UNC faculty compensation compares favorably with pay at peer institutions around the country, a new report from the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy says.

Using data from the American Association of University Professors, report author Jon Sanders of the John Locke Foundation compared average faculty compensation (salaries plus benefits), adjusted for living costs, with compensation at peer universities around the country. He compared University of North Carolina campuses with institutions in the same Carnegie classification, a widely used way of grouping higher education institutions.

“The situation is not as dire as many commentators suggest,” the report says. “It’s not dire at all. When compared to compensation at peer institutions as identified by the widely-used Carnegie classifications of higher education institutions, overall, faculty compensation levels in the UNC system compare favorably or very favorably to those at peer institutions.”

There are a few exceptions, however. One school, UNC-Asheville, is below the mean in all three faculty levels (professor, associate professor, and assistant professor). Three other schools have at least one faculty level that is below average.

Some of the report’s findings are:

• UNC compensation compares well with peers
• Average compensation at most schools is above the median of peers
• Full professors at Chapel Hill are near the 80th percentile; NC State full professors are below the median
• Eight campuses have reached 80th percentile for at least one faculty level
• Four campuses — NC Central, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Pembroke, and Winston-Salem State — are at the 80th percentile for all faculty levels
• UNC-Asheville is below the mean in all three faculty levels.

The General Assembly allocates funds for faculty compensation. For the 2007-2009 biennium, Erskine Bowles, UNC president, is seeking $87.8 million to boost faculty salaries, with the goal of having the average faculty salary be at the 80th percentile of peer institutions.

Eight UNC schools are already at the 80th percentile in at least one of their three faculty levels. The report indicates that schools having one or more faculty levels at the 80th percentile are:

• Appalachian State (associate professors and assistant professors)
• East Carolina (full and assistant professors)
• Fayetteville State (associate and assistant professors)
• NC Central (all three faculty levels)
• UNC-Charlotte (all three faculty levels)
• UNC-Pembroke (all three faculty levels)
• Western Carolina (assistant professors)
• Winston-Salem State (all three faculty levels).

At four schools, however, average compensation of one or more faculty levels was below the mean and median levels of peer institutions. Those were:

• Elizabeth City State (full professors)
• NC A&T State (full and associate professors)
• NC State (full professors)
• UNC-Asheville (all three faculty levels).

Sanders also compared the faculty compensation with the peer institutions selected by a consultant to the university system, Dennis Jones. The consultant identified 14 to 16 peer institutions for each campus. Under this comparison, the UNC campuses did not do as well. Twenty-three of the 45 faculty levels examined at a total of 11 schools were below the peer mean or peer median.

Sanders considers the Carnegie comparisons more relevant for deciding whether compensation is competitive with other schools. He said faculty members are open to offers from many schools, not just from designated peer institutions. “UNC-Chapel Hill is not competing against only a dozen or so institutions for faculty,” Sanders said.

The paper is available online at www.popecenter.org.