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
- $3,750
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $3,363 – $4,500
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $1,417 – $6,853
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 11
Based on 79 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Community colleges in Illinois: median $3,363 per course (n=14); all institutions: $3,750.
Highest-paying institutions in Illinois
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay listings.
- DePaul University$8,000n=5
- North Central College$4,380n=3
- Governors State University$3,750n=44
- Waubonsee Community College$3,363n=14
- Illinois State University$1,417n=5
By discipline
Disciplines with at least five disclosed-pay listings in Illinois.
- Communications & Media$5,068n=6
- Health Sciences & Nursing$3,500n=5
- Education & Teaching$3,300n=10
Twelve-month trend
$5,958Jun 2026
$3,750Jul 2026
$3,363Aug 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 $3,750 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $15,000
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $22,500
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $45,000
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.