Adjunct professor pay in Illinois, per course
From real adjunct and lecturer postings at Illinois colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · Illinois
- $1,400
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $1,109 – $3,600
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $943 – $5,635
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 24
Based on 285 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Community colleges in Illinois: median $1,140 per course (n=70); all institutions: $1,400.
Highest-paying institutions in Illinois
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay listings.
- DePaul University$7,000n=6
- North Central College$4,160n=13
- Governors State University$3,750n=68
- Waubonsee Community College$3,498n=31
- North Park University$3,400n=3
- Illinois State University$1,417n=6
- Benedictine University$1,400n=8
- Oakton College$1,326n=7
- McHenry County College$1,257n=42
- Joliet Junior College$1,220n=6
By discipline
Disciplines with at least five disclosed-pay listings in Illinois.
- Communications & Media$3,875n=12
- Sociology$3,750n=6
- Humanities$3,750n=8
- Accounting & Finance$3,749n=8
- Music & Performing Arts$3,624n=8
- Mathematics & Statistics$3,431n=10
- Visual & Fine Arts$3,363n=7
- Psychology$3,300n=13
- Education & Teaching$3,300n=21
- Social Work$3,300n=10
- Chemistry$2,990n=8
- Philosophy & Religion$2,329n=6
- Business & Management$2,129n=16
- English & Writing$1,329n=10
- Computer Science & IT$1,294n=9
Twelve-month trend
$3,120Oct 2025
$1,172Nov 2025
$1,161Dec 2025
$837Jan 2026
$950Feb 2026
$943Mar 2026
$3,600Apr 2026
$950May 2026
$1,109Jun 2026
$1,257Jul 2026
$1,092Aug 2026
$3,498Sep 2026
$3,675Oct 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 $1,400 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $5,600
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $8,400
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $16,800
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.