How To Become A Campus Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is a campus director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

The primary responsibilities of a campus director include, but are not limited to, management of day-to-day operations for a college or university campus, development of new academic programs, supervision of faculty and student services, employee recruitment, providing oversight of academic standards, nurturing student development, facilitating campus expansion, analysis of campus fiscal requirements, ensuring the school adheres to regulation and accreditation standards, evaluation of directors and department personnel, development and implementation of all short and long term strategies, implementation of business plans on a monthly or quarterly basis, assisting management with providing accurate information for decision-making purposes, and ensuring the effective maintenance of campus buildings and operations.

Campus directors are expected to have strong organizational skills and capability to coordinate with human resource departments. They effectively supervise all administrative functions for the campus.

Campus directors generally have a bachelor's or master's degree in education, business management, public relations, finance, or a comparable field. Campus directors can make up to $73,000/year, with job growth in the U.S predicted to increase by 7% by 2028. However, this figure can vary significantly depending upon academic qualification, having previous experience, and possession of the aforementioned skills

ScoreCampus DirectorUS Average

Salary

5.7

Avg. Salary $73,324

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.1

Growth rate 7%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.70%

Asian 4.26%

Black or African American 11.49%

Hispanic or Latino 13.70%

Unknown 3.98%

White 65.87%

Gender

female 44.98%

male 55.02%

Age - 47

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 47

Stress level

8.1

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a campus director

Explore campus director education requirements

Most common campus director degrees

Bachelor's

63.3 %

Master's

22.3 %

Associate

8.6 %

Start to develop specific campus director skills

Skills	Percentages
Financial Aid	9.34%
Professional Development	6.77%
Human Resources	6.03%
Oversight	5.97%
Career Services	5.74%

Complete relevant campus director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New campus directors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a campus director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real campus director resumes.

Research campus director duties and responsibilities

Create and manage a content strategy for the college's Facebook page.
Transform CRM system from measuring activities to managing business pipeline.
Prepare presentations, spreadsheets, reports, and develop publications on behalf of the AVC.
Provide operational oversight to all post-secondary education departments.

Get campus director experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a campus director. The most common roles before becoming a campus director include director of admissions, internship team lead and instructor.

Prepare your campus director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your campus director resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a campus director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable campus director resume templates

Build a professional campus director resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your campus director resume.