Chronicle List

Colleges With the Most Graduate Assistants, Fall 2015

By Chronicle Staff

June 4, 2017

Twenty-five public and three private nonprofit universities employed more than 3,000 graduate assistants each in 2015. Among the colleges that had the highest ratios of graduate assistants to students were the University of California at San Francisco, where the assistants worked mainly in health care and research, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, where more than half of full-time graduate students served as research or teaching assistants in 2015. Among private institutions, the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had the highest ratios of graduate assistants to students. At both universities, the majority of such assistants worked in research. While just over half of all graduate assistants at public institutions in 2015 had teaching roles, at private nonprofit institutions, graduate assistants were somewhat more likely to be doing research than teaching

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4-year public institutions

Rank	Institution	Number of graduate assistants	Graduate assistants per 1,000 students	Number of teaching graduate assistants	Teaching graduate assistants per 1,000 students
1.	U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	5,610	122	2,711	59
2.	U. of Minnesota-Twin Cities	5,297	105	1,871	37
3.	U. of Wisconsin at Madison	5,197	122	2,180	51
4.	U. of Texas at Austin	5,165	101	2,997	59
5.	U. of California at Los Angeles	4,975	119	2,413	58
6.	Purdue U. at West Lafayette	4,857	120	1,830	45
7.	U. of California at Berkeley	4,561	119	2,993	78
8.	U. of California at Davis	4,013	114	2,085	59
9.	Ohio State U.	3,986	68	2,137	36
10.	U. of Maryland at College Park	3,967	104	2,748	72
11.	U. of Florida	3,943	78	1,389	27
12.	Pennsylvania State U. at University Park	3,855	81	2,936	62
13.	U. of California at San Diego	3,797	115	2,227	68
14.	U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor	3,712	85	1,875	43
15.	Texas A&M U. at College Station	3,528	55	1,818	28
16.	Georgia Institute of Technology	3,389	135	1,005	40
17.	Virginia Tech	3,382	104	1,422	44
18.	U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	3,355	115	1,457	50
19.	U. of Illinois at Chicago	3,324	114	1,327	46
20.	U. of Georgia	3,320	92	898	25
21.	U. of Washington	3,179	70	1,474	32
22.	Arizona State U.	3,076	59	2,095	40
23.	North Carolina State U.	3,048	90	1,390	41
24.	Michigan State U.	3,029	60	1,309	26
25.	Florida State U.	3,027	74	1,780	44
26.	U. of California at Irvine	2,949	96	1,529	50
27.	Georgia State U.	2,841	89	501	16
28.	Iowa State U.	2,827	79	1,195	33
29.	U. of Arizona	2,771	65	1,719	40
30.	U. of Iowa	2,673	87	1,245	40
31.	Indiana U. at Bloomington	2,663	55	1,666	34
32.	U. of Utah	2,659	84	1,088	34
33.	U. of Missouri at Columbia	2,610	74	1,226	35
34.	U. of Tennessee at Knoxville	2,571	92	1,418	51
35.	U. of Colorado at Boulder	2,569	78	1,364	41
36.	U. of Massachusetts at Amherst	2,380	81	1,354	46
37.	U. of Connecticut	2,317	86	1,467	54
38.	Texas Tech U.	2,249	63	1,409	39
39.	Louisiana State U. at Baton Rouge	2,194	70	882	28
40.	U. of Houston	2,184	51	1,464	34
41.	U. of Nebraska at Lincoln	2,061	82	977	39
42.	U. of South Florida	2,048	49	1,463	35
43.	U. of Kansas	2,030	74	1,127	41
44.	U. of California at San Francisco	2,012	648	24	8
45.	U. of Pittsburgh main campus	1,978	69	1,107	39
46.	Auburn U.	1,977	72	826	30
47.	U. of California at Santa Barbara	1,907	81	1,271	54
48.	Clemson U.	1,892	83	1,028	45
49.	Oregon State U.	1,878	63	1,015	34
50.	U. of Kentucky	1,853	62	1,097	37
	All 707 institutions in category	291,509	35	151,272	18

4-year private nonprofit institutions

Rank	Institution	Number of graduate assistants	Graduate assistants per 1,000 students	Number of teaching graduate assistants	Teaching graduate assistants per 1,000 students
1.	Johns Hopkins U.	3,550	156	562	25
2.	Stanford U.	3,360	198	1,107	65
3.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	3,299	291	677	60
4.	Yale U.	2,882	233	1,547	125
5.	Columbia U.	2,728	97	1,746	62
6.	Boston U.	2,585	80	1,076	33
7.	Carnegie Mellon U.	2,563	198	-	-
8.	Cornell U.	2,531	116	1,522	69
9.	Harvard U.	2,171	73	1,249	42
10.	U. of Southern California	1,988	46	767	18
11.	Northwestern U.	1,612	74	779	36
12.	Washington U. in St. Louis	1,608	109	1,015	69
13.	Brigham Young U.	1,538	46	609	18
14.	Duke U.	1,491	93	655	41
15.	Vanderbilt U.	1,408	112	509	41
16.	U. of Notre Dame	1,330	108	523	43
17.	U. of Miami	1,254	75	637	38
18.	Syracuse U.	1,217	56	833	38
19.	Boston College	1,123	78	475	33
20.	Baylor U.	1,115	66	601	36
21.	Drexel U.	1,079	42	484	19
22.	Princeton U.	1,035	127	518	64
23.	Northeastern U.	1,009	51	414	21
24.	U. of Rochester	989	89	443	40
25.	Tufts U.	983	88	368	33
26.	California Institute of Technology	929	412	261	116
27.	Case Western Reserve U.	898	79	348	31
28.	Howard U.	828	83	332	33
29.	Brown U.	825	87	437	46
30.	Emory U.	774	56	200	15
31.	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	744	107	341	49
32.	Saint Louis U.	727	43	727	43
33.	American U.	726	55	718	54
34.	Tulane U.	705	56	454	36
35.	George Washington U.	655	25	504	19
36.	Georgetown U.	603	33	328	18
37.	U. of Denver	551	47	127	11
38.	Lehigh U.	544	77	243	34
39.	Marquette U.	485	42	199	17
40.	Duquesne U.	476	51	227	24
41.	St. John’s U. (N.Y.)	473	23	65	3
42.	U. of Chicago	471	31	132	9
43.	Dartmouth College	462	73	275	43
44.	Wake Forest U.	460	59	203	26
45.	Stevens Institute of Technology	459	72	-	-
46.	Rochester Institute of Technology	447	27	153	9
47.	Illinois Institute of Technology	440	56	440	56
47.	New York U.	440	9	-	-
49.	Loyola U. Chicago	435	26	435	26
50.	Catholic U. of America	380	58	227	35
	All 1,606 institutions in category	77,625	19	31,630	8

Note: Data represent graduate assistants at four-year public and private nonprofit degree-granting institutions in the United States that have 15 or more employees and that are eligible to participate in Title IV federal financial-aid programs. The ratio of graduate assistants per 1,000 students was calculated based on the enrollment all students — both full-time and part-time, degree-or-certificate-seeking and non-degree-seeking, undergraduate and graduate — in the fall of 2015. In addition to teaching and research, graduate assistants’ assignments included work in business and financial operations; community service, legal, arts, and media; computer engineering and science; health care and technology; library and instructional support; and management. Institutions are ranked by total number of graduate assistants. Tied institutions are listed alphabetically. Four-year for-profit institutions, which have relatively few graduate assistants, were excluded.

Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data