ED TAB:

Fall Staff in Postsecondary Institutions, 1995

February 1998

(NCES 98-228) Ordering information

Highlights

Staff in All Postsecondary Institutions (8,598 institutions)

• There were about 2.8 million staff employed in postsecondary institutions in 1995 (table 1-1), about 2.4 percent of the total U.S. nonfarm establishments payroll (figure 1-1).
• Growth in postsecondary staff was 2.5 percent from 1991 to 1993 and 1.6 percent from 1993 to 1995 (figure 1-2).
• Overall, three-fourths of staff were employed in 4-year institutions. About 68 percent of staff were employed in public institutions (figure 1-7).
• In 1995, faculty composed 36 percent of postsecondary staff (figure 1-8). The proportion of staff who were faculty was higher in 2-year institutions than 4-year institutions (figure 1-9).

• About 95 percent of the postsecondary staff were employed in institutions of higher education, a subset of all postsecondary institutions (figure 1-3 and table 1-1).
• From 1991 to 1995, full-time staff decreased by 1 percent while part-time staff increased by 18 percent (figure 1-3).
• Part-time employment of staff was higher in 2-year institutions than in 4-year institutions and was higher in public institutions than in private institutions (figure 1-4).
• Growth in IHE staff kept pace with overall employment growth and exceeded growth in student enrollments from 1991 to 1995 (figure 1-5).
• The number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) students to FTE staff has been declining since 1976. This decline has been reflected in most professional positions, including faculty (table 1-2).
• Professional staff grew by 9 percent from 1991 to 1995 (figure 1-10), with the largest increase occurring in faculty positions (figure 1-11).
• The number of nonprofessional staff decreased by about 3 percent from 1991 to 1995 (figure 1-10).
• Among professional occupations, part-time staff increased by 20 percent and full-time staff increased by 3 percent from 1991 to 1995 (table 1-3).
• From 1991 to 1995, the growth in professional employment for women continued to increase and surpassed job growth for men in all areas, except other professional support/services (table 1-3).
• From 1993 to 1995, women gained an additional 7 percent of all faculty positions, reaching 40 percent in 1995 (table 1-3).
• Minorities were underrepresented in professional occupations and overrepresented in nonprofessional occupations relative to their representation in the total population, labor force, and IHE staff. For example, 31 percent of service maintenance positions and 5 percent of faculty positions were held by blacks; at the same time, blacks composed 11 percent of the U.S. population and labor force and 12 percent of total IHE staff (table 1-4).
• Executive/administrative/managerial full-time staff and faculty had the highest median earnings of all full-time staff in IHEs in 1995 (table 1-7).
• Among full-time faculty having 9- to 10-month contracts, whites earned 91 percent as much as Asians and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics earned 87 percent as much, and blacks and American Indians and Alaska Natives earned 83 percent as much (figure 1-14).
• The 1995 median earnings of full-time faculty in private institutions were 96 percent of those in public institutions (figure 1-16).
• In 1995, women employed full-time in other professional support/services earned 93 percent as much as men in comparable positions, and women faculty with 9- to 10-month contracts earned 81 percent as much as men faculty (table 1-7).
• Women full-time faculty earned 89 percent as much as men faculty in 2-year institutions and 79 percent as much in 4-year institutions (figure 1-15).

• From 1991 to 1995, the proportion of faculty employed in 2-year institutions grew from 28 percent to 31 percent (figure 2-1).
• From 1991 to 1995, growth in full-time and part-time faculty positions held by women exhibited steady growth, while the growth in faculty positions for men slowed and even declined in full-time positions (figure 2-4).
• In 1995, women composed larger shares of part-time faculty than full-time faculty in both public and private institutions (figure 2-6).
• From 1993 to 1995, all minority groups either experienced an increase in their percentage of full-time faculty positions or retained a constant share of such full-time positions. Asians and Pacific Islanders had the biggest percentage gains, increasing 9 percent (table 2-2).
• Since the mid-1970s, the percentage of minority full-time faculty has increased but has not kept pace with increases in the percentage of minority undergraduate enrollment (table 2-3).
• About one-half of full-time faculty were tenured in 1995, about the same percentage as in the mid-1970s. Since the mid-1970s, however, there has been an increase in the percentage of full-time faculty that are not on a tenure track (table 2-4).
• In 1995, white, full-time faculty were more likely to be tenured than minorities, and men were more likely to be tenured than women (figure 2-7).
• A smaller percentage of full-time women faculty held the rank of full professor than of full-time men faculty in 1995 (figure 2-8).
• The majority of blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians and Alaskan Natives employed in institutions of higher education held assistant professor and lecturer/instructor/other faculty positions, while white and Asian and Pacific Islander were more evenly divided between high and low ranked faculty positions (table 2-5).

• The number of new full-time hires has been declining since the mid-1970s, reaching 91,876 in 1995 (figure 3-1).
• The overall distribution of new hires by primary occupation has changed substantially since 1977. The percentage of new hires in executive/administrative/managerial, faculty, and professional (support/service) positions increased from 1977 to 1995, while technical/paraprofessional, clerical/secretarial, skilled crafts, and service/maintenance new hires declined (figure 3-1).
• The number of new hires declined by 31 percent from 1977 to 1995 and by 8 percent from 1993 to 1995. From 1993 to 1995, the number of new hires declined for every primary occupation; most notable was the decrease of almost 4,000 new faculty hires (figure 3-2).
• In 1995, minorities represented a greater proportion of new faculty hires than of existing full-time faculty (figure 3-4).
• While the proportion of minority newly hired full-time faculty grew in 1995, the overall number of minority newly hired full-time faculty decreased. Looking at individual racial/ethnic groups, however, shows that the number of Asian and Pacific Islander and American Indian and Alaskan Native new hires increased from 1993 to 1995 (table 3-1).
• New hires in 1995 were less likely than existing full-time faculty to be on a tenure track (5 percent compared with 52 percent; figure 3-5).
• In 1995, newly hired faculty of both sexes were tenured, on a tenure track but not tenured, and not on a tenure track, not tenured at about the same rates (figure 3-5).

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