CSU Faculty Raises vs. Inflation

Compare CSU faculty’s raises to the increase in the cost of living. This tool’s “likely salary today” assumes that faculty receive the average merit raise approved by CSU’s Board of Governors each year. Individual faculty may earn a lower salary if they received lower annual raises than average. Individual faculty may earn a higher salary if they earned a promotion, received an equity pay increase, or negotiated a retention package. When our regular, merit raises fail to keep pace with inflation, equity pay increases and individual retention packages become stopgap measures that protect the standard of living of some, but not all, CSU faculty. The raise data is from CSU’s 10-Year Salary Increase Summaries; the inflation data is from the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood CPI-U.