Ehrenberg, Ronald G., and Liang Zhang. 2005. “Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?” Journal of Human Resources 40(3): 647-659

During the last two decades, there has been a significant growth in the share of faculty members at American colleges and universities that are employed in part-time or full-time nontenure-track positions. Our study is the first to address whether the increased usage of such faculty adversely affects undergraduate students’ graduation rates. Using institutional level panel data from the College Board and other sources, our econometric analyses suggest that the increased usage of these faculty types does adversely affect graduation rates at four-year colleges, with the largest impact on students being felt at the public master’s level institutions.

Ronald G. Ehrenberg is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University, Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI) and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Liang Zhang is an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Minnesota and a Research Associate at CHERI. The authors are grateful to numerous colleagues at CHERI and to two referees and the editor for their comments on earlier drafts. Financial support for CHERI comes from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies (USA) Inc. and the authors are grateful to them for their support. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning October 2005 through September 2008 from the authors.