CUPA-HR’s signature surveys collect data on composition and pay equity for all higher ed administrator, faculty, professional, and staff positions. To explore trends in composition and pay equity for custom comparison groups or specific positions, subscribe to DataOnDemand.
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.
Composition of Faculty by Tenure Status, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity
Key Findings: Although the representation of tenure-track faculty of color continues to increase across faculty ranks over time, their representation decreases with each increase in faculty rank. Nearly 40% of assistant professors are people of color. This is impressive representation considering that fewer than one-fourth of non-tenure-track faculty are people of color, and it indicates that institutions are making an effort to recruit diverse faculty into the tenure track. However, fewer than one-fourth of full professors are people of color, and this indicates that there may be bias inherent in the promotion and tenure process.
Women continue to have greater representation in non-tenure-track than in tenure-track positions. In addition, among tenure-track faculty, 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 nearly one-third from the assistant to the full professor rank. These findings indicate that women are overrepresented in the lowest-paying and lowest-ranking faculty positions. The data show that the only group whose representation increases with each promotion in rank in tenure-track faculty is White men, a pattern that has persisted over time.
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.
Median Pay Ratios for Faculty by Tenure Status, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity
Key Findings: Most tenure-track faculty of color continue to be paid at or above equity within rank. Hispanic men at the professor rank and Black men and Asian women at the assistant professor rank experienced notable gains in pay equity from 2023-24 to 2024-25. In contrast, Black women saw the largest declines, with pay ratios falling at both the associate and full professor ranks.
Among non-tenure-track faculty, persistent inequities in pay ratios remain across gender and racial/ethnic groups. Black, Hispanic/Latina, and White women continue to have lower median pay ratios compared to White men. The pay ratio for White women declined this year, following several years of gradual improvement. The pay ratio for Hispanic/Latino men, who had reached parity with White men for the first time last year, dropped to its lowest level since 2017-18. Asian women were the only minority group whose pay ratio increased in 2024-25.
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.
Navigating the Charts: Slide the circle side-to-side in the bar to change the year.
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., 2025 is academic year 2024-25). 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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