively high average salaries for assistant professors, but remarkably low salaries for many full professors.  Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board data for FY 2004 show an average full professor salary of only $63,900 for these public universities compared to an average of $47,100 for assistant professors. 

            The consequences of chronic faculty salary compression and the worst-case instances of individual salary inversion are well documented and include low faculty morale, faculty anger toward administrators, and faculty recruitment and retention problems.³   The preferred solution to the problem is, of course, salary increases for those holding the rank of professor.  Given the constant under-funding of Category II institutions by the Texas Legislature, however, the ability of many universities to address salary compression problems is constrained.  Yet it can be done, as illustrated at three Texas public universities that were consistently among the ten worst during most of the 1990s but where now there is much less salary compression than before.

            Lamar University, Prairie View A&M, and UT-Tyler were among the ten worst Texas public universities on the salary compression measure in FY 1999.  Lamar moved from 32^nd among 34 universities in FY 1999 to 17^th in FY 2004, Prairie View went from  31^st to 21^st, and UT-Tyler improved from 29^th to 16^th.  The average salary of full professors at these three universities increased by 32.5% during those years, compared to the 21% increase for professors at all Texas public universities.

 Diagnosing and Dealing with Salary Compression

             While faculty salary compression is an internal equity concern, many public universities also have external equity  problems in terms of low salaries for all academic ranks when compared to peer institutions.  In the instances across the county where substantial improvement in faculty salaries has occurred, the initial identification of significant internal and external salary problems has almost always been accomplished by the faculty.  It is the faculty at any particular university who get the ball rolling by conducting and publishing a salary equity study that diagnoses the particular salary problems at the institution.  It is often the faculty senate that conducts the salary equity study, as at Central Washington University and at the University of Houston.  It is also common for a faculty advocacy group on campus to initiate the process by doing the study, as with the United Faculty of Florida at the University of Central Florida, the TACT chapter at Lamar University, and AAUP at a number of universities. 

            The initial efforts of the faculty are usually followed by “official” salary equity studies conducted for the university by salary equity consultants paid by the university.  This was the case at universities in the State University of New York system, at Colorado State University-Pueblo, and at Lamar University.  Once an official diagnosis of salary equity problems has been made, a university must then attempt to deal with the problem.  Dealing with it requires money, of course.  And universities would be wise to consider the source and availability of faculty salary equity funds before they undertake their official salary equity studies.  Diagnosing the problem but not dealing with it only makes things worse.

            In the best case scenario, university administrators work through their institution’s governing board to secure additional money from the state legislature.  In 1994, for example, the Florida legislature allocated money to member institutions in the State University System of Florida for the specific purpose of helping reduce faculty salary compression.  Colorado State University-Pueblo was awarded special funding in 2005 to correct external equity problems. 

Other funding sources for a university to deal with salary compression are:

·        Tuition increases

·        Restructured tuition

·        Differential tuition by program

·        Increased enrollment

·        Salary savings through attrition

·        Early retirements and buy-outs

·        Reallocations from other university divisions

·        Reallocations within the division of academic affairs

·        University reserve funds

             For the Texas public universities with chronic salary compression, the answer begins with activist faculty members raising the issue.  It also may involve a change in university or system leadership.  Newly appointed presidents and chancellors are more likely to address faculty salary problems than the administrators under which the problems occurred.  Even without anticipated changes in university administration, TACT chapters and faculty senates at Texas public universities can lay the groundwork for dealing with faculty salary equity problems by conducting and publishing their own salary equity studies. 

Notes

            ¹Pemberton, Amy R., David S. Castle, and Bruce R. Drury.  2001.  Faculty Salary Problems at Texas Public Universities.  TACT Quarterly Bulletin.  Austin: Texas Association of College Teachers.  43:9-12.

             ²CUPA-HR.  2004.  2003-04 National Faculty Salary Survey by Discipline and Rank in Four-Year Colleges and Universities.  Knoxville: College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.

 ³See Castle, David S.  Forthcoming 2005.  Estimating Seniority Effects in Faculty Salary Studies: Measurement and Model Specification.  Public Personnel Management; Barbezat, Debra A.  2004.  A Loyalty Tax?  National Measures of Academic Salary Compression.  Research in Higher Education.  45:761-776.