Psychology Teachers, Postsecondary
What the pay figures show
- California pays this job the most, $107,340. It still pays the most after tax. What it does not do is stay ahead once you count what living there costs. Level that out and North Dakota wins, at $86,384. Same work. A wage that goes further.
- For psychology teachers, postsecondary, California leads both nominally at $107,340 and after tax — state income tax differentials are not large enough here to disturb the ordering. Regional price parity is: deflating take-home by each state's price level puts North Dakota first at $86,384. The adjustment that matters for this occupation is therefore cost of living rather than tax, which is the opposite of the assumption most relocation comparisons start from.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$80,340
People doing it
41,530
Highest paid
$107,340
CA
Best off, really
$86,384
ND, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$49,050
Highest tenth
$153,600
Lowest, really
$55,491
FL
States with data
50
National average
$93,860
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
88.57%
ND, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $55,491 and $86,384. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- Only 41,530 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- This job is not published everywhere — 50 jurisdictions have a figure, with $80,340 in the middle. Where one is missing, it was never released. California tops the ones that are.
- Interstate variation for psychology teachers, postsecondary is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $55,491 to $86,384. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- National employment in psychology teachers, postsecondary is 41,530. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- 50 jurisdictions carry a published median for psychology teachers, postsecondary. ⚠️ Suppression is not random: it correlates with small state-level samples, so the reported set skews toward larger employers of this occupation.
Pay band: Psychology Teachers, Postsecondary
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $49,050 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $80,340 |
| Top tenth earn over | $153,600 |
| This salary | $80,340 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Psychology Teachers, Postsecondary
The national median for this job
$80,340around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $49,050 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $80,340 |
| Top tenth | $153,600 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Psychology Teachers, Postsecondary, state by state
The national median for this job
50states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Arkansas · $60,730 |
|---|---|
| Highest | California · $107,340 |
| Spread | $46,610 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $77,060 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $79,300 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| ND | $97,110 | $76,512 | $86,384 |
| LA | $91,340 | $70,734 | $80,065 |
| MI | $99,900 | $75,115 | $79,753 |
| DE | $102,340 | $75,303 | $75,869 |
| UT | $93,090 | $70,176 | $73,868 |
| MD | $101,430 | $75,656 | $72,770 |
| NH | $95,030 | $75,684 | $71,844 |
| NM | $83,600 | $64,877 | $71,778 |
| RI | $94,360 | $72,083 | $71,079 |
| CA | $107,340 | $78,453 | $69,686 |
| ID | $83,010 | $63,681 | $69,654 |
| NY | $100,720 | $74,784 | $69,485 |
| IA | $78,450 | $61,650 | $69,452 |
| OH | $78,530 | $62,633 | $68,218 |
| NV | $81,300 | $66,025 | $68,081 |
| KS | $79,730 | $60,760 | $67,537 |
| TN | $76,010 | $62,303 | $67,344 |
| MO | $79,240 | $61,788 | $67,335 |
| DC | $101,250 | $74,422 | $67,165 |
| NE | $77,340 | $60,423 | $66,858 |
| MT | $77,120 | $60,088 | $66,583 |
| IN | $77,820 | $61,310 | $66,508 |
| WV | $74,280 | $58,573 | $65,246 |
| AL | $75,340 | $58,617 | $65,152 |
| KY | $74,520 | $58,764 | $64,956 |
| TX | $77,060 | $63,042 | $64,874 |
| VT | $81,100 | $62,642 | $64,823 |
| WI | $77,580 | $60,257 | $64,725 |
| ME | $81,660 | $62,081 | $63,937 |
| MN | $82,640 | $62,871 | $63,882 |
| GA | $79,440 | $61,351 | $63,445 |
| AK | $79,040 | $64,435 | $63,348 |
| SC | $74,890 | $58,865 | $63,176 |
| NC | $75,260 | $59,281 | $62,972 |
| CT | $84,500 | $64,378 | $62,088 |
| AZ | $78,610 | $62,569 | $61,886 |
| SD | $65,020 | $54,424 | $61,778 |
| PA | $75,960 | $59,936 | $61,473 |
| IL | $77,860 | $59,895 | $60,589 |
| WY | $65,050 | $54,448 | $59,933 |
| VA | $77,950 | $59,946 | $59,501 |
| CO | $76,810 | $60,195 | $59,374 |
| WA | $78,330 | $63,935 | $58,893 |
| MA | $82,930 | $63,345 | $58,524 |
| NJ | $80,790 | $62,709 | $57,593 |
| MS | $62,590 | $50,059 | $57,347 |
| AR | $60,730 | $49,188 | $56,860 |
| OK | $61,720 | $49,495 | $56,062 |
| OR | $80,060 | $58,697 | $56,051 |
| FL | $69,050 | $57,407 | $55,491 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $80,340, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, California keeps the most at $78,453.
- Levelling out prices for this job is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Florida sits at the bottom on $55,491.
- These are distribution medians for psychology teachers, postsecondary, with a national value of $80,340. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for psychology teachers, postsecondary is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis California retains the most, $78,453. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to psychology teachers, postsecondary uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Florida at $55,491. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Florida anchors the bottom at $55,491 — and the two source series are dated independently.