Washington
Instructional-staff levels at colleges eligible to receive federal student aid have grown slightly despite continuing economic challenges, suggests a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The report, a "first look" at data on employees and financial aid at those postsecondary institutions in 2010-11, is an update to preliminary data published in August by the center, which is the Education Department's statistical arm.
The data indicate that total employment in the fall of 2011 at medical schools and four-year, two-year, and less-than-two-year institutions remained at fall-2010 levels, with about 3.9 million individuals reported to be on staff. Of those, about 2.5 million were full-time employees while about 1.4 million were part-timers, also reflecting the 2010 breakdown.
The number of total instructional staff members whose primary responsibility is instruction, research, and/or public service was about 1,566,000, of whom about 785,000 worked full time and about 781,000 part time. The data reflect an increase of some 24,000 employees from 2010, with two-thirds of the growth comprising full-time hires and one-third part-time hires.
The report also looks at the average costs of college attendance and amounts of grant and scholarship aid received by first-time, full-time students seeking degrees or certificates.
The student-aid data were collected by the department's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System during last winter rather than last spring in order to provide the information in the center's College Navigator sooner.
