Adjunct business professor pay per course
From real business adjunct and lecturer postings across U.S. colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · business
- $4,000
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $3,000 – $6,387
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $937 – $10,253
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 84
Based on 215 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Highest-paying institutions
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay business listings.
- Santa Clara University$10,230n=4
- Virginia Commonwealth University$8,650n=8
- Johns Hopkins University$7,315n=3
- Brandeis University$6,573n=9
- University of Kansas$6,500n=6
- Edmonds College$6,387n=8
- Augsburg University$6,175n=4
- University of Colorado Colorado Springs$5,000n=14
- Texas A&M University-Texarkana$4,500n=3
- Rider University$4,215n=5
- Governors State University$4,000n=5
- Western New England University$3,900n=5
By state
States with at least five disclosed-pay business listings.
- California$10,200n=21
- Virginia$8,650n=11
- Kansas$6,500n=6
- Washington$6,387n=8
- Minnesota$6,175n=5
- Colorado$5,000n=19
- Massachusetts$5,000n=35
- New Jersey$4,215n=7
- New York$4,150n=12
- Maryland$3,500n=7
- Texas$3,500n=21
- New Hampshire$3,400n=5
- Georgia$3,075n=5
- Florida$2,491n=5
- Illinois$2,129n=16
Twelve-month trend
$3,735Nov 2025
$3,615Dec 2025
$7,562Jan 2026
$7,562Feb 2026
$10,000Mar 2026
$3,500Apr 2026
$4,200May 2026
$3,400Jun 2026
$4,554Jul 2026
$3,000Aug 2026
$3,500Sep 2026
$3,750Oct 2026
Median per-course pay of listings posted each month.
What the median means per year
Adjuncts are paid per course, so annual income depends on load. At $4,000 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $16,000
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $24,000
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $48,000
Before tax, no benefits. Most institutions cap adjuncts below the load that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
- How much do adjunct business professors make per course?
- Across 215 business adjunct postings that disclose pay, the median is $4,000 per course; the middle half of listings fall between $3,000 and $6,387.
- Do online adjunct business jobs pay less?
- Online business listings show a median of $3,000 per course against $4,000 overall (from 11 online postings with disclosed pay). Institutions usually pay online and in-person sections at the same rate; the gap reflects which institutions hire online.
- What would that be per year?
- At the $4,000 median, three courses a term over two terms is about $24,000 before tax, with no benefits. Loads are usually capped below the level that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Where these numbers come from
- Every figure is computed from adjunct, lecturer, and part-time faculty postings that OpenLecture tracks across 4,000+ U.S. institutions, refreshed daily. Closed listings stay in the sample, so the picture covers roughly the past year.
- Only postings that state a per-course amount are compared. Hourly and annual quotes are reported separately and never converted.
- Where a range is posted, the top of the range is used. Figures below $500 or above $25,000 per course are excluded as mislabelled periods.
- Medians are shown, not averages, so a handful of outliers cannot move them. Pages with fewer than 25 disclosed-pay listings carry a warning.
- Roughly a quarter of adjunct postings disclose pay at all; these numbers describe the institutions that do.