Inside look: Salaries at Utah State

Top 20 Moneymakers at USU

Information compiled from www.utahsright.com

Provost Ray Coward Quotes:

How USU compares national to teacher salaries:

Need to compare like groups and universities. Salaries at Utah State are lower than our national competitors. “The devils in the details. Who are you talking about? For example, it might be 1 percent for engineers, engineering professors. It might be a quite different percentage for education professors.” “The percentage is less for new faculty than it is for faculty who have been here a longer period of time. So, when we bring in a new faculty member, for example, we are paying very competitive salaries because we have to do that, frankly, to get the best people.”

And if a faculty member has been here for 15 or 20 years, compared to peer institutions, have lower salaries partly because we haven’t been able to get raises through tuition like they have.

Importance of competitive salaries:

“It is critical, because the key to our success as a university are our faculty. You cannot have a great university unless you have a great faculty. And we aspire to be a great university, so it’s important that we get the highest quality faculty.”

Never seen competition for faculty as fierce as it is today. Due to an increased demand in certain areas, like business – “the poster child for this” – has driven the prices up.

“We’ve had to bite that bullet because the alternative is not acceptable. The alternative is to recruit under-qualified faculty or not to replace the faculty at all, and neither of those are reasonable alternatives for our university.”

How much does salary matter:

“There is research out there that suggests that it is not the only, or even the highest, priority. But it is an issue. What you have to do to be competitive is to have a salary which is sufficient. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same as our competitors, but it has to be sufficient so that an individual can look at the other amenities that come from being a faculty member at Utah State.”

How much tuition goes directly to salaries:

It’s a predetermined amount set by the state. A 75/25 split between the state (75) and student tuition (25). The state decides what the raise is and university has to find a way to come up with the money – this is Tier 1 tuition. Tier 1 is consistent throughout the state. Tier 1 is driven by faculty salaries.

Athletic salaries more than academic salaries:

“That always raises eyebrows … It is always controversial. There are folks who believe you shouldn’t pay coaches that much. There are others that believe Coach Guy or Coach Morrill could leave tomorrow and get a higher salary other places.” Our coaches aren’t highly paid compared to other coaches. It’s the same as with professor salaries, need to pay to get quality people.

Older faculty getting less than new faculty:

Called inversion. “In certain disciplines, we are bringing in younger faculty who are being paid more than their senior colleagues. And that causes morale problems.” An “uncomfortable situation” but universities everywhere are dealing with it. Handle this by rewarding most productive faculty, the best performers when there is discretionary dollars.

“First we want to pay incoming faculty competitive salaries. Second, we want to reward those people who are our highest performers. And third, we want to raise everybody as much as we possibly can.”

“It’s important to understand that not everyone at Utah State is underpaid … I’m not trying to suggest that there isn’t a problem. I’m just suggesting it isn’t a problem for everyone.”