Higher Education & Professors

Teaching and research at colleges and universities, from community colleges to medical schools.

Top pay: highest pay, longest training

• Medical School Professor: Doctor or scientist who teaches future physicians, treats patients, and does medical research at a university. Typical pay $230k.
• Law Professor: Teaches future lawyers and writes scholarship on the law. Typical pay $135k.
• Engineering Professor: Teaches engineering and runs a research lab inventing new technologies. Typical pay $117k.
• Economics Professor: Teaches economics and researches how markets, governments, and people make decisions. Typical pay $120k.
• Business School Professor: Teaches business subjects like finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship and researches how companies work. Typical pay $110k.
• Computer Science Professor: Teaches programming and computer science theory and researches areas like AI and cybersecurity. Typical pay $110k.
• Academic Department Chair: A senior professor who runs an academic department, hiring faculty, setting schedules, and managing budgets. Typical pay $130k.

Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship

• Biology / Life Sciences Professor: Teaches biology and runs research on anything from cells to ecosystems. Typical pay $90k.
• Psychology Professor: Teaches psychology and runs studies on how people think, feel, and behave. Typical pay $84k.
• History Professor: Teaches history and researches the past using archives, letters, and artifacts. Typical pay $83k.
• English / Writing Professor: Teaches literature, writing, and creative writing. Typical pay $78k.
• Art, Music, or Theater Professor: Teaches painting, music performance, theater, or dance, usually while continuing a professional creative career. Typical pay $80k.
• Nursing Instructor: Teaches nursing students in classrooms and supervises them in hospitals. Typical pay $82k.
• Community College Instructor: Teaches college classes at a community college, focused on teaching rather than research. Typical pay $70k.
• Postdoctoral Researcher: Scientist with a new PhD who does full-time research for a few years before landing a permanent job. Typical pay $62k.
• Chemistry Professor: Teaches college chemistry courses and usually runs a research lab. Typical pay $93k.
• Environmental Science Professor: Teaches college courses on ecosystems, pollution, climate, and natural resources, and does field research. Typical pay $95k.
• Agricultural Sciences Professor: Teaches and researches crops, soils, livestock, food systems, and farm technology at a university, often a land-grant college. Typical pay $99k.
• Forestry & Conservation Science Professor: Teaches and researches forests, wildlife, and land management at a university. Typical pay $92k.
• Criminal Justice Professor: Teaches college courses on policing, courts, corrections, and crime, often after a career in the field. Typical pay $77k.
• Communications & Journalism Professor: Teaches college courses in journalism, public speaking, media, public relations, or film. Typical pay $79k.
• Ethnic, Gender & Cultural Studies Professor: Teaches and researches the history, culture, and politics of particular peoples, regions, or identities. Typical pay $85k.
• Library & Information Science Professor: Trains future librarians, archivists, and information professionals at a graduate school. Typical pay $80k.
• Family & Consumer Sciences Professor: Teaches college courses on child development, family life, nutrition, housing, and personal finance. Typical pay $76k.
• Maritime Academy Instructor: Teaches future ship officers navigation, engine rooms and ship handling at a maritime college, on simulators and real training ships. Typical pay $95k.

Starter: fastest way in

• Adjunct Professor: Part-time college instructor paid per course, often teaching at several colleges. Typical pay $35k.
• Graduate Teaching Assistant: Graduate student who teaches discussion sections, runs labs, and grades while earning a master's or PhD. Typical pay $40k.
• College Teaching Lab Coordinator: Prepares and runs the science labs that college students do experiments in. Typical pay $52k.
• Postsecondary Teaching Assistant: Helps college professors run labs, discussion sections, grading, and office hours. Typical pay $43k.
• Tribal College Instructor: Teaches at one of about 35 tribally chartered colleges, often blending a Native nation's language, history and culture into classes. Typical pay $54k.

Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.