Duke University has the highest pay among colleges and universities in North Carolina with its staff earning an average of more than $92,000 per year.
That’s according to a recent Business Journals analysis of fiscal year 2023 U.S. Department of Education data for public and private universities.
By average salary, Duke is No. 1 in all of North Carolina, just ahead of Wake Forest University with an average salary for all workers of about $89,550. After the two private schools is UNC-Chapel Hill at about $81,702 and N.C. State at about $79,529.
Duke reported a total salary outlay in fiscal year 2023 of about $764.58 million. The school had 1,447 instructional staff members and 6,798 non-instructional staff members, putting the average salaries of the two groups at $163,716 and $77,624, respectively.
Salary for instructional staff at Duke was the highest in state, ahead of UNCl at $135,649. Duke's average salary for non-instructional staff was second only to Wake Forest at $81,978.
Of the top 10 universities in the state with the highest average salaries, six were private nonprofit institutions while four were public schools in the UNC system. In addition to the schools already mentioned, the top 10 included Davison College, UNC-Charlotte, Elon University, Johnson and Wales University-Charlotte, Campbell University and UNC-Greensboro.
Schools with the lowest average salaries included small private institutions such as N.C. Wesleyan University in Rocky Mount and Shaw University in Raleigh, which had average salaries of about $53,565 and $55,167, respectively.
Glenn Colby, senior researcher at the American Association of University Professors, said compensation in higher education is rebounding from pandemic pressures.
“For the first time since 2019, faculty salaries have outpaced inflation — just barely, by 2.4 percent,” Colby said.
The rebound has been particularly pronounced among private schools, which were hit the hardest by the pandemic.
“Public institutions seemed somewhat more insulated from effects,” he said. “But private schools were more apt to enact hiring freezes and suspend retirement contributions.”
Private school faculty are less likely to unionize, meaning cuts were often made in real time as opposed to when contracts came up for renewal.
Total enrollment
| Rank | Prior Rank | School/ |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | N.C. State University |
2 | 2 | UNC-Chapel Hill |
3 | 3 | East Carolina University |
Non-instructor pay growing at a faster pace
In 2023, the average overall salary among all full-time university and college employees — including non-instructional staff — was $69,238.
The highest overall employee average salaries were found at Stanford University ($135,771), followed by MiraCosta College ($129,743) in Oceanside, California and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering ($120,086) in Needham, Massachusetts.
Drilling down to instructional employees, the national average was $82,235 in 2023, which is up 18 percent from $69,429 in 2013.
By comparison, national, public-sector wages grew more than 40 percent during that same span.
About 49 percent of university faculty positions are part-time, and up until recently, those salaries had been dropping as well, Colby said.
The highest salaries for full-time instructional staff were found at some of the nation’s most elite schools. California Institute of Technology posted an average of $239,790. Harvard University ($220,073) and Stanford University ($204,079) were close behind.
Meanwhile, non-instructional salaries increased 28 percent from $49,573 in 2013 to $63,403 by 2023. The highest averages were again found at Stanford University ($124,042), MiraCosta College ($122,892) and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering ($119,508).
President-to-faculty pay ratio also on the rise
Among the highest non-instruction wages are those paid to presidents, chief financial officers and key administrators.
Department of Education data reveals the average president to faculty pay ratio has increased from 4.2 to 4.6 since 2020. That means presidents are paid 4.6 times the salary of a full-time doctoral faculty member on average.
But it isn’t just noninstructional wage growth that is outpacing that of faculty. It’s also their ranks.
“Institutions are creating more director and assistant director positions to oversee programs that were formerly under the purview of tenured faculty,” Colby said.
“As colleges have grown, they’ve hired more contingent, or part-time faculty who are not eligible for tenure. Then, the administration says, ‘We don’t have enough (full-time) faculty to fill out the committees, therefore we’re going to create an assistant director position that will do work formerly done by faculty.’”
From 2013 to 2023, the University of Mississippi added 5,734 non-instructors. University of California-Los Angeles (5,423), Rutgers University (3,641) and Harvard University (2,936) all topped the list of schools that increased full-time, nonclassroom positions.
Future of college varies by region
Since 2014, enrollment at American universities has increased only 9 percent.
While some schools continue to up their non-instructional numbers, an enrollment cliff looms.
Experts anticipate the nation’s most selective schools may see little to no effect. But smaller schools could be hit hard, especially in areas that have seen considerable out-migration during and after the pandemic.
“Regional universities in the Northeast, maybe in some parts of the Midwest, or small colleges that rely on students coming from nearby, need to be prepared for fewer students applying,” Colby said.
Conversely, schools in the Sunbelt, which saw historic in-migration over the past 10 years, could see big surges.
Looking at 2023 data, five schools in Texas posted enrollment spikes of well over 40 percent since 2014, with University of Texas Dallas (89 percent) and University of Texas Rio Grande (86 percent) leading the way.
But Colby believes all schools need to plan for the enrollment cliff sooner than later, ideally with faculty input and participation.
“Colleges and universities may need to reduce the load and pay, for example, across the board for all faculty, or let some faculty go and maintain the pay and increase the workload of those who remain,” Colby said. “This was the same problem during the first years of the pandemic.”
