In recent years, higher education institutions have faced increasing pressure to prioritize disciplines with clear career pathways over traditional liberal arts programs, according to a new report from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR).
The report, "Two Decades of Change: Faculty Discipline Trends in Higher Education," analyzes data from CUPA-HR's Faculty in Higher Education Survey from 2003-04 to 2023-24, revealing significant shifts in faculty size, tenure status, and salaries across academic disciplines.
Health Professions emerged as the discipline with the most dramatic growth, more than doubling its faculty numbers from 2003-04 to 2023-24. This expansion likely reflects both increasing healthcare demands related to an aging U.S. population and a strategic emphasis on programs with clear career trajectories.
Business also showed robust growth of 20.8% during this period and led all disciplines in new assistant professor hires for 2023-24, with 26% of institutions reporting at least one new hire in the field.
Meanwhile, several disciplines saw faculty numbers decline over the 20-year period, including Engineering Technology, English Language/Literature, Liberal Arts and Humanities, Consumer Sciences, and Education.
The highest-paid disciplines have remained relatively consistent over the two decades studied. Business has been the highest-paid discipline since 2015-16, with Computer Science, Engineering, and Legal Professions consistently ranking among the top four highest-paid fields throughout the period.
Business faculty also saw the largest percentage increase in median salary at 66.2% from 2003-04 to 2023-24, which researchers attribute in part to competition with the private sector for qualified candidates.
Conversely, Liberal Arts and Humanities, English Language/Literature, Visual/Performing Arts, Recreation/Fitness, Communication/Journalism, and Theology ranked among the 10 lowest-paid disciplines every year throughout the study period.
Perhaps most concerning, the report found that not a single discipline kept pace with inflation over the 20-year period. Researchers concluded that "faculty in all disciplines have less purchasing power with their salaries in 2023-24 than they did in 2003-04."
Business, Biological/Biomedical Sciences, Health Professions, Agriculture, and Liberal Arts and Humanities came closest to keeping pace with inflation, while Legal Professions, Engineering Technology, Library Science, Education, and Architecture fell furthest behind.
The report also documents a significant shift toward non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty positions across all disciplines. In 2013-14, most disciplines (79%) reported less than a quarter of faculty as non-tenure-track. By 2023-24, that trend had reversed, with most disciplines (72%) reporting more than a quarter of faculty in non-tenure-track positions.
Health Professions and Liberal Arts and Humanities had the highest proportion of non-tenure-track faculty in 2023-24, with 61% of faculty in each discipline holding non-tenure-track positions.
The report highlights how major economic events affected higher education staffing and compensation. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, most disciplines showed reduced faculty numbers from 2020 to 2022, with few exceptions including Area/Group Studies, Computer Science, Security/Protective Services, Public Administration/Social Service, and Health Professions.
Similarly, faculty salary increases slowed dramatically following both the Great Recession (median increase of just 0.85% in 2009) and the COVID-19 pandemic (median increase of only 0.33% in 2020).
Based on these findings, CUPA-HR recommends that institutions work to adjust salaries annually to keep pace with inflation, continuously evaluate programs to ensure offerings meet student population needs and better communicate the value of liberal arts and humanities degrees to students, employers, and society.
The report cautions against a narrow focus on degree-to-career programs, noting that liberal arts and humanities provide students with "valuable and versatile skillsets" including communication, critical thinking, and ethical judgment that are "essential in today's knowledge economy" and may be "more flexibly applied to address the complex and uncertain needs of the future workforce."
