Adjunct history professor pay per course
From real history adjunct and lecturer postings across U.S. colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · history
- $3,234
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $2,491 – $7,437
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $942 – $14,242
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 43
Based on 57 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Highest-paying institutions
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay history listings.
- University of California-Santa Cruz$17,939n=4
- Sarah Lawrence College$14,000n=3
- University of the Incarnate Word$3,100n=4
By state
States with at least five disclosed-pay history listings.
- New York$14,000n=7
- California$9,986n=9
- Massachusetts$7,225n=7
- Texas$3,100n=9
Twelve-month trend
$10,356Mar 2026
$1,388May 2026
$7,437Jun 2026
$3,567Jul 2026
$1,628Aug 2026
$7,225Sep 2026
$3,500Oct 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 $3,234 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $12,936
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $19,404
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $38,808
Before tax, no benefits. Most institutions cap adjuncts below the load that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
- How much do adjunct history professors make per course?
- Across 57 history adjunct postings that disclose pay, the median is $3,234 per course; the middle half of listings fall between $2,491 and $7,437.
- Do online adjunct history jobs pay less?
- Online history listings show a median of $2,596 per course against $3,234 overall (from 4 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 $3,234 median, three courses a term over two terms is about $19,404 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.