Adjunct professor pay in California, per course
From real adjunct and lecturer postings at California colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · California
- $10,912
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $9,552 – $12,281
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $3,500 – $24,762
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 15
Based on 122 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Highest-paying institutions in California
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay listings.
- University of California-Santa Cruz$12,281n=59
- Santa Clara University$10,230n=31
- Saint Mary's College of California$8,590n=6
- University of California-Riverside$8,201n=5
- University of California-Santa Barbara$3,500n=10
By discipline
Disciplines with at least five disclosed-pay listings in California.
- Mathematics & Statistics$13,029n=5
- Communications & Media$11,244n=8
- Engineering$10,948n=9
- Music & Performing Arts$10,912n=6
- English & Writing$10,912n=5
- History$10,912n=5
- Business & Management$10,230n=13
- Computer Science & IT$10,230n=5
- World Languages$9,552n=5
Twelve-month trend
$10,308May 2026
$9,933Jun 2026
$10,912Jul 2026
$9,552Aug 2026
$11,262Sep 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 $10,912 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $43,648
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $65,472
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $130,944
Before tax, no benefits. Most institutions cap adjuncts below the load 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.