Working For a Living: The Role of Benefits in Faculty Compensation

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the different ways in which colleges compensate faculty for their labor. I begin with a discussion of how institutions think about benefits as part of total faculty compensation, and the factors that might influence how much institutions spend on retirement and health benefits. From there, I use data from the latest AAUP survey in 2024 to examine the level of salaries, retirement contributions, and health contributions and how they vary by type of institution. Finally, in the last section of the paper I combine AAUP data on faculty salaries and benefits in 2018 with institutional data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to examine in more detail how salaries, benefits, and total compensation are related to selected faculty and institutional characteristics.