Here’s a look at changes in average annual percentages of full-time instructors who were members of specific racial and ethnic groups in 2018, 2019, and 2020. The percentages of minority faculty members at the colleges in each degree-granting group (associate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and special focus) are ordered by the largest number of total full-time faculty members for the most recent year, which is noted in parentheses. The total of minority faculty members includes those who are American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and two or more races.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data
About these data
This visualization is based on a table that includes all degree-granting two- and four-year institutions in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., that are eligible for federal aid. The data are from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
Total full-time faculty members includes all staff members whose primary occupation is classified as instruction, research, or public service. This includes those with and without faculty status.
The full titles of the racial and ethnic categories are: white non-Hispanic; Black or African American non-Hispanic; Hispanic or Latino; Asian non-Hispanic; American Indian or Alaska Native; Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander; two or more races; and race/ethnicity unknown. Those eight categories include both U.S. citizens and permanent residents. “Nonresident” covers people described by the Education Department as “Nonresident aliens”: those of all racial and ethnic groups who are in the United States on a visa or temporary basis and do not have the right to remain indefinitely. A person may be counted in only one of those groups. Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding.
“Total minority” is the percentage of all faculty members who are nonwhite and whose race is known. It includes those who are two or more races; it does not include “Nonresident aliens.”
Some colleges reported a large number of their faculty members in the “Race/ethnicity unknown” category. In those cases, all of the other figures should be interpreted with caution. However, some studies indicate that many people reported in that column are white but chose not to identify their race. If that is true, the percentages shown for racial minorities would tend to be accurate.
Type categories are from the 2018 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. “Special-focus” includes both two-year and four-year special-focus institutions. “Associate” also includes those institutions classified as “baccalaureate/associate.”
