The American Association of University Professors published a survey in early April concluding that MU faculty salaries are lower than most AAUP-affiliated public universities.

The survey examined how higher education institutions compare in salary distribution for full-time professors in 1,142 institutions across the country.

The results showed that the average full-time professor at MU earns $117,200 per year, which puts MU in the 42nd percentile of doctoral institutions. The average MU associate professor earns $78,000 and the average assistant professor earns $63,800. These numbers put MU in the 24th percentile and 12th percentile for doctoral institutions, respectively.

This data does not account for part-time instructional staff.

“We are not surprised about this survey or others that show that our salaries are lower,” MU spokesman Christian Basi said. “We’ve been watching this data for more than a decade, and we know that it’s a serious issue.”

Basi said that the university has two types of budget planning processes. The first focuses on how the university will fund the next fiscal year, and the second focuses on how it will fund long-term goals. Improving faculty salaries falls into the category of long-term goals for MU.

“A longterm goal is … looking at what we can be doing now to improve faculty salaries over the course of the next three, five and 10 years,” Basi said.

MU’s major sources of revenue come from the state and tuition. It also receives funding from private donations.

The state of Missouri has appropriated 16.6 percent less money toward higher education between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2013, according to another AAUP survey.

Only four states in the country have increased the percentage of money they have devoted toward higher education. States like Arizona have cut spending on higher education by nearly 42 percent in these five years.

“It’s difficult to keep up with faculty salaries that are constantly moving upward when your revenue sources are not moving in that same direction,” Basi said.

The most recent data was collected in January of this year, a month before President Barack Obama proclaimed the importance of increasing jobs in America to finance higher education in his State of the Union address.

In 2009, the university finished its For All We Call Mizzou Campaign, which raised more than $1 billion over eight years of campaigning. Some of the money raised went to supplement faculty salaries, but most of it went to a specific area of the donor’s choosing, Basi said.

Basi said donors are integral in keeping the university running.

“When donors give money, we are very, very grateful and appreciative of that they do because there are a lot of things that we couldn’t do without that money,” Basi said.

Basi also noted that in the AAU survey, MU was compared to some of the top universities in the country for faculty salaries.

“If you looking at higher ranking universities, we’re toward the bottom of that, and we understand that,” Basi said. “But it still puts us as one of the top universities in the country.”

AAUP is an organization that seeks to “ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good” by establishing academic ideals and methods to be used in universities across the country, according to its website.

Members of the academic community at universities voluntarily create chapters, and more than 450 chapters exist across 38 different states.

“We have a faculty with remarkable qualities,” Basi said. “Many of them are the best in the country for what they do. We want to do everything we can to provide them with an environment that allows them to achieve their professional objectives.”