NURSING FACULTY SALARIES
SHOW MODEST GAIN,
AACN SURVEY FINDS
However, Most Increases Only
Narrowly Outpace Inflation
WASHINGTON, D.C., February
28, 1996 -- Doctorally
prepared professors in nursing schools at the nation's universities
and four-year colleges are earning an average of $59,717
in the current 1995-1996 academic year, up 2.5 percent above
a year ago, according to the latest survey by the American
Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
However, despite slightly higher salaries,
most nursing school faculty stayed only a thin edge ahead
of inflation, and some experienced actual decreases in "real-dollar"
buying power after adjusting for inflation.
The survey, conducted in fall 1995, is AACN's
18th annual report of nursing faculty salaries and is based
on responses by 508 (77.4 percent) of the nation's nursing
schools with baccalaureate and graduate programs. Salary
data were provided for 9,319 (97.8 percent) of nurse faculty
at responding schools.
The AACN survey not only reports salaries
for faculty in the current academic year, but shows how
salary changes translate into "real-dollar" earnings
after adjusting for inflation in each of the past five one-year
periods.
Average salaries for this academic year
range from a low of $12,584 for an assistant professor without
a doctoral degree to a high of $160,000 for a doctorally
prepared professor, both in private secular institutions.
All faculty ranks saw salary gains this
year ranging from 2.3 percent to 4.7 percent, with the largest
increases going to nondoctorally prepared instructors (4.7
percent, to $35,196), followed by doctorally prepared assistant
professors and instructors (3.4 percent, to $43,227 and
$39,753, respectively). Nondoctorally prepared professors
realized the narrowest gain, up 2.3 percent above a year
ago to $52,251.
However, their salary increases provided
most faculty only a narrow lead ahead of the rising cost
of living, while some faculty actually fell behind the pace
of inflation, in the one-year period between the 1993-94
and 1994-95 academic years. For example, gains in monetary
salary of 2.8 percent for doctorally prepared professors
and 2.4 percent for nondoctorally prepared associate professors
translated to decreases of 0.1 percent and 0.5
percent, respectively, after adjusting for that period's
2.9 percent Consumer Price Index of All Urban Consumers
(CPI-U). Doctorally prepared instructors, who had the largest
increase in salary during that period (5 percent), realized
only a 2.1 percent gain after adjusting for the CPI-U. Salaries
for doctorally prepared associate professors, which rose
by 2.9 percent, saw no gain after adjusting for inflation
and remained steady.
"Given the constricting financial
pressures on higher education, we welcome even the modest
salary gains for most faculty this year," says AACN
President Rachel Z. Booth, PhD, RN. "However, our concern
grows for several categories of faculty who -- across the
past five years -- have fallen behind the rising cost of
living, while all others have seen their salaries stay ahead
of inflation by only the narrowest margin."
"Within nursing, our own pressures
are mounting to supply the largest health profession with
higher numbers of clinicians, educators, researchers, and
administrators for a health system in which all projections
show expanding roles for nurses in inpatient and outpatient
settings and health promotion," Dr. Booth explains.
"Our ability to meet this task will rest heavily on
our ability to offer salaries that keep education an attractive
career choice for talented nurses nationwide. Already we
are competing with the lure of higher salaries in the private
sector, where opportunities for master's-prepared clinicians
and for doctorally prepared directors of research and heads
of information management are expanding rapidly."
Sixty-five percent of faculty at nursing
schools responding to the AACN survey teach in public institutions,
followed by faculty in private religious (21.3 percent)
and private secular (13 percent) schools. The vast majority
of faculty are nurses (98.3 percent).
Of faculty at responding schools, 81.5 percent
are working at universities, with 16.5 percent based at
four-year colleges. Professors comprise 10.8 percent of
all full-time faculty at responding schools, while 26.9
percent are associate professors, 40.5 percent are assistant
professors, and 15.3 percent are instructors. Some 6.5 percent
are classified as "other," such as clinical associates,
lecturers, visiting professors, and adjunct faculty.
Copies of the AACN survey, 1995-1996
Faculty Salaries in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs
in Nursing, are available for $45.00 (plus
$3.00 postage), prepaid orders only, from AACN, Dept. 178,
Washington, DC 20055-0178; (202) 463-6930.
The American Association of Colleges
of Nursing is the national voice for university and four-year-college
education programs in nursing. Representing more than 580
member schools of nursing at public and private institutions
nationwide, AACN's educational, research, governmental advocacy,
data collection, publications, and other programs work to
establish quality standards for bachelor's- and graduate-degree
nursing education, assist deans and directors to implement
those standards, influence the nursing profession to improve
health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate
and graduate nursing education, research, and practice.
###
CONTACT: Robert Rosseter
(202) 463-6930, x231
rrosseter@aacn.nche.edu
