CUPA-HR’s signature surveys collect data on composition and pay equity for all higher ed administrator, faculty, professional, and staff positions.
These interactive graphics depict composition and pay equity by gender and race/ethnicity over time for both tenure-track faculty and non-tenure-track teaching faculty. To explore trends in composition and pay equity for custom comparison groups or specific positions, subscribe to DataOnDemand.
Composition of Faculty by Tenure Status, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity
Navigating the Charts: Click the labels in the legend to select or deselect specific data in the graphic. Slide the circle side-to-side in the bar to change the year.
Key Findings: Over the past decade, the representation of tenure-track faculty of color across academic ranks has grown by 44%. A notable 40% of assistant professors are people of color, indicating that institutions are actively recruiting diverse talent into tenure-track positions. However, representation decreases with each advance in faculty rank, and fewer than one-fourth of full professors are people of color.
Women also remain disproportionately concentrated in the lower academic ranks, with representation steadily declining at the associate and full professor levels. The proportion of tenure-track women drops by 29% from the assistant to the full professor rank. Conversely, White men’s representation increases by 75% from the assistant to the full professor rank. White men remain the only group whose representation consistently increases with each promotion in rank, a pattern that has persisted for a decade and suggests that structural bias may still be inherent in the promotion and tenure process.
Women continue to have greater representation in non-tenure-track positions than in tenure-track positions, with non-tenure-track faculty remaining heavily female-dominated. In contrast, non-tenure-track faculty of color have seen notable gains in representation over the past decade, with women of color increasing by 42% and men of color by 39%.
Median Pay Ratios for Faculty by Tenure Status, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity
Navigating the Charts: Slide the circle side-to-side in the bar to change the year.
Key Findings: Overall, pay ratios among tenure-track faculty groups either stagnated or declined compared to the previous year. Tenure-track faculty of color have generally maintained pay at or above equity with White men across all ranks and racial/ethnic groups in recent years; however, that pattern shifted this year as Hispanic/Latina and Black women associate professors fell below pay equity. Consistent with trends observed over the past decade, White women tenure-track faculty continue to receive pay below equity across all ranks compared to White men. Additionally, pay ratios for White women associate professors and professors declined by several cents this year, marking a multi-year low.
Among non-tenure-track faculty, pay inequities persist across gender and racial/ethnic groups. Black women had a notable increase in their pay ratio this year, reaching pay equity with White men. In contrast, Black men’s pay ratio decreased, falling below pay equity. Hispanic/Latina and White women, whose pay ratios were already below equity, experienced further declines, widening existing pay gaps.
It is important to note that tenure-track faculty often see substantial salary increases at only two points in their careers: once when they are promoted to associate professor and again when they are promoted to full professor. When there is bias in promoting women and faculty of color to successive ranks, as our data continue to show, this results in career earnings gaps that far exceed what is often detected in pay equity studies (or in these pay ratio charts) within rank for a given year. In contrast, non-tenure-track faculty may experience more static salary trajectories.
Methodology
Data were collected in CUPA-HR’s Faculty in Higher Education Survey with an effective date of November 1 of each academic year. (For these charts, the academic year is denoted with the last part of the year, e.g., 2026 is academic year 2025-26). Analyses include only non-profit institutions of higher education; each year of data includes data from at least 683 colleges and universities and over 210,000 full-time faculty.
In calculating pay ratios, median salaries by race/ethnicity, sex, and rank (tenure-track faculty only) for each faculty discipline were obtained; then, the median of those medians was calculated by race/ethnicity and sex. Finally, each group’s median salary was divided by the median salary of White men to calculate the pay ratio. This controls for the fact that women and faculty of color may be represented differently in specific disciplines that pay higher or lower salaries, and it means that the wage gaps present are not explained by the fact that women or people of color may have greater representation in lower-paying disciplines.
Additional Resources
For more information and data on higher ed faculty, see our comprehensive report, Representation and Pay Equity in Higher Education Faculty: A Review and Call to Action, and our in-depth analysis of discipline trends over time, Two Decades of Change: Faculty Discipline Trends in Higher Education.
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