Adjunct English professor pay per course
From real English adjunct and lecturer postings across U.S. colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · English
- $3,088
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $1,536 – $6,000
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $942 – $11,454
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 73
Based on 98 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Highest-paying institutions
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay English listings.
- University of California-Santa Cruz$17,939n=4
- Brandeis University$8,764n=3
- Governors State University$3,750n=3
- Broward College$2,491n=3
- Raritan Valley Community College$1,174n=3
By state
States with at least five disclosed-pay English listings.
- California$14,523n=9
- Massachusetts$6,000n=19
- New York$3,373n=6
- Texas$2,850n=8
- Florida$2,491n=5
- Illinois$1,329n=10
- New Jersey$1,174n=9
Twelve-month trend
$1,174Dec 2025
$4,156Feb 2026
$10,356Mar 2026
$3,750Apr 2026
$1,174May 2026
$7,028Jun 2026
$3,410Jul 2026
$3,450Aug 2026
$1,825Sep 2026
$3,225Oct 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 $3,088 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $12,352
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $18,528
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $37,056
Before tax, no benefits. Most institutions cap adjuncts below the load that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
- How much do adjunct English professors make per course?
- Across 98 English adjunct postings that disclose pay, the median is $3,088 per course; the middle half of listings fall between $1,536 and $6,000.
- Do online adjunct English jobs pay less?
- Online English listings show a median of $2,746 per course against $3,088 overall (from 6 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 $3,088 median, three courses a term over two terms is about $18,528 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.