In only one top post, chief student-affairs or student-life officer, did people of racial and ethnic minorities represent more than 20 percent of all such job holders in 2016. Though minorities are underrepresented among higher-education administrators, in all selected roles except that of chief legal-affairs officer, minorities earned higher median salaries than did their white counterparts.
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| Chief library officer | 644 | 59 | 8.4% | $95,176 | $115,000 | 120.8% |
| Chief human-resources officer | 748 | 172 | 18.7% | $109,128 | $131,586 | 120.6% |
| Chief business officer | 680 | 57 | 7.7% | $184,016 | $214,765 | 116.7% |
| Chief facilities officer | 714 | 58 | 7.5% | $115,536 | $134,585 | 116.5% |
| Chief student-affairs/student-life officer | 594 | 163 | 21.5% | $137,706 | $159,588 | 115.9% |
| Chief athletics administrator | 676 | 67 | 9.0% | $117,805 | $135,000 | 114.6% |
| Chief public-relations officer | 506 | 41 | 7.5% | $110,975 | $126,250 | 113.8% |
| Chief information/IT officer | 767 | 102 | 11.7% | $134,784 | $152,324 | 113.0% |
| Chief financial officer | 363 | 36 | 9.0% | $170,000 | $182,283 | 107.2% |
| Chief academic-affairs officer/provost | 846 | 92 | 9.8% | $190,000 | $203,175 | 106.9% |
| Chief executive, single institution or campus within a system | 860 | 97 | 10.1% | $300,000 | $315,972 | 105.3% |
| Chief institutional-research officer | 599 | 92 | 13.3% | $92,321 | $96,027 | 104.0% |
| Chief development /advancement officer | 756 | 47 | 5.9% | $164,662 | $168,300 | 102.2% |
| Chief legal-affairs officer | 282 | 56 | 16.6% | $191,459 | $185,503 | 96.9% |
Note: Racial and ethnic minorities comprise blacks or African-Americans, who made up 7 percent of higher-education administrators; Hispanics or Latinos, who made up 3 percent; Asians, who made up 2 percent; and other minorities, who made up 1 percent, in 2016. Data are based on a survey conducted in late 2016 and early 2017 that gathered information on 191 executive and senior-level-administrative positions at 1,125 institutions. Both public and private nonprofit, and both two-year and four-year, institutions participated in the survey.
Source: Bichsel, Jacqueline, and McChesney, Jasper. “Pay and Representation of Racial/Ethnic Minorities in Higher Education Administrative Positions: The Century So Far.” Research report. College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), March 2017. Available from www.cupahr.org/surveys/briefs.aspx.