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.
The expansion of government powers would hand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the authority to cancel a student’s legal status if the visa they used to enter the US is revoked.
Previously, a visa revocation would only impact a person’s ability to return to the country but would not end their permission to stay in the US as a student.
The new guidelines were outlined in an ICE document shared in a court filing on April 28, according to Associated Press.
Attorneys for international students said in court the new reasons would allow for faster deportations and would justify many of the Trump administration’s terminations of thousands of students’ legal status on the database maintained by ICE.
“This just gave them carte blanche to have the State Department revoke a visa and then deport those students, even if they’ve done nothing wrong,” said immigration attorney Brad Banias, as reported in AP.
When approached for comment, a State Department spokesperson said it “will continue to work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to enforce zero tolerance for aliens in the United States who violate US laws, threaten public safety, or in other situations where warranted”.
The PIE is yet to hear back from ICE.
This just gave them carte blanche to have the State Department revoke a visa and then deport those students, even if they’ve done nothing wrong
Brad Banias, immigration attorney
Sector leaders welcomed last week’s news that the government was restoring students’ legal status while it developed a new framework for future terminations, though the proposed vastly expanded new powers come as another blow for international students and educators.
The court heard that the new policy went against “at least 15 years of SEVP guidance”, referring to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program managed by ICE.
However, NAFSA emphasised on May 2 that “the document cannot yet be regarded as ICE’s new official policy”.
The document offers two new reasons for termination; non-compliance with the terms of nonimmigrant status and visa revocation by the state department.
In the case of the former, it is not clear whether a SEVIS record termination would also result in the termination of nonimmigrant status, though it would strip students of status benefits including applying for OPT or returning to the US after travelling abroad.
According to immigration attorneys, the new guidance could also allow for revoking student status if their names appear in a criminal database regardless of whether they were ever charged with a crime.
Traditionally, student visa revocations have not been common, but recently the US government began terminating students’ status either in addition to or instead of revoking their visas.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database is maintained by ICE to monitor international students’ presence in the US.
In the absence of disaggregated counts of visa revocation and SEVIS record termination, it remains unclear how many students will lose their status because of the new termination framework.
Since mid-March, sudden visa revocations by the State Department and SEVIS record terminations by ICE and DHS have caused widespread fear and uncertainty across US campuses.
“Exacerbating the stress was the rationale provided by the government, which ranged from wholly absent, to conflicting, to shifting, to downright baseless,” said NAFSA.
In March, secretary of state Marco Rubio said that his department was revoking the visas of students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests and those with criminal charges.
However, many students who saw their status terminated said they did not fall under those categories and argued that they were denied due process. Others said they were not aware their status had been revoked until logging onto the SEVIS database.
We’re rounding up recent stories, from a legal victory for some noncitizen students to Harvard University's legal fight against the Trump administration.
In a significant policy reversal, the Trump administration has begun restoring the legal status of international students whose records were terminated in recent weeks, according to statements made by a Justice Department attorney during a federal court hearing in Oakland, California on Friday.
Elizabeth D. Kurlan, representing the Justice Department, informed the court that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reactivating student records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) system while developing “a framework for status record termination” to guide future policies.
The abrupt reversals began Thursday afternoon when international students and university administrators across the country discovered that many previously terminated records had been unexpectedly restored in the system.
“It’s like somebody flipped a light switch on,” described Jath Shao, a Cleveland-based immigration attorney representing affected students.
The policy change follows weeks of controversy after the administration began revoking visas and terminating the legal status of thousands of international students, particularly targeting those who had participated in political activism or had previous legal infractions such as DUIs.
Higher education institutions have reported varying degrees of reinstatement. At the University of California, Berkeley, 12 of 23 affected international students have had their SEVIS records restored. Similar partial reinstatements have been reported at Rochester Institute of Technology and by attorneys representing students across multiple states.
Despite this development, significant concerns remain for international student populations. Legal experts also caution that terminated status records, even if reinstated, could potentially jeopardize future applications for permanent residency or other immigration benefits.
According to the Justice Department, ICE will continue to maintain authority to terminate records for legitimate violations of nonimmigrant status or other unlawful activity under the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, ICE will not terminate statuses solely based on findings in the National Crime Information Center, a computerized criminal history database that had been used to justify many of the recent terminations.
For higher education institutions, which rely heavily on international student enrollment for both academic diversity and financial stability, the policy reversals offer temporary relief while raising questions about the stability of immigration policies affecting campus communities.
Shao characterized the development as “a small but positive one” while emphasizing that more comprehensive protections are needed to ensure international students’ security within U.S. higher education institutions.
After several recent statements by President Trump suggesting that Harvard University should lose its tax-exempt status because of what he called “political, ideological, and terrorist inspired” ideas being expressed on the Cambridge campus, the IRS has reportedly begun to consider removing Harvard’s tax exemption. Coming on the heels of its recent freeze of over $2 billion in federal funding to Harvard, such a decision displays an alarming willingness to use the levers of government specifically to suppress dissenting political viewpoints in higher education.
In posts to TRUTH Social on April 15 and 16, Trump explained his reasoning for targeting Harvard’s tax exemption. In addition to “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’,” Trump opined that Harvard had “lost its way” by hiring former Mayors Bill de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot to teach classes, “hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots,” and declining to fire former President Claudine Gay from her faculty as well as her leadership position after plagiarism allegations, and generally for Harvard being a “JOKE” that teaches “Hate and Stupidity” and is unworthy of federal funding.
Using the IRS as a tool for political retribution undermines the agency’s impartiality and jeopardizes the foundational principle of equal justice under law.
One need not consider the merits of these complaints to recognize that they are, at their core, complaints about the viewpoints expressed by Harvard as an institution and by individual members of its community. As such, targeting Harvard for these viewpoints is viewpoint discrimination prohibited by the First Amendment. As a unanimous Supreme Court reminded us just last year in NRA v. Vullo, “A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead. . . . What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”
Threatening to strip a university of its tax-exempt status based on its expression — or that of faculty, staff, or students — sets a dangerous precedent. The Internal Revenue Code grants tax-exempt status to educational institutions that operate for the public good, without engaging in substantial political or lobbying activities, and very broadly construes the notion of the public good precisely because it is not intended to serve as referee for the intense social and political debates key to politics in a liberal democracy. Past efforts to weaponize the agency against political opponents, from President Nixon’s desire to audit those on his “enemies list” to the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups for excessive scrutiny under President Obama, have been near-universally condemned. Using the IRS as a tool for political retribution undermines the agency’s impartiality and jeopardizes the foundational principle of equal justice under law.
Many who support Trump set aside the president’s ideological justifications for removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status. They instead argue the targeting is justified because of the college’s alleged acts of discrimination, both with regard to allegations of anti-Semitism on its campus and the Supreme Court’s 2023 finding in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that its admissions program was racially discriminatory. They point to the Court’s 1983 decision in Bob Jones University v. United States, in which it upheld the IRS’s decision to strip that university’s tax exemption because of its rules banning interracial dating and marriage.
However, the Court emphasized in that case that revoking tax-exempt status is a “sensitive” decision that should be made only when there is “no doubt” that an organization violates fundamental and longstanding federal policy, emphasizing policy agreement among all branches of government. Federal attention to Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status spanned four different presidential administrations and left the public no reason to think the grounds for revocation were pretextual. Today, by contrast, the president is explicitly targeting a university specifically for its expression and ideological reasons.
In the more than four decades since the Bob Jones decision, it appears that no college or university has ever faced the loss of their tax exempt status over race discrimination. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have instead addressed such allegations according to the regulations implementing Title VI, which require that the government first attempt to voluntarily resolve complaints and only allows resolution through financial penalties or “other means authorized by law” after those efforts have failed, followed by formal notice and a waiting period.
FIRE staunchly opposes any governmental attempt to coerce educational institutions into ideological conformity. But the stakes here extend far beyond campus. Trump’s threat to revoke Harvard’s 501(c)(3) status doesn’t just endanger academic freedom — it sets a dangerous precedent for all nonprofits whose speech may fall out of favor with those in power. Institutions across the ideological and cultural spectrum may suddenly find themselves in the crosshairs, from the Heritage Foundation to the Center for American Progress, from Planned Parenthood to the National Right to Life Committee, from your local church to the animal shelter — and, yes, even FIRE.
Turning the tax code into a weapon against disfavored viewpoints is a dangerous departure from our nation’s core values. President Trump and many in his administration have echoed this view over the years, and for good reason. They should not now abandon it on the altar of political expediency.
The Internal Revenue Service is reportedly planning to rescind Harvard University’s tax-exempt status amid its showdown with the Trump administration over academic freedom, CNN reported.
Citing two anonymous sources, CNN reported that a decision is likely coming soon. If Harvard’s tax-exempt status is revoked, the move would appear to be at the behest of President Donald Trump, who has railed against the private university in posts on his own Truth Social platform.
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” Trump wrote Tuesday.
In a Wednesday post, the president said that Harvard should “no longer receive Federal Funds” because it “is a JOKE [that] teaches Hate and Stupidity.”
Harvard is currently in a standoff with the Trump administration, which has demanded a series of wide-reaching changes it says are needed to address alleged antisemitism on campus related to pro-Palestinian protests. Those demands include reforms in admissions, hiring practices, student disciplinary processes and a facultywide plagiarism review, among other changes.
Harvard, however, rejected Trump’s demands on Monday, calling them an affront to institutional autonomy.
The Trump administration promptly retaliated, freezing $2.2 billion in federal grant funding and $60 million in contracts.
Neither the IRS nor Harvard respond to requests for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
Tennessee lawmakers on Wednesday voted to advance a bill that would require public K-12 and charter schools to verify student immigration status and allow them to bar children who cannot prove they lawfully reside in the United States unless they pay tuition.
The 5-4 vote by the Senate Education Committee came despite the Legislature’s own fiscal analysis, which said the proposed legislation “may jeopardize federal funding to the state and to local governments” and violate the federal Civil Rights Act, which specifically prohibits discrimination based on national origin in programs receiving federal dollars. Three Republicans joined the committee’s sole Democrat in voting “no.”
Immediately after the vote was cast, shouts of “so shameful” and “that’s trash” erupted inside the hearing room. Others, including school-age children in attendance, streamed out of the room in tears.
The bill (HB793/SB836) by Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican, and House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a Portland Republican, says that local school districts and public charter schools “shall require” students to provide one of three forms of documentation: proof of U.S. citizenship, proof the student is in the process of obtaining citizenship or proof they have legal immigration status or a visa.
Students who lack one of the three forms of documentation could then be barred by their local school district from enrolling unless their parents paid tuition.
Watson, the bill’s sponsor, said he brought the measure in response to the increasing cost to the state of providing English-as-a-second-language instruction.
“Remember, we are not talking about people who are here lawfully,” Watson said. “What I’m trying to discuss here is the financial burden that exists with what appears to be an increasing number of people who are not lawfully here.”
In response to a question from Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, the sole Democrat on the panel, Watson said he had received no formal request from any school official to introduce the measure.
“In an official capacity, this is one of those issues people do not talk about,” Watson said. “This is a very difficult bill to present. It is very difficult to have all these eyes on you.”
“In an unofficial capacity at numerous events, have people mentioned this problem to me? Absolutely,” Watson said.
Akbari responded: “I’m from the largest school district in the state. I have not had those conversations.”
“I am offended by this legislation,” Akbari said. “I find that it is so antithetical to the very foundation of this country….This is saying that babies – you start school at five years old – that you do not deserve to be educated.”
The bill’s sponsors have acknowledged the measure is likely to face a legal challenge if enacted. The proposed legislation, they have said, is intended to serve as a vehicle to potentially overturn the Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe decision, which established a constitutional right to a public school education for all children. The 1982 decision was decided by a 5-4 vote, Watson noted.
“Many 5-4 decisions taken to the court today might have a different outcome,” Watson said.
The proposed legislation is part of an unprecedented slate of immigration-related bills introduced in the Tennessee legislature this year as Gov. Bill Lee and the General Assembly’s GOP supermajority seek to align with the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.
Lee last month signed into law legislation to create a state immigration enforcement office to liaise with the Trump administration, create distinct driver’s licenses for noncitizens and levy felony charges at local elected officials who vote in favor of sanctuary policies.
Among nearly three dozen other immigration-related bills still being considered is one to require hospitals that accept Medicaid payments to report on the immigration status of their patients. Another bill would open up charitable organizations, including churches, to lawsuits if they have provided housing services to an individual without permanent legal immigration status and that individual goes on to commit a crime.
Following Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Education Committee, hundreds congregated in a hallway of the Legislature, chanting “education for all” and pledged to return as the bill winds through the committee process.
The bill “instills fear and hopelessness in these students,” said Ruby Aguilar, a Nashville teacher who testified against the bill during the hearing. “Education is not merely a privilege, it is a shared human right every child should have access to.”
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.
In a groundbreaking achievement that marks a significant milestone for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Howard University has become the first HBCU to receive the prestigious Research One (R1) Carnegie Classification, placing it among the nation’s most elite research institutions.
The announcement from the American Council of Education (ACE) on Thursday, recognizes Howard’s designation as an institution of “very high research spending and doctorate production,” a status that fewer than 150 universities nationwide have achieved. This accomplishment not only highlights Howard’s commitment to academic excellence but also represents a historic moment in the evolution of HBCUs in American higher education.
According to ACE’s stringent criteria, universities must demonstrate exceptional research capabilities through substantial financial investment and doctoral program success. The minimum requirements include at least $50 million in annual research spending and the production of at least 70 research doctorates. Howard University has significantly surpassed these thresholds, showcasing its commitment to advancing knowledge and fostering innovation.
Dr. Bruce A. Jones, Howard University’s senior vice president for research, provided specific details about the university’s achievements. “In Fiscal Year 2023, the most recent evaluation year in the classification cycle, the University’s productivity was significantly higher than the R1 base criteria, recording just under $85 million in research expenditures and awarding 96 doctorates in an array of fields,” Jones said. “This includes the highest number of doctorates awarded to Black students at any college or university in America.”
The impact of such a designation has broader implications beyond Howard, said Dr. Robert T. Palmer, chair and professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the university.
“Howard reaching R1 status is phenomenal. This status will help Howard to attract more highly competitive research grants and talented faculty and students,” said Palmer, who added that the university’s status as an R1 will also help to position itself as a premier institution “and help to amplify the great work being done by faculty, staff, and students, alumni”
Palmer noted that there are other HBCUs, including his alma mater, Morgan State University that is currently seeking R1 status.
“It would be great for HBCUs seeking R1 status to form a coalition and work collectively to support each other towards this goal,” he added.
University President Dr. Ben Vinson III emphasized the broader implications of this achievement for both Howard and the communities it serves.
“Howard University’s achievement of R1 status demonstrates our research capacity and reaffirms our deep commitment to tackling society’s most pressing questions through cutting-edge scholarship and technological innovation,” Vinson said. “As a leader in the evolution of next generation HBCUs, we are dedicated to ensuring that the benefits of discovery and progress reach all communities, including those historically overlooked and underrepresented.”
Vinson noted that the university’s research portfolio showcases its comprehensive approach to addressing critical societal challenges. For example, Howard hosts one of only fifteen U.S. Department of Defense University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) in the nation, focusing on tactical autonomy, human-machine teaming, and artificial intelligence through its Research Institute for Tactical Autonomy.
In the medical field, Howard’s pioneering spirit is evident in its Center for Sickle Cell Disease, which was the first center in the nation devoted to studying and treating the disease. The university’s Cancer Center holds the distinction of being the only such facility at an HBCU providing comprehensive cancer treatment services while training future oncology professionals and researchers.
The university’s commitment to preserving and studying Black history and culture is exemplified by the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, which stands as the nation’s largest and most comprehensive repository of materials on the global Black experience. Additionally, Howard’s Center for African Studies holds the unique position of being the only comprehensive National Resource Center at an HBCU, as designated by the U.S. Department of Education.
Higher education experts point out that Howard’s R1 designation represents not just an achievement for Howard University but a significant advancement for the entire HBCU community, potentially paving the way for other institutions to follow. As Howard continues to expand its research capabilities and influence, its impact on American higher education and scientific advancement promises to grow even stronger.
“I think it’s incredibly exciting that Howard University — a powerhouse for decades in research — is being recognized as a Research 1 institution,” said Dr. Marybeth Gasman, who is the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education and University Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. An expert on HBCUs, Gasman added that the important research contributions across disciplines at Howard have significantly impacted students, communities (regional, national, and international), and leaders.
“I’m excited to see what the institution does to build on this recognition as it progresses,” she said. “As a Research 1, it will be vital to ensure that all tenure-track faculty are supported through reduced course loads (4 courses a year max), research start-up funds across the disciplines, ample conference travel funding, and that Ph.D. students are supported with fully funded fellowships and assistantships.”
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The American Council on Educationon Thursday released the latest list of research college designations under the revamped Carnegie Classifications, labeling 187 institutions as Research 1 institutions.
The coveted R1 designation is given to universities with the highest levels of research activity. The number of colleges designated as R1 institutions in 2025 rose 28% compared with the last time the list was released, in 2022.
The updated list of research institutions is the first that ACE and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching have released since they updated their methodology for the classifications. The new methodology was created in part to simplify a previously complex formula that left institutions fearful about losing their status.
“We hope this more modernized version of Carnegie Classifications will answer more questions in a more sophisticated way about institutions and their position in the ecosystem and will allow decisions to be made much more precisely by philanthropists, by governments, and by students and families,” Ted Mitchell, president of ACE, told Higher Ed Dive.
Thirty-two institutions moved from the second-highest research level in 2022 — commonly called Research 2, or R2 — to the R1 designation.That group includes Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C. The private college — which announced a record $122 million in research grants and contracts in 2022 —is the only HCBU with the designation.
Other colleges that moved from R2 to R1 include public institutions like the University of Idaho, University of North Dakota, University of Rhode Island, University of Vermont and the University of Wyoming, along with private colleges like Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania, and American University, in Washington, D.C.
Just one institution dropped from R1 to R2 status — the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
For universities to achieve R1 status under the new methodology, they must spend an average of $50 million on research and development each year and award 70 or more research doctorates.
R2 institutions need to spend an average of $5 million per year on research and award 20 or more research doctorates.
Previously, the methodology was more complex. In order to keep the R1 and R2 groups of equal size, classifiers determined the line between the two designations with each cycle. They also looked at 10 different variables to determine R1 status.
“The previous methodology was opaque and I think led institutions to spend more time trying to figure out what the methodology actually was, perhaps distracting them from more important work,” said Timothy Knowles, president of the Carnegie Foundation. “Institutions that are close to the bar will just be much clearer about what they have to do to get over the bar.”
The latest crop of R1 institutions have each spent $748.4 million on research and development on average annually from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2023. During that same period, they have annually awarded an average of 297 research doctorates.
Texas led the list of states with the most R1 institutions, with 16.California and New York followed closely behind with 14 and 12 institutions, respectively.
The 139 R2 institutions on this latest list each spent an average of $55.17 million annually over three years on research and development — just beating the threshold for R1 status. However, they produced an average of only 49 research doctorates per year.
This year also marks the first time the classifications have included a new designation: RCU, or research colleges and universities.The new category is meant to recognize institutions that regularly conduct research but don’t confer doctoral degrees. These colleges only need to spend more than an average of $2.5 million annually on research to be recognized as RCUs.
This year, 215 colleges and universities have reached that status. Many are master’s- and baccalaureate-level institutions.And some are four-year colleges with a “special focus,” such as medical schools and centers.
Two tribal colleges have also reached RCU status: Diné College, in Arizona,and Northwest Indian College, in Washington.
“I was a little surprised and gratified to see the diversity of types of institutions that are now in this research college and university category,” said Mushtaq Gunja, executive director of the Carnegie Classifications systems. “We’re really able to shine a spotlight on the wide variety of places where research is happening and where students are being impacted by that research.”
Beyond the research designations, the organizations plan to release their full classifications — which include other institutional designations, such as those based on student access and earnings — in April.
