Navigating the Academic Path: Requirements for College Teaching Jobs

The world of higher education offers diverse and rewarding career paths for those passionate about teaching and research. Postsecondary teachers, often called professors or faculty, play a crucial role in shaping the minds of future generations. This article delves into the requirements for securing teaching positions in colleges and universities, covering essential qualifications, skills, and career prospects.

Roles and Responsibilities of Postsecondary Teachers

Postsecondary teachers specialize in a variety of subjects and fields. At colleges and universities, professors are organized into departments by degree field, such as history, science, or business. A professor may teach one or more courses within that department. Their duties vary based on the size of the institution. In large colleges or universities, they may teach courses, conduct research or experiments, publish original research, apply for grants to fund their research, or supervise graduate teaching assistants. Full-time professors, particularly those who have tenure (that is, they cannot be fired without just cause), often are expected to devote a great deal of time on original research. Tenured professors must document their analyses or critical reviews and publish their research findings. Professors may teach large classes of several hundred students (often with the help of graduate teaching assistants), smaller classes of about 40 to 50 students, seminars with a few students, or laboratories in which students practice the subject matter. Most classes are held during the day, but some are held on nights and weekends.

Teaching may involve designing curriculum, creating lesson plans and syllabi, mentoring students, and teaching students at an advanced level within their chosen field. Teaching may be in or outside of classroom settings. In addition to teaching, there may be service requirements at your university, college/school, professional, or community levels. These roles typically support civic engagement efforts. Many professors undertake research responsibilities, especially those who are on track for tenure. For instance, a Learning Scientist who specializes in the design of technology for learning may also maintain a lab and investigate how people learn and how to best design technologies for people to engage in transformative learning. This would involve interacting with teachers, students, and others as they engage with technologies for learning in a process that includes collecting, analyzing, designing, and presenting data from these interactions and design-based research process for peer review and eventual publication. The research may be sponsored or non-sponsored. Research plays a central role in the lives of professors to investigate ideas related to their professional interests or their teaching or their service commitments.

Educational Requirements: A Foundation for Success

Educational requirements vary with the subject taught and the type of educational institution. Typically, postsecondary teachers must have a Ph.D. or other doctoral degree in their field. However, a master's degree may be enough for some postsecondary teachers at community colleges. Postsecondary teachers who work for 4-year colleges and universities typically need a Ph.D. or other doctorate in their field of degree. Doctoral programs usually take several years to complete, and students typically need a bachelor’s or master’s degree to enroll. Most Ph.D. programs require students to write a doctoral dissertation, a paper presenting original research in their field of study, which they then defend in questioning from experts. Community colleges may hire those with a master’s degree. In some fields, such as health specialties, art, law, and education, hands-on work experience is especially important. In other fields, such as biological science, physics, and chemistry, some postsecondary teachers have postdoctoral research experience. Postsecondary teachers who prepare students for an occupation that requires a license, certification, or registration, may need to have-or may benefit from having-the same credential.

Learning the fundamentals of your field is essential before moving onto the kind of advanced analysis and application of theory that you'll find in graduate programs. There are rare cases where extensive career experience may serve as an adequate substitute; but for nearly everyone, a bachelor's degree is the most basic prerequisite for entering a graduate program. Someone who wants to become a professor will want to be deeply involved in their field; that might mean studying the subject independently of your career and education. If you want to teach at a community college or a vocational school, you may only need to earn a master's degree; especially if you don't aspire to train the next generation of PhD students. If you're aiming for a tenure track position with a large four-year institution, your best chances will be earning your PhD. This is especially true when job positions are more competitive, since institutions often favor those with higher credentials. If you're accepted into a graduate program, you may be offered an assistantship program. Assistants are usually involved in research, administrative work, or teaching. Apart from the critical experience obtained in these programs, you may also be able to reduce or eliminate the cost of tuition, obtain a stipend, and get credits towards your degree. The most critical step in how to become a professor - earning your doctorate. In addition to required coursework, most programs require a dissertation, which is your own work of original research. It serves as a demonstration of your abilities to add new knowledge to your field, and your abilities to train future scholars.

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Additional Certification and Licensing

Depending on what you intend on teaching, the qualifications for being a professor may also include additional certification requirements. These requirements are usually for vocational fields rather than purely academic programs. For example, someone who teaches medicine may need to earn an RN (registered nurse) certification, while someone teaching accounting may need their CPA.

Essential Skills for Effective Teaching

The following are examples of qualities that are important for these workers to perform their duties.

Critical-thinking skills.
Interpersonal skills.
Resourcefulness.
Speaking skills. Postsecondary teachers must be able to present information in a way that students will understand.
Writing skills.

The Path to Tenure and Advancement

Postsecondary teachers with a doctoral degree often seek tenure-a guarantee that a professor cannot be fired without just cause. Attaining tenure may take up to 7 years of progressing through the positions by rank: assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. Some professors advance to high-level administrative positions, such as dean or president. For information on deans and other administrative positions, see the profile on postsecondary education administrators.

Employment and Job Market

Postsecondary teachers held about 1.4 million jobs in 2024. Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire. Projected employment of postsecondary teachers varies by occupation (see table). The number of people attending postsecondary institutions is expected to grow over the projections decade. Students will continue to seek higher education to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to meet their career goals. As more people enter colleges and universities, more postsecondary teachers will be needed to serve these additional students. Colleges and universities are likely to hire more part-time teachers to meet this demand. A growing number of older people, who are more likely than young people to need medical care, will create increased demand for healthcare. However, despite expected increases in enrollment, employment growth in public colleges and universities will depend on state and local government budgets.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment opportunities for professors are expected to grow at a rate that's higher than average. With the number of students attending institutions of higher education only projected to continue rising over the next decade, there's a consistent and rising demand for these types of professionals.

Read also: Funding Your Education: Teaching

Salary and Work Environment

The median annual wage for postsecondary teachers was $83,980 in May 2024. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. Wages vary by institution type. According to the American Association of University Professors, the average salary for a full time professor was $101,810 for the 2020-21 academic year. Yet, earnings depend on many factors, including things like the subject you teach, the institution where you work, whether you have a full-time or part-time position, and how much experience you have.

Most postsecondary teachers work full time, although part-time work is common. Postsecondary teachers who work part time may offer instruction at several colleges or universities. Some have a full-time job in their field of expertise in addition to a part-time teaching position. Academic calendars typically include breaks, such as between terms. The availability and type of course offerings during the summer vary by institution. Postsecondary teachers’ schedules generally are flexible. Postsecondary teachers often find it rewarding to share their expertise with students and colleagues. However, it may be stressful, especially for beginning teachers seeking advancement, to balance teaching duties with an emphasis on research and publication.

Alternative Pathways to Teaching

Since there are different ways of entering into academic and non-academic careers, and different career tracks within academia to consider, not every professor will have the same credentials or responsibilities. Responsibilities range from whether someone has a doctorate degree or not, their contract, and the type of doctorate degree. There are several types of teaching positions within the realm of higher education; but those roles are primarily distinguished by part-time vs full-time responsibilities, financial compensation, and which courses you're allowed to teach. For example, becoming a professor with a master’s degree is possible within a few constraints. Many two-year schools only require instructors to have their master's degree for teaching introductory courses, while some four-year institutions accept these types of instructors on a part-time basis. However, most four-year institutions require a research or professional doctorate in the field you intend to teach.

DoDEA (Department of Defense Education Activity) Teaching Requirements

For those interested in teaching within the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) system, specific requirements exist. A valid fully professional state teaching license in content areas or the state’s equivalent (as DoDEA determines comparable to DoDEA's teacher categories) will be accepted as fulfilling all qualifications for professional teaching education and certification in content areas. To receive full reciprocity the license must be unencumbered, which means a license that is not revoked, suspended, or made probationary or conditional by the state licensing board of education. The Praxis I and II or seven years of teaching at the Prek-12 level can be substituted in lieu of an unencumbered license and will require all minimum education requirements, a student teaching/internship and full qualification standards must all be met.

Minimum Academic Preparation and Requirements: A baccalaureate degree from an institution accredited by a regional accrediting association is required. Academic preparation of at least 40 semester hours (SH) in general education course work distributed over such fields as English, history, social studies, mathematics, fine arts, languages, science, philosophy, and psychology is required. In addition, a minimum of 18 SH of professional teacher education course work in such areas as learning process, tests and measurement, educational philosophy, psychology, social foundations, methods of teaching and curriculum applicable to the type and level of the position for which applying is required.
Student Teaching or an Internship: institution is required. In the absence of an approved student teaching or internship program, applicants may be given credit for one year of successful full-time employment as an educator.
Foreign Degrees and Course Work from Non-accredited Institutions: Credits or degrees earned from a foreign college or university must be evaluated prior to acceptance. the work must be evaluated and interpreted by a current member of National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES).
Testing Requirements: Applicants must submit proof of achieving DoDEA's minimum scores for the required PRAXIS tests. Please note that DoDEA has adopted NEW test names and qualifying scores for PRAXIS I. If you wish to take all three computer-delivered Praxis Core exams (5713, 5723, 5733) at the same time, select Core Academic Skills for Educators: Combined Test (5752) when registering. Applicants should contact the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey, directly at (609) 771-7395 for a registration bulletin or register on-line at: www.ets.org/praxis.

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