BY: RONALD G. EHRENBERG
ILR-Cornell University
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=314636
Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. W8965
Date: May 2002
Contact: RONALD G. EHRENBERG
Email: Mailto:rge2 at cornell.edu
Postal: ILR-Cornell University
Higher Education Research Institute
Ithaca, NY 14853-3901 UNITED STATES
Phone: 607-255-3026
Fax: 607-255-4496
ABSTRACT:
This paper addresses three academic labor market issues; the
declining salaries of faculty employed at public colleges and
universities relative to their private institution counterparts,
the growing dispersion of average faculty salaries across
academic institutions within both the public and private
sectors, and the impacts of the growing importance and costs of
science on the academic labor market and universities. The
decline in the salaries of faculty in public institutions
relative to their private sector counterparts is attributed
primarily to private institutions' tuition levels rising by more
in real terms than public institutions' tuition levels. The
growing dispersion in average faculty salaries across
institutions within each sector is attributed primarily to the
growing disperion of endowment per student levels across private
institutions and the growing dispersion of state appropriations
per student across public institutions. Finally, controlling for
other factors, those universities whose real research
expenditures per faculty from institutional funds are growing
the most experience the greatest increase in their
student/faculty ratio, other variables held constant.