dee karen/Shutterstock
New research from CUPA-HR has found that although median pay increases for most higher education employees in 2023-24 continued the upward trend seen last year (and exceeded the inflation rate for the first time since 2019-20), most employees 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 (earning 9.7% less), followed by non-tenure-track teaching faculty (earning 8.2% less). The smallest gap is for staff (earning only 0.3% less).
Some of the other key findings from an analysis of CUPA-HR’s higher ed workforce salary survey data from 2016-17 to 2023-24:
Non-tenure-track teaching faculty received their highest raise in the past eight years. Staff (generally non-exempt employees) received the highest increase in pay in comparison to other employee types. This was true last year as well. Tenure-track faculty continued to receive the lowest pay increases (and were the only group of employees whose raise did not surpass inflation).
Explore this data and more in CUPA-HR’s newest interactive graphic.
Disclaimer: HigherEdJobs encourages free discourse and expression of issues while striving for accurate presentation to our audience. A guest opinion serves as an avenue to address and explore important topics, for authors to impart their expertise to our higher education audience and to challenge readers to consider points of view that could be outside of their comfort zone. The viewpoints, beliefs, or opinions expressed in the above piece are those of the author(s) and don’t imply endorsement by HigherEdJobs.