Salary Determinants for Senior Student Affairs Officers: Revisiting Gender and Ethnicity in Light of Institutional Characteristics

Previous literature has suggested that ascribed characteristics,such as gender and ethnicity, achieved characteristics such as highest degree earned; and institutional characteristics such as size and public or private affiliation of the college, may serve as determinants of salary among senior student affairs officers. This research, however, has relied upon t test and ANCOVA methods and, as a result, has not been able to examine the impacts of ascribed, achieved, and institutional characteristics simultaneously while holding the other constant. Using data gathered through the 2001–02 NASPA Salary Survey, researchers employed multivariate OLS regression to hold gender, ethnicity, and numerous other personal and institutional characteristics constant while comparing their individual effects on salary. Analyses have found that institutional factors far outweigh individual characteristics and that, when all factors are controlled for, race and gender no longer have a significant effect on salary. Overall, educational attainment, enrollment, region of the country, and type of degree granted have the largest impact on salaries. Although women and Blacks continue to be underrepresented among SSAOs these findings suggest that concerns over salary inequity for women and Blacks are unsupported.