Adjunct professor pay in New York, per course
From real adjunct and lecturer postings at New York colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · New York
- $5,000
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $3,075 – $6,000
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $998 – $14,000
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 32
Based on 156 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Community colleges in New York: median $1,499 per course (n=14); all institutions: $5,000.
Highest-paying institutions in New York
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay listings.
- Cornell University$18,195n=3
- Barnard College$14,000n=7
- Sarah Lawrence College$14,000n=3
- Yeshiva University$8,000n=8
- St. John's University$6,645n=5
- Syracuse University$6,000n=13
- SUNY Brockport$5,500n=24
- Excelsior University$5,000n=10
- Buffalo State University$4,500n=13
- Iona University$3,745n=9
- Mount Saint Mary College$3,300n=5
By discipline
Disciplines with at least five disclosed-pay listings in New York.
- History$14,000n=7
- World Languages$10,228n=5
- Visual & Fine Arts$7,200n=5
- Humanities$5,500n=7
- Health Sciences & Nursing$5,000n=35
- Psychology$4,781n=7
- Education & Teaching$4,500n=10
- Business & Management$4,150n=12
- Communications & Media$4,000n=7
- Mathematics & Statistics$3,800n=6
- English & Writing$3,373n=6
- Biology & Life Sciences$2,490n=5
Twelve-month trend
$5,000Dec 2025
$1,200Jan 2026
$1,273Feb 2026
$5,500Mar 2026
$1,484Apr 2026
$5,750May 2026
$6,000Jun 2026
$6,073Jul 2026
$3,966Aug 2026
$5,000Sep 2026
$2,264Oct 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 $5,000 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $20,000
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $30,000
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $60,000
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.