Average College Professor Salary 2018 – Income, Hourly Wages & Career Earnings

Teaching is one of the most rewarding things that a person can do. Teachers are able to change the lives of their students, while also being able to talk about things that they’re seriously passionate about. Plus, a lot of people talk about how teaching is the best way that someone can learn something. Although the idea of teaching a bunch of little kids can be distasteful to a lot of people, it’s usually a lot more fun to teach people who are older. If you teach in high school, then you have the chance to help teenagers get into the college of their dreams. If you teach in college, then you can help people to get the job of their dreams. However, someone who is interested in teaching may be deterred by the fact that people say that teachers aren’t paid very well.

Is that actually true to college professors, though? Just like a high school teacher is typically more highly paid than an elementary aged teacher, does that mean that college professors are more highly paid than high school teachers? If that’s the case, then you may be a little less afraid to dive into a promising future with this career. In this article, I’ll be sharing a little bit of information regarding the average earnings of a college professor. I’m going to talk a little bit about how that salary is affected by different things like location and experience. If you like the idea of being a professor and if the salary seems like a good deal for you, then I’ll also talk a lot about what someone needs to do if you want to become a college professor. Without delaying this any further, let’s see if we can’t uncover the earning potential that surrounds this satisfying profession.

Average Salary for College Professors 2018 – $62,050

The average salary for a college professor currently sits at around $62,050, and that’s actually a pretty respectable figure. People like to joke about how teachers are poorly paid, but that typically doesn’t extend to professors. For the most part, that’s because teachers at public schools are paid by the government and college professors are paid directly by the college. How does something like location affect the salary of a college professor? There are colleges everywhere in the country, which means that most everywhere has a need for professors. However, there are some cities that have a larger concentration of colleges than others. For instance, Boston is one of the largest college “towns” in the entire world. As a result, college professors are in very high demand over there. The same is true in cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York. If you happen to live in or near one of those places, it will probably be easier for you to find work as a college professor, and you’ll probably be more highly paid for it.

How does experience affect the salary of a college professor? Just like with any other occupation, college professors are more highly paid if they have a lot of experience. A college professor with twenty years of on the job experience (or more) is paid nearly $40,000 more than someone with entry level experience. What accounts for such a large difference in pay? When a college pays a professor more due to their experience, they’re paying for a few things. First of all, someone who has been teaching for a long time is probably more well acquainted with the subject matter than someone who hasn’t been teaching for as long. They’re more comfortable with what they’re actually teaching. Not only that, but a more experienced professor is also used to working with college-aged students and fellow faculty members. Basically, a college professor with more experience is typically better at their job, and so universities are willing to pay a lot of money to get them to work for them.

Finally, how does education affect the income of a college professor? The average college professor usually has at least a master’s degree, though some look to obtain a doctorate as well. Although you might think that working in a college environment makes formal education a little more important than it would be in other environments, then you’re at least partially wrong. Just like with any other job, when you get pursue much higher degrees for a job as a college professor, you’re getting yourself a little bit of insurance. By having a higher degree, you have a better chance of getting a promotion or having a higher pay once you actually get the job. (And if you’re worried about actually getting the job, then I’m sure you can imagine that someone with a higher degree is more competitively hired than someone without one.)

How to become a college professor – Do you need to go to school?

So, now that you know how much money someone can make a professor, then I’m sure you’re curious as to what someone actually has to do in order to become one. As you may have guessed, teaching in a college means that you have to do a good deal of learning in a college yourself. The first and most important thing that you need to do is finish high school. If you’re already dedicated to this career path, then it would be a good idea to get the best grades possible so that you can get into a good school for your undergraduate education. If you weren’t able to finish high school, then you should look into obtaining something that is equivalent to a high school diploma, like a GED, so that you can get into a college. Once you get into college, you need to keep up a strong academic performance. If you want to be a teacher, then you need to go to graduate school, and a graduate school is more likely to admit you if you had good grades as an undergrad. During this stage, most people work on obtaining a bachelor’s degree related to the field that they want to teach.

Once you get your undergraduate degree, you’re basically going to have to start the cycle all over again in order to get into graduate school. Apply to different schools, jump through all of their hoops, and work your way into graduate school. (If you’re looking to pursue a doctorate, you’re going to need to pass the GRE. I know, I know — but unfortunately your days of standardized testing aren’t over just yet.) Once you get into graduate school, make sure that you take advantage of all of the resources at your disposal. One of the coolest parts about graduate school is the fact that you’re given a more rich selection of academic advisers, who can be seriously helpful when you’re looking for work or trying to figure out which academic track is right for you. Although you may not think so, grades in graduate school are still important, since they are what employers may look at when they’re looking to hire you.

Finally, it’s time to get into the market and find yourself a job. As I mentioned before, you would do well to utilize all of the resources at your disposal, and see if you can’t seek some kind of assistance from the different people who you’ve been able to network with throughout your academic career. However, you should be able to do a lot of this on your own even if you don’t have any help. In order to get experience in the field, you can consider taking on an internship or being a teaching assistant as opposed to a full-fledged teacher. You could also try being an adjunct professor, which basically means that you’re hired part-time (at a significantly reduced rate) by the college as opposed to holding a long-term position. Once you acquire the experience and you’re able to find a willing employer, you should be living out you dreams as a college professor in no time. And as a bonus, you’ll be being paid just as much as all of the other college professors are.