by our College Data Analytics TeamTake a look at the classes and faculty information below to get a feel for student life at NIU.
On this page you’ll find:
The student to faculty ratio at Northern Illinois University is about average at 14 to 1. This ratio is often used to gauge how much time professors will have to spend with their students on an individual level. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1.
The following table shows all the employees the school considers instructional, and therefore, part of the above student-to-faculty ratio. These include both those employees designated as either “primarily instructional” or as “instructional combined with research/public service”. It does not include employees that have been identified by Northern Illinois University as primarily performing research or public service.
| Total | Full Time | Part Time | Percent Full Time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total of Instructional Employees | 1,058 | 785 | 273 | 74% |
| Total of Those With Faculty Status | 1,028 | 757 | 271 | 74% |
| Tenured Faculty | 452 | 450 | 2 | 100% |
| On Tenure Track | 108 | 108 | - | 100% |
| Not on Tenure Track | 468 | 199 | 269 | 43% |
| Without Faculty Status | 30 | 28 | 2 | 93% |
| Graduate Assistants | 972 | - | 972 | - |
Northern Illinois University's utilization of full-time teaching staff ranks among the highest in the nation, with 74% of instructors employed full time.
At Northern Illinois University, only 26% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 51.4%, which could be indicative of Northern Illinois University's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team.
Colleges often use part-time professors and adjuncts to teach courses, rather than full-time faculty. This hiring practice is primarily a way to save money amid increasingly tight budgets. However, it is a controversial practice with strong views on either side. We encourage you to understand this topic more deeply, and how the colleges you are interested in approach faculty hiring.
Northern Illinois University has 546 instructional graduate assistants that teach or provide teaching-related duties. These responsibilities could range from entirely teaching lower-level courses themselves, to assisting professors by developing teaching materials, preparing or giving exams and grading student work. We suggest you ask the college to what extent graduate assistants are relied on for instruction, so you know what you are paying for. Additionally, the school has 426 non-instructional graduate assistants.