How To Become A Higher Education Administrator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a higher education administrator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Albert Boerema

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a higher education administrator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $25.77 an hour? That's $53,604 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 7% and produce 15,500 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a higher education administrator?

Albert Boerema

Professor of Education, Calvin University

A career as an educational leader can be extremely rewarding, as well as extremely challenging. While learning the necessary leadership skills is important, my central advice for being successful as a school leader is to understand what your shadow mission is and to find ways of not letting it derail you from the work of leading. By shadow mission (Overcoming your Shadow Mission, John Ortberg) I mean that drive that is slightly off our authentic mission. While an authentic mission is to serve as an educational leader, coordinating the work of a school team or community, a shadow mission can be pursuit of wealth, or acclaim, or power and control. Everyone has a shadow mission. When that shadow mission is challenged, we react in ways that limit our ability to truly lead. An important part of leadership development is becoming aware of one's shadow mission and developing strategies to not let it deflect you from the true task.

ScoreHigher Education AdministratorUS Average

Salary

4.2

Avg. Salary $53,604

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.1

Growth rate 7%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.70%

Asian 4.35%

Black or African American 11.58%

Hispanic or Latino 14.18%

Unknown 4.00%

White 65.20%

Gender

female 56.04%

male 43.96%

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 higher education administrator

Explore higher education administrator education requirements

Most common higher education administrator degrees

Bachelor's

60.1 %

Master's

20.2 %

Associate

11.8 %

Start to develop specific higher education administrator skills

Skills	Percentages
Syllabus	28.35%
K-12	20.84%
CSU	14.07%
Academic Performance	8.29%
Mathematics	6.39%

Complete relevant higher education administrator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New higher education administrators 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 higher education administrator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real higher education administrator resumes.

Research higher education administrator duties and responsibilities

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Ensure ethics, compliance with stringent regulations.
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Prepare your higher education administrator resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your higher education administrator resume.

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