Higher Ed Pay Raises Outpaced Inflation This Past Year, but Today’s Pay Still Falls Short of Pre-Pandemic Pay When Adjusted for Inflation

New research from CUPA-HR shows that most higher ed employees received pay increases typical of the years preceding the pandemic, after receiving historically high increases over the past few years. Median pay increases for administrators, professionals, and staff exceeded the rate of inflation for the third consecutive year, but across higher ed employees are still being paid less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they were in 2019-20.

Some of the other key findings from an analysis of CUPA-HR’s higher ed workforce salary survey data from 2016-17 to 2025-26:

• All higher ed employee groups continued to be paid less in 2025-26 than they were in 2019-20 when adjusting to 2025-26 dollars.
• Staff (typically non-exempt employees) received the highest median percentage increases in comparison to other workforce areas (3.0%). Staff increases were also higher than pre-pandemic levels, though lower than recent historical highs.
• The largest gap between pre-pandemic inflation-adjusted salaries and current salaries is for tenure-track faculty (who are paid 11.7% less), followed by non-tenure-track teaching faculty (paid 6.8% less). The smallest gap is for non-exempt staff (paid 0.9% less).
• For the fourth consecutive year, tenure-track faculty received the lowest median salary increase of all employee categories (1.8%). Across the 10 years of data analyzed, tenure-track faculty salary increases have never exceeded the rate of inflation. Tenure-track faculty have not received salary increases in real dollars for the past decade

Explore this data and more in CUPA-HR’s newest interactive graphic.