Tag: pay

  • U.S. Judge Rules Colleges Can Directly Pay Student Athletes

    U.S. Judge Rules Colleges Can Directly Pay Student Athletes

    Grant House, the plaintiff in a now settled antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, swam for Arizona State University.

    Michael Reaves/Getty Images 

    Federal district judge Claudia Wilken granted final approval to a multi-billion-dollar settlement in the yearslong House v. NCAA lawsuit late Friday evening, effectively transforming college sports: Starting July 1, institutions will be allowed to pay student athletes directly.

    In accordance with the settlement, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and colleges in Division I conferences will distribute nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed any time since 2016, as well as to their lawyers. The case also allows each college that opted in to pay their athletes collectively up to $20.5 million per year, in addition to scholarships. That figure will increase incrementally over time.

    The ruling, which technically resolves three antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA, essentially turns student-athletes from amateurs into professionals. But experts say this isn’t likely to end court battles over athletics. The creation of the revenue-sharing model (where schools distribute money earned from areas such as media rights or merchandise), combined with existing turmoil over the regulation of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals, will only invite more lawsuits, they say. 

    “The judge said, in essence, this is not a perfect settlement that solves everyone’s concerns, but it makes progress towards ‘righting the wrongs’ of higher education’s desire to maintain amateurism status for the players but no one else,” Karen Weaver, adjunct assistant professor in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

    Although many colleges began making changes to their programs in anticipation of the settlement’s approval, the timing of the ruling could present logistical challenges as they move to start revenue-sharing with students from the July 1 deadline set out in the suit. 

    Current and former athletes have celebrated the ruling. 

    “It’s historic,” former college basketball star Sedona Prince, a co-lead plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, told ESPN. “It seemed like this crazy, outlandish idea at the time of what college athletics could and should be like. It was a difficult process at times … but it’s going to change millions of lives for the better.”

    Wild West Yet to be Tamed

    Judge Wilken’s ruling comes nearly two months after both parties presented arguments in early April for approving the settlement, and nearly five years after the suit was first filed in 2020. But contentious debates over how to manage paying student athletes really erupted in 2021, when NIL deals were first legalized. 

    Since then, collectives made up of alumni and boosters have paid athletes millions of dollars to play at schools through unregulated NIL partnerships. Top football and basketball players have earned the most.

    College leaders have argued that the collectives could give wealthier institutions an unfair recruiting advantage. The House settlement, which not only allows colleges to pay athletes directly but also gives conferences the power to regulate booster influence, could help solve that problem.

    “For several years, Division I members crafted well-intentioned rules and systems to govern financial benefits from schools and name, image and likeness opportunities, but the NCAA could not easily enforce these for several reasons,” NCAA president Charlie Baker wrote in a statement Friday. “The result was a sense of chaos: instability for schools, confusion for student-athletes and too often litigation.”

    “The settlement opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports,” Baker said. “This new framework that enables schools to provide direct financial benefits to student-athletes and establishes clear and specific rules to regulate third-party NIL agreements marks a huge step forward for college sports.”

    The settlement also establishes a new clearinghouse, run by Deloitte, that will vet any endorsement deal between a booster and an athlete worth more than $600, with the goal of ensuring it is for a “valid business purpose.”  

    Still, doubts remain about how the watchdog will work; one commenter on X noted that all it takes for boosters to create an NIL regulatory loophole is to pay athletes in multiple $599 payments rather than one mass sum

    Despite the efforts to regulate NIL payments through the clearinghouse, Weaver said the settlement will create “a feeding frenzy of agents and dealmakers capitalizing on a few athletes wealth while schools scramble to lock down players who could bolt for a better offer at any moment.”

    “I expect to see the first Title IX lawsuits, and requests for an immediate stay, filed as soon as this week,” she said. “It’s important for higher education leaders to understand the far-reaching impact on our industry—it’s only just begun.”

    Source link

  • It’s Expensive to Become a Teacher in California. This Bill Would Pay Those Who Try – The 74

    It’s Expensive to Become a Teacher in California. This Bill Would Pay Those Who Try – The 74


    Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

    When Brigitta Hunter started her teaching career, she had $20,000 in student loans and zero income – even though she was working nearly full time in the classroom.

    “We lived on my husband’s pathetic little paycheck. I don’t know how we did it,” Hunter said. “And we were lucky – he had a job and my loans weren’t that bad. It can be almost impossible for some people.”

    Each year, about 28,000 people in California work for free for about a year as teachers or classroom aides while they complete the requirements for their teaching credentials. That year without pay can be a dire hardship for many aspiring teachers, even deterring them from pursuing the profession.

    A new bill by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, would set aside money for school districts to pay would-be teachers while they do their student teaching service. The goal is to help alleviate the teacher shortage and attract lower-income candidates to the profession.

    “Nothing makes a bigger difference in improving the quality of public education than getting highly qualified teachers in the classroom,” Muratsuchi said. “This bill helps remove some of the obstacles to that.”

    Big loans, low pay

    To be a K-12 public school teacher in California, candidates need a bachelor’s degree and a teaching credential, typically earned after completing a one-year program combining coursework and 600 hours of classroom experience. During that time, candidates work with veteran teachers or lead their own classes.

    Teacher credential programs cost between $20,000 and $40,000, depending on where a student enrolls and where they live. In 2020, about 60% of teachers borrowed money to finish their degrees, according to a recent study by the Learning Policy Institute, with loans averaging about $30,000 for a four-year bachelor’s degree and a credential program.

    Entering the profession with hefty student loans can be demoralizing and stressful, the report said, adding to the challenges new teachers face. The average starting teacher salary in California is $58,000, according to the National Education Association, among the highest in the country but still hard to live on in many parts of the state. It could take a decade or more for teachers to pay off their loans.

    Muratsuchi’s bill, AB 1128, passed the Assembly on Monday and now awaits a vote in the Senate. It would create a grant program for districts to pay student teachers the same amount they pay substitute teachers, which is roughly $140 a day. The overall cost would be up to $300 million a year, according to Assembly analysts, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has set aside $100 million for the program in his revised budget.

    Muratsuchi has another bill related to teacher pay, also working its way through the Legislature. Assembly bill 477, which passed the Assembly this week, would raise teacher salaries across the board.

    Paying teachers, saving money

    Christopher Carr, executive director of Aspire Public Schools in Los Angeles, a network of 11 charter schools, called the bill a potential “game changer.”

    Teacher candidates often have to work second jobs to make ends meet, and sometimes finish with debt of $70,000 or more, he said. That can be an insurmountable barrier for people with limited resources. Paying would-be teachers would attract more people to the teaching profession, especially Black and Latino candidates, he said.

    School districts around the state have been trying to diversify their teacher workforces, based on research showing that Black and Latino students tend to do better academically when they have at least one teacher of the same race.

    Carr’s schools pay their teachers-in-training through grants and a partnership with a local college, which has led to more of them staying on to teach full time after they receive their credentials, he said. That has saved the schools money by reducing turnover.

    “This could open doors and be a step toward racial justice,” Carr said. “California has a million spending priorities, but this will lead to better outcomes for students and ultimately save the state money.”

    Tyanthony Davis, chief executive director of Inner City Education Foundation, a charter school network in Los Angeles, put it this way: “If we have well paid, qualified, happy teachers, we’ll have happier classrooms.”

    No opposition, yet

    Muratusuchi’s bill has no formal opposition. The California Taxpayers Association has not taken a position. The California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is a supporter.

    “This legislation comes at a critical time as we continue to face an educator recruitment and retention crisis,” said David Goldberg, the union president. “Providing new grants to compensate student teachers for important on-the-job training is a strong step forward in the right direction to strengthening public education.”

    Hunter survived her student-teaching experience and went on to teach fourth grade for 34 years, retiring last year from the Mark West Union School District in Santa Rosa. The last 15 years of her career she served as a mentor to aspiring teachers. She saw first-hand the stress that would-be teachers endure as they juggle coursework, long days in the classroom and often second jobs on nights and weekends.

    But paying student-teachers, she said, should only be the beginning. Novice teachers also need  smaller class sizes, more support from administrators and more help with enrichment activities, such as extra staff to lead lessons in art and physical education.

    “We definitely need more teachers, and paying student teachers is a good start,” Hunter said. “But there’s a lot more we can do to help them.”

    This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.


    Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Source link

  • USyd makes $500m surplus, Mark Scott gets $150k pay rise – Campus Review

    USyd makes $500m surplus, Mark Scott gets $150k pay rise – Campus Review

    The University of Sydney (USyd) recorded a $500 million surplus in 2024 and boosted its vice-chancellor Mark Scott’s pay by $150,000 to a $1.349 million salary, its 2024 financial result showed.

    Please login below to view content or subscribe now.

    Membership Login

    Source link

  • Support for action on ethnic and disability pay gaps demonstrates our commitment to our communities

    Support for action on ethnic and disability pay gaps demonstrates our commitment to our communities

    By mirroring gender pay gap reporting, which was made mandatory in 2018, the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill would introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers with 250 or more employers.

    In his foreword to the consultation on introduction of the Bill, the Minister for Social Security and Disability Stephen Timms notes that the UK is far away from achieving its goal of creating a more equal society in which people can thrive whatever their background. According to the Office for National Statistics, the current ethnicity pay gap in the UK ranges from 1.9 per cent to 9.7 per cent, depending on ethnicity and if individuals were born in the UK.

    Diving into the data, we were concerned to find that no progress has been made in reducing the median gross hourly pay gap for Black, African, Caribbean or Black British employees compared to white employees, remaining “consistent since 2012”. The disability pay gap is even more pronounced, at 12.7 per cent, having remained “relatively stable since 2014.” The lack of progress in closing these pay gaps is as concerning as the lack of awareness of the problem.

    Conversely, the practice of gender pay gap reporting will have contributed to the gender pay gap declining by approximately a quarter among full-time employees over the past decade. Greater transparency helped build the foundations for positive transformation, creating a strategic imperative to root out systemic inequalities and leading to many employers developing, and proactively publishing, action plans to close the gap within their organisations.

    In pursuing the noble aim of creating a more equal – and socially cohesive – society, the same focus must now be placed on tackling racial and disability inequalities. Economic inequalities between ethnic groups are an important contributor to social unrest.

    The government should be supported in its proposed introduction of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill and, speaking as vice chancellor of Birmingham City University (BCU), David would encourage fellow higher education leaders to join him in lending our public support to the government for this proposal.

    There are two key reasons for higher education institutions publicising their ethnicity pay gaps in particular: to build trust with their internal community, and to strengthen authentically social cohesiveness in their local communities.

    Building trust

    BCU’s new strategy articulates a clear commitment to improve the diversity of our organisation at all levels and eradicate pay gaps. The first step in this will be to publish all our pay gaps with a clear plan to close them by 2030.

    There are persistent racial inequalities in higher education. This is demonstrated most evidently in awarding gaps for ethnic minority students and Black students achieving a good honours degrees compared to white students, at 14.1 per cent and 21.6 per cent respectively in 2024. A lack of representation of ethnic minority staff in senior positions also conveys persistent inequities. Ethnic minorities now comprise one in three undergraduate students, but only one in four (20.2 per cent) of academic staff. Their representation is even lower among professors (15.1 per cent), senior managers (9.1 per cent) and executives (7 per cent).

    The picture is more concerning in terms of Black representation in higher education. One in ten undergraduate students is Black (9.6 per cent), but only one in every roughly 27 academics share their ethnic identity. Only 1.6 per cent of all professors are black and 0.7 per cent of executives.

    In contrast to the gender pay gap, information on the ethnicity pay gap in higher education is not routinely published. Combined with the lack of proportional representation of ethnic minority staff in senior positions, the lack of published data and strategy to tackle pay gaps has caused many staff to lose trust in institutional leadership and its commitment to tackle racial inequalities. The Equality (Race and Disability) Bill would bring parity with mandatory gender pay gap reporting and offer greater transparency to our communities.

    For reference, the median gender pay gap across higher education institutions, which stands at 11.9 per cent, reduced by 4.4 percentage points since reporting began in 2017.

    Community cohesion

    Universities play a crucial role in shaping their localities and are increasingly active in strengthening social cohesion – our institutions allow (mostly) young people to study in diverse settings, enable better understanding of different cultures, encourage active citizenship, and develop graduates who are more likely to show concern over racism, be more positive towards immigration, and less likely to view feminism as harmful. Our social mobility missions break cycles of poverty, research and innovation activities drive productivity, and graduates sustain vital public services.

    Working effectively with our diverse local communities necessitates trust and the transparent reporting of systemic racial inequalities is paramount. For BCU, this means better reflecting and working in partnership with a community in which no ethnic group has a majority; the 2021 census identified that Birmingham’s population is more than twice as likely to come from an ethnic minority than the overall population in England. 51.4 per cent of people living in Birmingham are from an ethnic minority group, compared to a national average in England of 19 per cent. The data is much more profound for Ladywood, the constituency in which BCU’s city centre campus is based. Here, more than three in four (76.6 per cent) come from an ethnic minority, with the greater proportions of Asian (38.6 per cent) and Black (25.9 per cent) than White (23.4 per cent) citizens.

    Birmingham’s “super-diversity” is seen as one of its biggest strengths, the city council opining that it stems from the city’s long-standing history for welcoming people from around the world. However, we must recognise that challenges persist, most notably in terms of engendering social harmony and tackling inequality. Those two challenges are interlinked: social harmony rests on our different racial and ethnic groups feeling valued and having trust in their local institutions providing equal opportunities and equitable outcomes, regardless of background.

    Our 2030 strategy sets out a clear vision to be an exemplar anchor institution by 2030. This vision was co-created with representatives from our communities, who recognise and value the crucial role that universities like ours play in their locality. Our strategy explicitly recognises the responsibility we have in strengthening social cohesion in our home city of Birmingham.

    From speaking with many vice chancellors, I know that we at BCU are not alone in championing our civic mission. Notwithstanding this, until we collective publish data on ethnicity pay gaps – alongside action plans to overcome these – our sector may find it difficult to build and sustain trust with our diverse internal and external communities. The Equality (Race and Disability) Bill offers a timely opportunity for our sector to demonstrate its commitment to racial justice.

    My fellow vice-chancellors would do well in voicing their support through this government consultation.

    The consultation on the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill closes on 10 June and can be accessed here.

    Source link

  • New Report From CUPA-HR Explores Changes in Faculty Size, Pay and Tenure Status Over the Past 20 Years – CUPA-HR

    New Report From CUPA-HR Explores Changes in Faculty Size, Pay and Tenure Status Over the Past 20 Years – CUPA-HR

    by CUPA-HR | May 20, 2025

    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?

    In the new research report, Two Decades of Change: Faculty Discipline Trends in Higher Education, CUPA-HR presents findings from an analysis of data from its Faculty in Higher Education Survey from 2003-04 to 2023-24.

    Some key findings highlighted in the report:

    • 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.

     

    Read the full report and explore the data with interactive graphics.



    Source link

  • Podcast: Finances and cuts, VC pay

    Podcast: Finances and cuts, VC pay

    This week on the podcast we discuss “naming and shaming” over vice-chancellor pay packages when student outcomes fall short.

    Source link

  • Most Higher Ed Employees Received Raises This Year, but Salaries Still Fall Short of Pre-Pandemic Pay

    Most Higher Ed Employees Received Raises This Year, but Salaries Still Fall Short of Pre-Pandemic Pay

    by CUPA-HR | April 8, 2025

    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.

    Explore this data and more in CUPA-HR’s newest interactive graphic.



    Source link

  • The Right Way to Use Student Loans to Pay for College

    The Right Way to Use Student Loans to Pay for College

    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.

    Kristen Castillo, [email protected]

    Source link

  • TEQSA can’t fix wage underpayment, VC pay issues: Governance inquiry

    TEQSA can’t fix wage underpayment, VC pay issues: Governance inquiry

    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.”

    Related stories: La Trobe most recent uni to reveal it underpaid staff | Monash underpays $7.6m as ‘expert council’ on uni governance members announced

    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.”

    Source link

  • Equal Pay Day Data: On Average, Women in Higher Ed Are Paid 82 Cents on the Dollar

    Equal Pay Day Data: On Average, Women in Higher Ed Are Paid 82 Cents on the Dollar

    by Christy Williams | March 5, 2025

    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:

    *Data Source: 2024-25 CUPA-HR Administrators, Faculty, Professionals, and Staff in Higher Education Surveys. Drawn from 707,859 men and women for whom race/ethnicity was known.



    Source link