Frequently Asked Questions About Adjunct Professors

It takes 9 years of professional experience to become an adjunct professor. That is the time it takes to learn specific adjunct professor skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education. If you include the normal education requirements to complete a doctorate degree, then it takes 18 to 20 years years to become an adjunct professor.

A good starting salary for an adjunct professor is $37,000 in the United States. That puts you in the 10th percentile of annual income for an adjunct professor in the U.S., which is about what you would expect if you were new to the field. The average salary for adjunct professors is $80,863, but that normally requires some level of experience to achieve. Furthermore, a good starting salary for an adjunct professor can vary by state.

Yes, you can make $100,000 per year as an adjunct professor. The chances of earning over $100k for an adjunct professor are actually pretty good because the highest-paid adjunct professor positions typically pay at least $173,000 per year. The average annual salary is $80,863 for adjunct professor jobs. For example, adjunct professors in Rhode Island whose salaries are in the 90th percentile earn an average salary of $209,000.

49.7% of adjunct professors are female in the United States. This is 0.4 percentage points higher than last year. Additionally, the percentage of female adjunct professors has increased by 1.3 percentage points since 2010. That means there are a total of 259,835 female adjunct professors in the U.S. and 262,972 male adjunct professors in the United States. Note that Zippia's estimate accounts only for the 522,807 people with the specific job title of adjunct professor and doesn't include grouping similar job titles, or people with potentially similar credentialing.