How has the higher education faculty workforce changed over the past 20 years? What disciplines have emerged as frontrunners in hiring? What disciplines pay the most? What disciplines pay the least?
The disciplines of Health Professions and Business have experienced the most growth in number of faculty over the past 20 years. The number of faculty in Health Professions more than doubled from 2003-04 to 2023-24, and the number of Business faculty grew by 20.8% over the same period.
The disciplines of Theology, Liberal Arts and Humanities, and English Language/Literature are experiencing very little growth in terms of hiring new faculty. These disciplines also have high numbers of non-tenure-track faculty and are among the lowest-paying disciplines — all of which point to institutions’ divestment in these disciplines.
Business ranked among the top four highest-paid disciplines every year from 2003-04 to 2023-24 and has been the highest-paid discipline for the past nine years. In addition, Business saw the largest percentage increase in median salary across all disciplines, with an increase of 66.2% since 2003-04.
No discipline’s pay increases beat inflation. Although many disciplines appeared strong based on changes in size and salary over time, all disciplines reported median salaries in 2023-24 that were lower than inflation-adjusted salaries based on 2003-04 salary data. Overall, faculty in all disciplines have less purchasing power with their salaries in 2023-24 than they did in 2003-04.
New research from CUPA-HR shows that median pay increases for most higher education employees in 2024-25 remained strong, although they have dropped from the historically high increases seen in the previous two years. And although raises this past year for most employees outpaced inflation, they are still being paid less than they were in 2019-20 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
The largest gap between pre-pandemic inflation-adjusted salaries and current salaries is for tenure-track faculty (who are paid 10.2% less), followed by non-tenure-track teaching faculty (paid 7.6% less). The smallest gap is for staff (paid 2.8% less).
Some of the other key findings from an analysis of CUPA-HR’s higher ed workforce salary survey data from 2016-17 to 2024-25:
Staff employees continued to receive some of the highest pay increases compared to other workforce areas.
Non-tenure-track teaching faculty received a 3.2% salary increase, which is lower than last year’s high but still among the largest increases seen in recent years.
For the third consecutive year, tenure-track faculty received the lowest salary increase of all employee categories (2.6%). Across the nine years of data analyzed, tenure-track faculty salaries have not once exceeded the rate of inflation. This essentially means that — in real dollars — they have received salary decreases for the past decade.
Chris Jennings’ daughter Alessandra is a freshman at a private college in the Northeast. He was surprised by how quickly tuition payments were due. “My daughter said the payment was due in July,” he says. “It was already June.”
Jennings started researching loans on the internet and found CommonBond, a financial services company that prides itself on offering competitive interest rates, advanced technology and award-winning customer service. He applied online and is a co-signer on his daughter’s loan.
“I’m setting up my child to succeed,” says Jennings, who’s happy to help pay for his daughter’s education and build her credit at the same time.
“Don’t panic,” Jennings advises other parents. “College isn’t as expensive as you think it is.”
Getting started
The College Board says this year students at a four-year public college are paying an average price of $20,770 for tuition and fees, plus room and board.
“It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process,” says Pete Wylie, CommonBond’s vice president of in-school lending.
Some students apply for and receive grants or merit-based scholarships, both of which don’t have to be paid back. The rest of the expenses are typically covered by loans, which do need to be repaid. Loans can cover the full cost of college including classes, books, room and board. Or students can get a loan to cover just the basics: tuition only.
Loans are financed year by year. The bills are paid after the student graduates.
Better standing
CommonBond was started by students based on their experiences getting student loans. They wanted better customer service and guidance during the process so they created an alternative to traditional lenders.
“We offer a lot of flexibility,” says Wylie. “We offer 5, 10, 15-year rates and multiple payment options.”
CommonBond offers loans for undergraduate students enrolled at least half-time for any bachelor’s degree, at more than 2,000 not-for-profit schools. They require students to apply with a cosigner, such as a parent. The cosigner promises to pay the loan balance if the student doesn’t pay.
After two years of payments after graduation, a student can apply to release the cosigner from the loan. The lender’s loans have up to a 2 percent origination fee, depending on state of residency. There are no prepayment penalties and they offer forbearance to students who encounter economic hardship after graduation.
Financing a child’s education can benefit others too. CommonBond makes a “Social Promise” that for every loan they fund, they’ll also pay for the education of a child in need in the developing world. Already, almost 10,000 students — many of whom are in Ghana — have had their educations funded through that promise. The company also invites borrowers on an annual trip to Ghana to see its Social Promise in action.
Planning ahead
Bruce Dooley has been saving for his son Jordan’s college education since the incoming University of California San Diego freshman was a baby.
“We wanted to make sure our son is coming out of school debt-free,” says Dooley.
However, as the cost of college increased, Dooley realized he would need to take out loans to cover the tuition. He plans to pay off the loans in four years.
Not all parents are as prepared as Dooley but there’s still time to figure out financing.
“People don’t look at this as a multi-year process,” says Kalman Chany, author of “Paying for College Without Going Broke” and president of Campus Consultants, a financial aid advisory firm.
He cautions parents that the first year of a student loan — based on family income and qualifying rates — becomes the template for the next few years’ loans.
“Plan ahead so there’ll be no surprises,” says Chany.
Research and planning can help families gain a clearer picture of their student loan needs. Then finding the right student loan and loan provider may be easier than initially thought.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has told the Education and Employment Senate Committee that the sector regulator doesn’t have the correct functions to address staff underpayments, amid calls it needs more power.
Union policy and research officer Kieran McCarron said there are two general issues with Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) that impact staff.
“The threshold standards are too high-level and vague, especially when it comes to governance and staffing,” he told the Committee.
“The second issue is that either the enforcement powers are too weak, it’s too complicated for TEQSA to access them, or they’re just simply inappropriate. For example, deregistration is just inappropriate overkill to deal with the issues that our members face.
“Having everyone lose their jobs and the universities shut down doesn’t solve wage theft and it doesn’t help the community, so it’s not an appropriate power.”
He said there needs to be changes to TEQSA so it can “ensure compliance with appropriate penalties,” and better reflect current staff conditions.
TEQSA chief executive Mary Russell told the same Committee her body needs more powers to wrangle universities and help it to deal with staff-related issues, giving an example of a teaching issue that can’t currently be resolved by TEQSA under its existing powers.
“There’s actually already a legislative requirement that any person teaching in higher education needs to be engaged in continuing scholarship and research. That’s your traditional “40:40:20 academic.”
“How is it that at least half of the teaching performed in our universities is performed by casual staff who are hired on an hourly basis and who are only paid for the hours in which they are directly engaged with students?
“How is it being ensured that they’re performing scholarship and research – because they’re not paid to do that. There’s an assumption made that they’ll just do that in their own time, and that’s unpaid work. This is an example of an issue that TEQSA is aware of but doesn’t have any appropriate tools to deal with.”
Wage underpayment and financial management
Wage underpayments and high vice-chancellor pay are the two biggest money-related issues universities have.
The Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth later told the Committee her office has recovered $180.9m for 99,000 university employees as of February 28, 2025. The NTEU has estimated wage underpayments, paid or unpaid, are set to exceed $400m.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said there are repeating factors as to why universities keep discovering underpaid staff. Picture: Martin Ollman
Ms Booth said the most common “trends” Fair Work sees when dealing with underpayments include: high numbers of casual staff; poor governance and management oversight practices; a lack of centralised human resources functions; pay related issues commonly dealt with by academic managers who lack appropriate expertise; and lack of investment in payroll and time-recording systems.
“Our investigations have largely concerned casual professional and academic staff and have largely included unpaid work – unpaid marking activities, lecture and tutorial attendance, and other student interactions – as well as the application of incorrect classifications, unpaid entitlements and the improper use of piece rates,” she told the Committee.
Universities Australia, which is the vice-chancellor’s membership group, in its submission said debate about VC salaries, which average $1m, are solely political and distract from issues of underfunding degrees and research.
“Debate over vice-chancellor salaries, for example, distracts from the conversation we need to have about funding our universities properly,” chief executive Luke Sheehy wrote.
“Their salaries are set by university councils. I don’t believe they should be the sole focus of parliamentarians, certainly not at the expense of the policies and funding needed to keep our universities strong.”
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, who disclosed she is an NTEU member, said she was “pretty outraged” when she read the UA submission.
“I think this debate is fundamental to how universities operate, especially given the exorbitant pay packets of executive staff and VCs on the one hand and the systemic wage theft, rampant casualisation and insecure work on the other,” she said.
Fear and secrecy
NTEU branch president at Federation University Dr Mathew Abbott said constant cuts and restructures throughout the sector has created a workplace culture that fears retribution.
“University staff fear for their livelihoods, and that creates a culture in which staff become more compliant and less likely to speak out,” he said.
“This is something I’ve tried to raise – the psychological toll it takes, the professional toll, and, of course, the impact of this on students.
“When staff are placed under this kind of pressure, along with other issues like workloads and so on, it has a flow-on effect to the quality of the education that we provide to our students.”
He said there is a “culture of secrecy” in university councils and senates, something NTEU member Professor Fiona Probyn-Rapsey from University of Wollongong also said is exacerbated by largely non-staff elected boards.
There were multiple calls made for university council meeting minutes to be available to all university staff.
“We have very little access to what university councils are discussing and how decisions are made. We don’t see minutes, and we barely get any interaction with university council members,” Professor Probyn-Rapsey said.
“They don’t operate in the same way that the rest of the university does – in a collegial manner – or in the way a university should be behaving.”
Management should also let staff have more say in teaching decisions, Professor Andrea Lamont-Mills, University of Southern Queensland NTEU branch president, added.
Professor Andrea Lamont-Mills is associate dean of research at UniSQ. Picture: Newswire
“Staff feel disempowered because they’re not using their expertise – it’s not valued, and their professionalism is not valued,” she said.
“It’s disempowering when you get excluded from decisions that actually impact you, or you have limited input into decisions that directly impact you.
“Our staff are highly skilled and highly knowledgeable, and they want to be part of developing decisions and coming up with solutions, yet they’re disempowered – they’re not able to do that.”
Since 1996, the National Committee on Pay Equity has acknowledged Equal Pay Day to bring awareness to the gap between men’s and women’s wages. This year, Equal Pay Day is March 25 — symbolizing how far into the year women must work to be paid what men were paid in the previous year.
To help higher ed leaders understand, communicate and address gender pay equity in higher education, CUPA-HR has analyzed its annual workforce data to establish Higher Education Equal Pay Days for 2025. Tailored to the higher ed workforce, these dates observe the gender pay gap by marking how long into 2025 women in higher ed must work to make what White men in higher ed earned the previous year.
Higher Education Equal Pay Day falls on March 8, 2025, for women overall, which means that women employees in higher education worked for more than two months into this year to gain parity with their White male colleagues. Women in the higher ed workforce are paid on average just 82 cents for every dollar a White man employed in higher ed makes.
Highlighting some positive momentum during this Women’s History Month, some groups of women are closer to gaining pay equity. Asian American women in higher ed worked only a few days into this year to achieve parity on January 4 — an encouraging jump from January 14 in 2024.
But the gender pay gap remains for most women, and particularly for women of color. Here’s the breakdown of the gender pay gap in the higher ed workforce, and the Higher Education Equal Pay Day for each group.* These dates remind us of the work we have ahead.
March 8 — Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. On average, women employees in higher education are paid 82 cents on the dollar.
January 4 — Asian Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. Asian women in higher ed are paid 99 cents on the dollar.
March 5 — White Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. White women in higher ed are paid 83 cents on the dollar.
March 29 — Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. Native of Hawaii or Pacific Islander women in higher ed are paid 76 cents on the dollar.
April 4 — Black Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. Black women in higher ed are paid 75 cents on the dollar.
April 11 — Hispanic/Latina Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. Hispanic/Latina women in higher ed are paid 73 cents on the dollar.
April 24 — Native American/Alaska Native Women in Higher Education Equal Pay Day. Native American/Alaska Native women are paid just 69 cents on the dollar.
CUPA-HR research shows that pay disparities exist across employment sectors in higher ed — administrators, faculty, professionals and staff — even as the representation of women and people of color has steadily increased. But with voluntary turnover still not back to pre-pandemic levels, not addressing pay disparities could be costly.
CUPA-HR Resources for Higher Education Equal Pay Days
As we observe Women’s History Month and Higher Education Equal Pay Days for women, we’re reminded that the quest for equal pay is far from over. But data-driven analysis with the assistance of CUPA-HR research can support your work to create a more equitable future.
CUPA-HR’s interactive graphics track the gender and racial composition of the higher ed workforce, based on data from CUPA-HR’s signature surveys. The following pay equity analyses control for position, indicating that any wage gaps present are not explained by the fact that women or people of color may have greater representation in lower-paying positions:
The new vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra (UC) Bill Shorten said universities will never make everybody happy, but they should do their best to try.
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The Trump administration announced Wednesday it is rolling back guidance issued in the final days of the Biden administration that said payments to college athletes through revenue-sharing agreements or from name, image and likeness deals “must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes.”
Republicans quickly criticized the guidance and called for its rescission, arguing that mandating equal pay between men and women’s sports could cause some colleges to cut athletics programs.
Under Title IX, colleges must provide “substantially proportionate” financial assistance to male and female athletes, though it wasn’t clear until the Biden guidance whether that requirement applied to NIL deals or revenue-sharing agreements. A settlement reached in the House v. NCAA case would require colleges to share revenue with athletes starting in the 2025–26 academic year and provide back pay.
The Trump administration said the guidance was “overly burdensome” and “profoundly unfair.”
“Enacted over 50 years ago, Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student athletes,” acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. “The claim that Title IX forces schools and colleges to distribute student-athlete revenues proportionately based on gender equity considerations is sweeping and would require clear legal authority to support it.”
A federal judge is set to sign off on the House settlement later this spring. Several athletes have objected to the plan, including some groups of women athletes who argue the revenue won’t be shared equitably and will primarily benefit men who play football and basketball.
Australia’s vice-chancellors will be questioned about their pay packages, instances of wage underpayment, and the use of external consultants in a new parliamentary inquiry into the quality of university governance.
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The University of Tennessee’s pharmacy school twice investigated a grad student for her sex-positive social media posts.
UT voted to expel her from her doctoral program — but reversed its decision when FIRE intervened.
Today’s settlement is a warning to colleges around the country: If you police students’ personal online expression, there will be consequences.
Student: ‘We all need to speak up when someone tries to take our rights away — our voice is way too powerful to let anyone shut it down.’
MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan. 29, 2025 — After her First Amendment lawsuit set precedent last fall for student free speech rights, Memphis pharmacist Kimberly Diei agreed to a $250,000 settlement with the University of Tennessee.
School administrators twice investigated and nearly expelled Diei over her sex-positive social media posts on her personal account. Concerned she and other students would face future investigations for speech fully protected by the First Amendment, Kim connected with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression to sue UT on her behalf in 2021.
“UT’s pharmacy school learned an important lesson today,” said FIRE attorney Greg H. Greubel. “There is nothing unprofessional about students expressing love of hip-hop and their sexuality on social media. Kim has proven something FIRE has said for 25 years: The First Amendment robustly protects students’ rights to have a voice outside of school, even if college administrators don’t like what they have to say.”
Just a month into her studies in September 2019, UT’s pharmacy school investigated Kim for her social media content focused on sexuality, fashion, and music. The college justified the investigation by using vague “professionalism” standards — standards it never provided to Kim — but ultimately dropped that first investigation.
In one tweet, Kim contributed to a trending discussion on Twitter about the song “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, suggesting lyrics for a possible remix. In another, she posted a selfie and referenced lyrics from a popular Beyoncé song.
Unfortunately, Kim’s ordeal was not unique. For years, colleges around the country have wieldedprofessionalismcodes against students for their expression even when the student’s speech has no bearing on their ability to succeed in a given field. Kim’s posts were wholly separate from the college, as her accounts operated under a pseudonym and did not reveal her then-identity as a student.
Yet by the following year, Kim was under a second investigation, and UT administrators voted to expel her. In the midst of preparing for exams, she appealed to the dean, who reversed the decision after hearing from FIRE. Then, FIRE sued on behalf of Kim in February 2021.
“I wasn’t about to let my university get away with silencing me or any other student for speaking our truth,” Kim said. “Staying positive while fighting for my rights for years wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. We all need to speak up when someone tries to take our rights away — our voice is way too powerful to let anyone shut it down.”
Kim’s posts complied with the social media sites’ policies and involved expression that the First Amendment squarely prevents public universities from investigating and punishing.
In 2024, a federal appeals court agreed, ruling that her expression — which administrators called “sexual,” “crude,” and “vulgar” — was “clearly protected” by the First Amendment. Crucially, in a blow to the qualified immunity that often shields government actors from paying damages for violating constitutional rights, the court emphasized that previous Supreme Court precedent and prior Sixth Circuit rulings put “beyond debate” that the First Amendment protects Kim’s speech.
“Students don’t give up their free speech rights the day they sign up for grad school,” said FIRE attorney JT Morris. “Without FIRE, UT could have derailed Kim’s whole professional career. We were proud to fight for Kim. Her win will help protect students everywhere from campus censors at public universities.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
CONTACT:
Daniel Burnett, Senior Director of Communications, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org
