Workforce Pay Increases

CUPA-HR research is the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date source of higher education salary data. Salary data are collected separately for administrators, faculty, professionals, and staff each year. The data on this page represent pay-increase trends over nine years by position type.

2024-25 Key Findings

  • 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.
  • For the second consecutive year since the pandemic, median pay increases for most employee categories exceeded the inflation rate.
  • Staff (generally non-exempt 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 depicted, 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.

Across higher ed, employees are still being paid less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they were in 2019-20 (pre-pandemic). All higher ed employee groups continue to be paid less in 2024-25 than they did in 2019-20 when adjusting to 2024-25 dollars.

  • Tenure-track faculty have the largest gap, with salaries that are 10.2% lower on median than in 2019-20 when adjusted for inflation.
  • Non-tenure-track teaching faculty also have a large gap, as they are paid 7.6% less than in 2019-20.
  • Non-exempt staff have the smallest gap, as they are now paid 2.8% less than in 2019-20.

In short, most higher ed employees received median increases that outpaced inflation in 2024-25; however, these increases have not been enough to fully restore lost purchasing power since the COVID-19 pandemic. The persistent lag in tenure-track faculty salaries relative to inflation remains a concern, as they continue to experience negative salary growth.

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Employee Categories

  • Administrators include senior level-positions (e.g., presidents, provosts, chief positions, deputy positions, deans, and department heads).
  • Professionals include those with specialized expertise generally requiring a college degree (e.g., librarians, IT professionals).
  • Staff include mainly non-exempt hourly positions not requiring a college degree (e.g., clerical staff, custodians, food service workers).
  • Tenure-track faculty include both tenured faculty and those on the tenure track, whereas non-tenure-track teaching faculty refer to full-time contract faculty not on a tenure track.

See the Survey Participation and Information Templates for all specific positions and disciplines included in these various facets of the workforce.

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Methodology

Trend data was obtained by matching institutions that provided data in both (back-to-back) years of the comparison. First, average salaries were calculated for each position at each institution for each year of the comparison. Data were included in analyses only if an institution provided data on a particular position in both years. Then, the average institutional salary was calculated for each year of the comparison. The percentage change in average salary was calculated for each institution. Final analyses report median institutional change in average salary. The overall number of institutions analyzed varies with each comparison and ranges from 469 to 1,011. Inflation was calculated by measuring year-over-year changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from November to November, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), aligning with the effective dates of each survey year.

Citation Information: CUPA-HR Higher Education Workforce Surveys