A sampling of average overall salaries for professors:
- UC Berkeley (ie bay area): $214,300
- UCLA: $234,200
- UT San Antonio: $130,900
- UT Dallas: $169,500
So an average Berkeley professor makes more than half again as much as an average UT San Antonio professor. And 25% more than UT Dallas.
In the end I imagine the prof at UTD could easily have more cash at the end of the month than the prof at UC Berkeley.
UTSA is such a small school it really shouldn't even be compared to UC Berkeley or UCLA.
https://www.ucop.edu/loan-programs/loan-programs/frap/index....
It doesn't really say what percentage of professors get this assistance or how much that assistance is typical in the end.
Faculty housing rates at UCLA:
https://portal.housing.ucla.edu/faculty-housing/faculty-hous...
So pretty much >$2k and up to $5,427/mo for housing costs. And that's supposed to be somehow more affordable than the surrounding area? For a 2bdr apartment its >$500/mo more than my mortgage + insurance on a four bedroom home with a pool purchased recently. For the condos, that's a few grand a month more. Compared to $1,400/mo average rent immediately surrounding UTD. Rent can be found for <$850/mo in Richardson, only 42-70% of the cost. And that's without having a small commute and living in a cheaper part of DFW, as Richardson's real estate isn't exactly a cheap part of town.
That would have to be a pretty good-sized stipend to offset that cost. Also it speaks volumes that a professor making >$40k gross more needs to then also have a housing stipend to make the actual take home close to the person making >$40k less.
I remember taking a hard look at some job offers around SF, relocating from DFW. Crunching the numbers I would have needed well more than twice my current salary to have my savings rate be the same and I'd still be downsizing my housing a good bit.
A major issue in looking at the averages at the entire university level like this is that you might be comparing apples to oranges. There are typically three ranks among research professors: assistant, association, and full. These positions can additionally have chairs. The salaries differ considerably across these ranks. Then there are teaching positions which are usually non tenure track. They may also have the same assistant, associate, and full professor positions but their salaries are much lower than the research professors. AAUP appendix has combined all of them into one single category.
Finally, this survey masks the salary differences among different disciplines. In American universities, B-school professors typically earn way more than other disciplines such as pure sciences, psychology, and engineering.
When we do salary comparisons (we have to do it while negotiating a raise), we pick out colleges/schools that are similarly ranked as ours and then we take average salaries of professors at the same position. As I mentioned, the salaries are public so this is possible although quite tedious.