The LSU Faculty Senate introduced a resolution on Feb. 23 calling for an increase in faculty wages to adjust for rises in the cost of living.
The resolution requests that the university include a nearly 6% raise for a cost of living adjustment in the budget proposed by the university and the Board of Regents to the state legislature. It also recommends an annual cost of living adjustment to the legislature in perpetuity.
The resolution has not yet been finalized and sent to administration.
That 6% represents the cost of living adjustment given to Social Security recipients in 2022, a measure commonly used to determine cost of living raises across industries.
The resolution, “A Resolution for Fair and Equitable Cost of Living Salary Adjustments for LSU Faculty,” was put forward by the Faculty Senate Benefits Advisory Committee and the Faculty Senate Budget & Planning Advisory Committee.
LSU has offered its faculty five “merit raises” since 2010. Despite their name, these raises are more akin to cost of living raises, as they are given to faculty and staff regardless of performance.
The stagnation in wages is not unique to LSU or to higher education. According to the Pew Research Center, the buying power of the average American wage remained approximately the same between 1978 and 2018.
The average pay of an LSU professor in 2010 was about $81,000 annually, according to the Board of Regents. After receiving the merit raises, that pay grew to just under $96,000.
If that professor’s salary increased at the rate of cost of living adjustments given to Social Security recipients, that professor would be making $101,000.
Roy Heidelberg, a public administration professor at LSU, said that the lack of raises means that workers are taking a pay cut.
“If those prices continue to rise, and your income never rises in accordance, then in effect, it’s like taking a pay cut,” Heidelberg said.
That means that the average LSU professor has taken a pay cut of over $5,000 between 2010 and 2022.
The most recent Board of Regents data has the average LSU professor making $88,000 in 2020, with no raises offered in 2020 or 2021.
The inconsistent raises constitute what Bob Man, a mass communication professor, calls a “loyalty tax,” meaning that those who aren’t on the job market get “taxed” for staying at LSU.
Jackson Voss, an economic opportunity analyst at the Louisiana Budget Project, agreed with the assessment, confirming that the inconsistent pay raises are bad for keeping and retaining talent.
“I think any university that’s not putting enough money towards faculty pay is obviously going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting people, especially people who are highly accomplished and competitive job seekers,” Voss said.
Voss said that the state is still recovering from cuts to higher education made during former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration.
“We’ve kind of seen a few investments in higher ed,” Voss said. “I don’t know if it quite equates to fully catching up to where we were before the Jindal years, but it’s getting closer.”
Mann, who has worked at LSU since 2006, said that prior to Jindal taking office, LSU faculty received a 2-3% raise every year, something that is now sporadic. Mann said that the general understanding among faculty was that when the budget improved, LSU would be expected to play catch up with big raises— that never happened.
While LSU faculty pay has not kept up with the rate of inflation, the situation is more dire in other parts of the state.
The average salary of a full-time faculty member at a public four-year institution in Louisiana is $72,000, according to the Southern Regional Education Board. That’s more than $13,000 lower than the SREB average.
Louisiana ranks second from the bottom out of 16 states in the region.
The Louisiana Board of Regents is advocating for $31 million to return faculty pay to the SREB average.
With the average LSU faculty pay actually slightly above the SREB average, it’s unlikely to offer much of a reprieve to LSU professors.
