Benchmarking Faculty Salaries

Report of the Committee of the Faculty

2014-15
June 1, 2015

Background
Charge of the COF: To review matters
regarding compensation and other matters
which affect the professional development
and economic well-being of the Faculty; and
to make recommendations concerning such
matters

Benchmarking salaries
For the last ~ 10 years, COF and College have
benchmarked faculty salaries against the
median of a subset of our COFHE peers
This benchmark has several shortcomings
COFHE median is based on 11 of 31 schools
COFHE data is confidential

President Hanlon has suggested exploring

alternatives

COF Proposal
In addition to benchmarking using COFHE
data, we propose benchmarking using AAUP
data
AAUP data is public
Peer group can be chosen to match current COFHE
Median
AAUP data includes professional schools, but this
is less of an issue when benchmarking trends

Outline
Why benchmark?
Role of faculty compensation in higher
education costs
Evolution of faculty compensation vs. peers

Why benchmark?
Competitive faculty salaries are necessary for attracting
and retaining a high-quality faculty
7% of faculty turn over each year

Dartmouth has many interest groups with conflicting

goals
Academic excellence is the prerequisite for any of the
others mattering
Advocating for academic excellence can be awkward

Focus on short-term changes can obscure long-term

trends

Why benchmark?

Source: IPEDS; median refers to the mean of the interquartile range

Why benchmark?

Source: IPEDS

Why benchmark?

Source: IPEDS

Why benchmark?

Source: IPEDS

Faculty comp and higher ed costs

Faculty compensation is declining as a share of
total compensation and operating expenses
Less than 10% of OPEX at Dartmouth

Faculty compensation has grown at roughly

the same rate everywhere
Small differences in average faculty
compensation are associated with large
differences in institutional quality

Real annual growth rates, 2001-14

Tuition revenue

3.6

Total operating expense

3.1

Total compensation

3.3

Total tenure-line faculty compensation

2.9

Compensation per tenure-line faculty

1.6
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

Growth rates are inflation adjusted using CPI-U; faculty compensation is calculated using the number and per
faculty compensation figures from the AAUP for Full, Associate, and Assistant professors
Source: Dartmouth Annual Reports, AAUP Compensation Data

Real annual growth rates, 1994-2014

Salary

Comp
1.55
1.54

Dartmouth

1.60
1.53

Ivy

1.50
1.49

Top 10 US News

1.52
1.49

COFHE Universities

1.66

AAUP Universe
0

0.5

1.5

Growth rates are inflation adjusted using CPI-U; growth rates for the Full, Associate, and Assistant ranks are
averaged weighting with the share in each rank at Dartmouth in 1994. COFHE Universities are COFHE schools
classified as National Universities by US News. Schools are equal-weighted.
Source: AAUP Compensation Data

Small salary differences =>

Big quality differences
Institution

Average full professor comp 2015

Institution

Average full professor comp 2015

1.

Stanford

275,600

21.

NJIT

216,900

2.

Columbia

273,100

22.

Boston U

215,500

3.

Harvard

270,500

Dartmouth -5%

214,900

4.

Chicago

263,900

23.

Georgetown

213,900

5.

Princeton

261,700

24.

Boston College

213,200

6.

NYU

261,100

25.

Fordham

211,700

7.

Penn

256,200

26.

Vanderbilt

211,300

Dartmouth +10%

248,800

27.

Cornell

211,100

8.

Duke

243,600

28.

Notre Dame

211,000

9.

MIT

242,300

29.

Rutgers-New Brunswick

207,300

10.

UCLA

241,500

30.

Brown

206,500

11.

Yale

238,900

31.

Northeastern

206,200

Dartmouth +5%

237,500

Dartmouth -10%

203,600

12.

Northwestern

236,800

32.

Barnard

203,400

13.

Wash U St. Louis

231,100

33.

George Washington

199,400

14.

UC-Berkeley

230,900

34.

American

199,200

15.

Caltech

228,300

35.

Emory

199,200

16.

Dartmouth

226,200

36.

Michigan

196,100

17.

Rice

222,800

37.

Wellesley

194,400

18.

USC

219,200

38.

Bentley

191,600

19.

Babson

218,200

39.

Yeshiva

189,800

20.

Rutgers-Newark

217,800

40.

U Rochester

189,300

Source: AAUP Compensation Data; Emory and Rutgers did not report for 2014-15 they are estimated from 1-2-year earlier data assuming they
matched Dartmouths growth rate

Dartmouths compensation ranking

1
6
11
16
Full

21

Associate

26

Assistant

31
36
41
1994

1997

2000

2003

Source: AAUP Compensation Data

2006

2009

2012

2015

Average* compensation of tenure-line

faculty, 2015$ in 000s

Compensation, 2008-15
Dartmouth

Ivy

COFHE Universities

Public Universities**

Top 10 US News

2nd 10 US News

210
200
190
180
170
160
150
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

* Full, Associate, and Assistant ranks are weighted by their 1994 shares at Dartmouth (approx. 45/25/30)
** Public Universities in US News Top 30: U Michigan-Ann Arbor, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill
Source: AAUP Compensation Data

Our benchmarking proposal

Track Dartmouth faculty compensation against
two peer groups
US News Top 20
A less heterogeneous group of closer peers
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Penn
Boston College, Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern,
Rochester, Vanderbilt, Wash U

Second group is chosen to

Match levels and trends in COFHE data
Include our closest competition for faculty and students

Next steps
We believe that continuing to benchmark on
these issues is important
We do not think anyone wants Dartmouth to turn
into Dartmouth -10% or even Dartmouth -5%
Need to make sure it does not happen
inadvertently

COF will continue to make an annual report at

the final faculty meeting of the year
Shorter than today!

Thank you!
Committee on the Faculty, 2014-15
Eric Zitzewitz, Economics
Steven Brooks, Government
Robert Hawley, Earth Sciences
Jodie Mack, Film & Media Studies
Adina Roskies, Philosophy
Steven Taylor, Engineering
Michael Mastanduno, Dean of Faculty
Chris Strenta, Associate Dean for Finance & Ops