Most Higher Ed Workers Still Paid Less Than Before Pandemic

Although raises for most higher education employees last academic year beat inflation, most are still effectively earning less than they were in 2019–20, according to new salary survey data released Monday by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.

Tenure-track faculty also “received the lowest salary increase of all employee categories” for the third year in a row last academic year, according to a CUPA-HR news release.

“Across the nine years of data analyzed, tenure-track faculty salaries have not once exceeded the rate of inflation,” the release said. “This essentially means that—in real dollars—they have received salary decreases for the past decade.”

Adjusting for inflation, tenure-track faculty are now paid 10.2 percent less than they were before the pandemic, compared to 7.6 percent less for non-tenure-track teaching faculty and 2.8 percent less for staff, the release said.

And while “median pay increases for most higher education employees in 2024–25 remained strong,” the release said, “they have dropped from the historically high increases seen in the previous two years.”