If I were a Principal....: Average Salary of a High School Principal

A typical principal position requires a master's degree, a special principal certification and a minimum of three years of administrative experience. Salaries vary based on location and to a lesser extent based on experience.

High School Principal Salaries
- High school principal salaries vary over a fairly broad range. According to a January 2011 survey by PayScale, the average highschool principal in the United States earns between $66,477 per year and $100,876 in base salary with an additional $1,944 to $7,122 in bonuses for a total salary package of between $68,167 and $101,560.
High School Principal Salaries based on Location
- Salaries for high school principals were fairly consistent over a variety of different states ranging from a low of approximately $62,000 to a high of about $100,000. California was slightly higher with a salary range for high school principals of from $78,617 to $118,990 but the one state that was out of line with all the rest was New York with a low salary of $92,836 and a high salary of $175,000.
High School Principal Salary by Years of Experience
- Normally you would expect salaries to increase based on experience. But according to the January 2011 PayScale survey, salaries based on experience expanded after the first four years but didn't necessarily increase. The salary range for a high school principal with one to four years of experience was from $56,489 to $82,153. But with five to nine years of experience the salary ranged from $57,000 to $110,128. The salary range for principals with 10 to 19 years of experience was $67,091 to $97,727. Those principals with more than 20 years of experience earned an average of between $79,354 and $120,049.
Vacation Benefits
- Although you might think that the average high school principal has the entire summer off as many teachers do, this is not the case. The average high school principal in New York has the most vacation of those surveyed with 4.1 weeks and the average high school principal in Texas has the least vacation with only 2.8 weeks. Most states like Michigan, Nebraska and New Jersey fell in between with approximately 3.6 weeks of vacation.