How much does a Clinical Instructor make a year?

In my experience, the clinical-only instructors at the ADN and BSN programs in which I've taught have been employed on a prn/adjunct basis -- limited hours, no benefits, no guarantee of continued employment. And they rarely get paid more per hour than the same person would make working in a clinical position. Full-time faculty positions are for the people doing classroom/lecture as well as clinical teaching, and that requires at least an MSN in many (most?) programs.

No one goes into nursing education for the money. :) It's rare that anyone in nursing education makes as much teaching as they could make working in a clinical position. Usually, teaching involves a significant pay cut.

Of course, money isn't the only consideration. Best wishes for your journey!

In my area, most clincal instructors are adjunct faculty and not paid a full time salary, benefits, etc. The pay rate is $25-$30 per hour, but that is based on a conservative estimate of the number of hours it requires to do the job. Most clinical instructors I know actually work more hours than they get paid for.

The figures for adjunct faculty teaching classroom courses range from about $2500 - $5000 per semester-long course.

There are some figures available for full-time faculty of different ranks published by the Association of University Professors (or whatever that group is named) and published in the Chronical of Hgher Education. I'll see if I can find those and come back and edit my post.

Edit: I just checked The Chronical of Higher Education website and as I suspected, the data is not specific to nursing, but rather given by academic rank across all disciplines. Also, it is only available to people who subscribe to the Chronical. Nationally ... the average salaries for Instructors are in the $45-$50 K range. The average salaries for Lecturers are in the mid $50's. The average salaries for Assistant Professors are in the $65K neighborhood.

Obviously, those are just national averages and there is a lot of variation depending on the type of institution and geographic location. With only an MSN, most nursing instructors would fall into the Instructor or Lecturer ranks. Also, keep in mind that those figures are for 9-10 month contracts. A lot of faculty members work a 2nd job (e.g. clinical job) on a per diem basis during the school year and pick up more income in the summer months. Others teach a summer class to pick up some extra cash.

Finally, if you are in a tenure track position, you have more opportunities for advancement ... but it comes with many more requirements, making it very difficult to earn extra money by working a 2nd job or picking up a summer class for extra money.

I hope that helps.