The Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR) State University Data Book reports all six state universities on the same definitions: Kansas, Kansas State, Wichita State, Emporia State, Pittsburg State and Fort Hays State. General Use (state and tuition) money unless stated; not inflation-adjusted.
+4.5%6th of 6
General Use instruction per FTE student, FY2015→FY2025: $5,416 → $5,661. The other five +14.7% to +38.7% (median +26.1%); consumer prices +32.4%.
Institutional Profiles, Table D (2021 and 2026 books)
29.0%5th of 6
Instruction’s share of General Use spending, FY2025; median of the other five 36.9%. Wichita State was lowest of the six in FY2015 (38.5%) and FY2020 (36.4%). Without research: 33.6% vs 37.2%.
Institutional Profiles, Table D
−1.9%6th of 6
General Use instruction, FY2024→FY2025. The other five +0.8% to +6.9%. Wichita State’s institutional support (administration) rose +43.2% the same year (median +11.7%).
Institutional Profiles, Table D
$5,6615th of 6
General Use instruction per FTE student; median of the other five $7,540 ($1,879 more per student).
Institutional Profiles, Table D
$50.912nd of 6
General Use institutional support for every $100 of instruction, FY2025; median of the other five $26.34. FY2020: $33.32, the highest of the six.
Institutional Profiles, Table D
1.8%6th of 6
Average raise for continuing faculty; median of the other five 4.0%. Full professors 0.9% (elsewhere 2.9% to 3.9%).
Table 4.32
1.8% faculty
Other staff 3.1%, vice presidents 4.9%, associate and assistant vice presidents and directors 5.5%, the president 4.8%, deans 0.0%.
Tables 4.32 and 4.33
+15.7% vs +25.1%
Raises compounded FY2021–FY2026: faculty +15.7% (lowest of six), other staff +25.1%. Other universities trailed in 1 to 5 of 8 years.
Tables 4.32 and 4.33, 2018–2026 books
49.4%2nd of 6
815 of 1,650 full-time continuing unclassified staff and faculty, while 72 got 15% or more. Kansas 81.9%; Emporia, Pittsburg and Fort Hays State 0.5% or less.
Table 4.34
30.0%6th of 6
Instruction positions as a share of all education and general positions, FY2026; median of the other five 47.1%. FY2018: 40.8%. Without research positions: 43.3% vs 47.7%.
Table 4.1, 2018 and 2026 books
+48.7%1st of 6
Education and general positions, FY2018→FY2026; median of the other five +11.4%. At Wichita State research positions +190.6% (NIAR’s institutes), academic support +30.1%, student services +28.8%, instruction +9.3%.
Table 4.1, 2018 and 2026 books
1.012nd of 6
Academic support, student services, institutional support and physical plant positions per instruction position, FY2026; median of the other five 0.75.
Table 4.1
6.45th of 6
Budgeted instruction positions in FY2026 per 100 full-time-equivalent students (Fall 2025); median of the other five 6.8.
Tables 4.1 and 3.2
$1,077 a semester1st of 6
Full-time resident undergraduate required fees, AY2026: +35.4% since AY2021 (median of the other five −0.5%). Next highest: Pittsburg State $1,051.
Table 2.1a
+17.9%1st of 6
Full-time resident undergraduate tuition plus required fees per semester, AY2021→AY2026 ($4,217 → $4,974); median of the other five +11.5%. Non-resident undergraduates +15.8%.
Table 2.1a
+16.8%1st of 6
Full-time resident graduate tuition plus required fees per semester, AY2021→AY2026 ($4,468 → $5,219); median of the other five +12.1%.
Table 2.1c
+16.7% vs +14.1%
Resident undergraduate tuition and fees per year, AY2020→AY2025: $8,299 → $9,684, against its KBOR peer average. Now 91.1% of the peer average (89.1% in AY2020); most Kansas universities fell further below their peers.
Table 2.3
50.6%4th of 6
Tuition revenue against General Use educational cost, FY2025; Kansas 71.6%, Kansas State 70.8%. Down from 59.4% in FY2023. A lower ratio means students pay a smaller share.
Table 2.4
+18.7%1st of 6
Headcount Fall 2020→Fall 2025 (15,550 → 18,458); full-time equivalent +6.9%. Emporia, Pittsburg and Fort Hays State shrank.
Tables 3.1 and 3.2
+20.2%5th of 6
General Use educational spending per fall FTE student, FY2020→FY2025 ($10,620 → $12,762); median of the other five +34.3%.
Table 1.40a
71.7%6th of 6
First-time, full-time freshmen of Fall 2024 still enrolled a year later; median of the other five 77.5%. Since Fall 2019: −4.0 pts (median −1.0 pts).
Table 3.8
50.9%5th of 6
Six-year rate, 2018 entering class; median 56.2%. Four-year rate 36.6% (median 47.0%), up +11.9 pts since the 2015 class.
Table 3.7
Every figure is from the Kansas Board of Regents’ State University Data Book.
What each figure measures: the Handbook.
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.
