Study Finds More Faculty Diversity at Public Institutions Than at Private Ones

Members of underrepresented minority groups are working largely at research universities, according to a study by the TIAA Institute.

The report measured faculty diversity for a forthcoming book with the Johns Hopkins University Press, some 50 years after Title IX and affirmative-action policies were designed to change faculty demographics.

Since 1993 the ratio of white to underrepresented-minority tenured faculty members has been halved, from a 15:1 ratio in 1993 to 7.8:1 in 2013, the report says.

The largest number of underrepresented-minority faculty members teach at research universities and other four-year colleges. Private colleges lag behind public colleges in terms of the minority-faculty ratio, the report says.

In addition, growth in the number of female faculty members has far outpaced that of their male counterparts in the past 20 years.