IPEDS figures, FY2018–FY2024, for Wichita State, the five peers the Kansas Board of Regents set for it, its five aspirational peers and the public universities of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Nebraska.
This page in plain English
What it shows
Instruction’s share of spending is below the KBOR peers (FY2018 36.5% → FY2024 35.0%; KBOR peers 42.1% → 37.0%, FY2018–FY2024).
Instruction spending per student is below the KBOR peers (FY2018 $7.6K → FY2024 $9.2K; KBOR peers $9.1K → $10.7K, FY2018–FY2024).
Faculty pay is below the KBOR peers at every rank (2018-19 $71.3K → 2024-25 $83.4K; KBOR peers $81.6K → $87.9K, 2018-19 to 2024-25).
Full-time management staff more than doubled; instructional staff +3% (Fall 2018 184 → Fall 2024 388, +111%; Instructional staff 548 → 565, Fall 2018–2024).
How to use this page
Explore every metric picks any figure and peer group; the groups are listed at the end of the page.
IPEDS counts the whole university, NIAR included, so its figures differ from the budget books.
Type a question in Ask the data for an answer in words, with the source.
Key comparisons
Wichita State against the median of its five KBOR peers. Choose Explore on a card to see the years, every peer and the other groups.
Instruction’s share of spending, without research
35.0%Wichita State, FY2024
37.0%KBOR peers’ median
FY2018: 36.5% at Wichita State, 42.1% for the peers
Cleveland State, Portland State, UT San Antonio, Memphis, Nebraska–Omaha
Aspirational peers
Georgia State, UC Riverside, Cincinnati, Houston, UNC Charlotte
Regional universities
Kansas (KS), Kansas State (KS), Oklahoma (OK), Oklahoma State (OK), Missouri (MO), Missouri–Kansas City (MO), Missouri S&T (MO), Missouri–St. Louis (MO), Missouri State (MO), Nebraska–Lincoln (NE), Nebraska–Omaha (NE)
All publics in KS, NE, OK, MO
Emporia State University (KS), Fort Hays State University (KS), Kansas (KS), Kansas State (KS), Pittsburg State University (KS), Washburn University (KS), University of Central Missouri (MO), Missouri Southern State University (MO), Missouri Western State University (MO), Missouri (MO), Missouri–Kansas City (MO), Missouri S&T (MO), Missouri–St. Louis (MO), Truman State University (MO), Northwest Missouri State University (MO), Southeast Missouri State University (MO), Missouri State (MO), Chadron State College (NE), University of Nebraska at Kearney (NE), Nebraska–Omaha (NE), Nebraska–Lincoln (NE), Peru State College (NE), Wayne State College (NE), Cameron University (OK), University of Central Oklahoma (OK), East Central University (OK), Langston University (OK), Northeastern State University (OK), Northwestern Oklahoma State University (OK), Oklahoma State (OK), Oklahoma (OK), Southeastern Oklahoma State University (OK), Southwestern Oklahoma State University (OK)
R2 in the region
Missouri–Kansas City, Missouri S&T, Missouri–St. Louis, Nebraska–Omaha, Cleveland State, Texas State
KBOR peers: the Kansas Board of Regents’ list for Wichita State, revised in FY2023 (State University Data Book 2026, table 4.35), the same five as Wichita State’s Office of Planning and Analysis list of 15 September 2022, which also names the five aspirational peers. Regional universities: the doctoral public universities of the four states (Carnegie 2021 R1, R2 and doctoral/professional). Medians leave Wichita State out.
All figures on this page come from IPEDS; the groups from the Kansas Board of Regents and Wichita State.
IPEDS complete data files, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter: finance (public institutions, GASB) FY2018–FY2024, instructional staff salaries 2018-19 to 2024-25, employees by assigned position Fall 2018–2024, 12-month instructional activity, fall enrollment (retention, student-to-faculty ratio), institutional charges; the revised files where NCES has published them. Built 2026-10-19.
Peer groups: Kansas Board of Regents, State University Data Book 2026, table 4.35 notes (peers revised FY2023); Wichita State University Office of Planning and Analysis, Institutional and Aspirational Peers (15 September 2022); Carnegie Classification 2021 as carried in the IPEDS directory (HD2024).
How to read it. IPEDS counts the whole university, NIAR included, and allocates plant operations, depreciation and interest to each function, so its figures differ from Wichita State’s budget books and audited Annual Financial Reports used elsewhere on this site. Compare universities with each other within IPEDS. Amounts are not inflation-adjusted.
Wichita State University — Office of Planning & Analysis fact books and data reports (enrollment and course censuses, degrees, student credit hours, and WSU’s own peer-institution metrics): wichita.edu/services/planning_and_analysis/BIPM_Reports_Stu.php
Source: IPEDS (NCES) complete data files; peer groups from the Kansas Board of Regents and Wichita State’s Office of Planning and Analysis.
All data sources used on this site (20)
Wichita State University
Annual Operating Budget books, FY18–FY27 · source Budget by program and division, Table II salaries by program, Table V units, every named position, salary and FTE, vacant lines (budget, positions, pay, staff, administration)
Annual Financial Reports (audited), FY19–FY25 · source Actual spending by function and revenue by source
Tuition and fee proposals to the Board of Regents, FY22–FY25 · source Tuition carry-forward (General Fees Fund) and WSU’s own fee tables
Class search (Banner), Spring 2020–Fall 2026 · source Classes offered, enrollment, class size, credit hours, delivery mode, instructors and teaching load, minimum tuition revenue
Office of Planning and Analysis: Fall Census factbook and 10-year workbook, Fall 2016–Fall 2026 · source Degree-seeking enrollment, students per faculty member
Office of Planning and Analysis: Institutional and Aspirational Peers, 2022 · source The aspirational peer group on the IPEDS page
Department faculty web pages and news releases, 2025–2026 · source Faculty hired after the FY27 book; departures (checked by search); Fall 2025 enrollment announcement
Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR)
Comprehensive tuition and fee schedules, AY2018–AY2027 · source Resident tuition per credit hour (undergraduate and graduate), college course fees, program fees, differential tuition
State university tuition and fee proposals (Board packets), FY2020, FY2021, FY2026, FY2027 · source Tuition carry-forward of all six state universities (Appendix F-2)
State University Data Book, 2018–2026 editions · source KBOR stats page: spending by function, raises, positions, tuition, enrollment, retention and graduation; KBOR-assigned peers (Table 4.35)
State of Kansas
KansasOpenGov, Payroll, All State Employees (Kansas Policy Institute), Calendar 2021–2025 · source Actual pay of WSU employees against budgeted salary
KanView employee compensation, FY2021–FY2025 · source The state record behind KansasOpenGov (reference)
Other universities
University of Nebraska system: operating budgets and budgeted employee files (Nebraska–Lincoln, Nebraska–Omaha), FY21–FY27 · source Faculty pay by rank, same-person raises and senior administration against Wichita State
University of Nebraska at Omaha: enrollment reports, Fall 2025 · source Enrollment beside the pay comparison
University of Kansas: faculty salary listings, FY26–FY27 KU salaries for the chatbot’s same-rank comparisons
Kansas State University: budget facts and fact cards, FY19–FY26 · source Regional comparison of instruction budgets
University of Oklahoma: annual operating budget, FY23–FY27 · source Regional comparison of instruction budgets
Colorado State University: operating budget summaries, FY24–FY27 · source Regional comparison of instruction budgets
Federal agencies
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics: IPEDS complete data files, 2018–2024 · source IPEDS peers page and the home Peers tab: spending by function, faculty salaries, staff by position, enrollment, retention, tuition, for Wichita State and its peer groups
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), 2021–2026 · source Every change in pay after inflation
Collected, not yet used on the site
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (OSRHE): E&G budget summaries FY2019–FY2025, faculty salaries 2016-17 to 2020-21, tuition and fee rates
Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development: comprehensive fee data FY2016–FY2027 and the 2026 factbook
Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education (CCPE): enrollment workbook
Kansas Board of Regents: enrollment reports; University of Kansas operating budgets and executive summaries FY2023–FY2027
Unofficial, independent, not affiliated with Wichita State University, and not guaranteed accurate — do your own assessment. This site is a personal, independent compilation of publicly published budget books, budgeted-employee reports and state payroll records. It is not affiliated with, reviewed by or endorsed by Wichita State University or any other university, and nothing here is an official figure or statement. The numbers were extracted by software and the answers are generated by an AI assistant; both can contain errors (mis-read lines, mis-matched names, mis-classified titles, mistaken interpretation), and salary figures are budgeted or payroll amounts, not what any person ultimately earned. Nothing on this site is advice, and it must not be used for any employment, compensation, evaluation or other decision. Treat everything as a starting point: ask the data box your own questions, plot what you want to see, and verify against the official documents listed under Data sources at the top of the page.
What data this site holds. Wichita State budgets and budgeted employees for FY2019–FY2027, set against the published budgets of Kansas State, Oklahoma, Nebraska–Omaha and Colorado State. Budgeted salaries by name, rank and department for every faculty member at Wichita State, the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska campuses (UNL, UNO), and for the non-faculty staff named in the Wichita State budget books. Actual income (calendar-year total pay received, from state payroll records via KansasOpenGov) for every employee at the three Kansas universities, Wichita State, Kansas and Kansas State, for 2021–2025. Questions in the Ask box are answered only from this data.
How the figures were computed. Every number on this site was extracted from the source documents and calculated by deterministic, re-runnable scripts — the same inputs always give the same figures, and no number was typed by hand or produced by AI. AI is used only to phrase the Ask-the-data answers from those precomputed figures. Where a figure is an estimate (promotion increments from the budget books’ medians, hire-year vacancy budgets), the page says so where it appears.
This site is a personal, independent compilation and analysis of publicly available documents: the annual operating budget books and budgeted-employee reports published by Wichita State University, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Nebraska system and the University of Oklahoma, enrollment factbooks, and the State of Kansas payroll records published through KansasOpenGov. It is not an official publication, statement, or position of any of those universities, the Kansas Board of Regents, the State of Kansas, or any of their offices, and has not been reviewed or endorsed by them. The author is a faculty member acting in a personal capacity.
Figures were extracted programmatically from PDF and spreadsheet documents, linked across years and across sources by name, and summarized by software. The "Ask the data" answers and the "why this salary changed" explanations are generated by an AI assistant from that data. While figures were cross-checked against the source documents during preparation, extraction, name-matching, title-classification, department-merging and AI-interpretation errors are possible, and some figures (hire-year vacancy budgets, split budget lines, merged department names) are the author's reconstructions, explained where they appear. Budgeted salaries are what a budget book funded a position at, and payroll figures are calendar-year totals as published by the state; neither is a statement of what any individual ultimately earned, and none of it is advice. Nothing on this site should be used for any employment, compensation, evaluation, hiring or other decision about any person — readers should verify against the original source documents linked in this page's footer. Everything is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, and the author accepts no liability for errors or for any use made of it. Names appear only as they are printed in those public records; anyone who believes a figure about them is wrong is invited to point to the source line and it will be corrected. Category labels ("Instruction," "Academic Support," "Institutional Support," etc.) and their plain-language descriptions reflect WSU's own budget-program definitions; the "faculty salary proxy" language used for Instruction is this author's characterization, not an official designation, since the Instruction program also includes some non-salary instructional costs.
Headlines, framing, and commentary throughout this page reflect this author's interpretation of the underlying public data and are offered for informational and discussion purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual's or office's conduct, are not intended to imply wrongdoing, and should not be relied upon as financial, legal, or official institutional guidance.
