Faculty burnout is reflected in both direct burnout measures and the pressures that can produce it. In the WGU Labs 2024 CIN Faculty EdTech Survey, 41% of faculty reported burnout and 39% reported emotional exhaustion from their work. Other surveys show how always-on technology, student needs, research expectations, institutional budgets, and work-life pressures shape that experience.
Contents
- Current burnout and the always-on workload
- Job satisfaction and intentions to leave
- Student support, teaching, and technology
- Major sources of faculty stress
- Differences by institution and role
- Work-life balance and caregiving
- Research pressure and campus climate
Current burnout and the always-on workload
The WGU Labs 2024 CIN Faculty EdTech Survey connects faculty burnout with the boundaries created by educational technology. The survey found that 79% of faculty said they were “always on the job” because of technology. A further 64% said technology made it hard to take a break from work or students. Within the same 2024 survey, 41% reported burnout and 39% reported emotional exhaustion from their work.
These findings describe separate experiences: being continuously reachable, difficulty taking breaks, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. They should not be read as a single combined rate. The survey also found that 92% of faculty expected to use more educational technology tools in the classroom, suggesting that technology-related workload boundaries remain relevant even as technology use expands.
Faculty views of higher education were mixed in the same survey. Only 33% said higher education was heading in the right direction. The share was 42% among faculty teaching online, compared with 20% among faculty teaching face-to-face. These are survey results for those groups, not forecasts about the future of higher education.
Job satisfaction and intentions to leave
Cengage’s 2024 Faces of Faculty report found that 82% of educators remained satisfied in their roles, while 11% expressed dissatisfaction. Among the dissatisfied group, 78% were considering leaving their teaching positions and 70% were considering a move to the private sector. Because those last two figures describe the dissatisfied group, they do not represent the share of all educators considering departure.
The TimelyCare 2024 Faculty and Staff Survey found that 5 in 10 faculty and staff had considered leaving their job because of burnout, increased workload, and stress. The wording covers faculty and staff together, so it is not directly interchangeable with the faculty-only findings from WGU Labs or Cengage.
The available surveys also show why a high satisfaction percentage does not eliminate burnout concerns. A person can remain satisfied overall while experiencing exhaustion, heavy workload, or uncertainty about staying. The Cengage report measured role satisfaction and dissatisfaction, while the WGU Labs survey measured burnout and emotional exhaustion; these outcomes use different questions and populations.
Student support, teaching, and technology
Student-facing work is a major part of the pressure reported in the supplied surveys. TimelyCare’s 2024 Faculty and Staff Survey found that 3 in 4 faculty said supporting students’ mental health is a job expectation. The same survey found that 3 in 4 said more mental health support would improve their job satisfaction.
Teaching took roughly 40% of faculty workday time in Cengage’s 2024 Faces of Faculty report. In the HERI 2010–2011 Faculty Survey, 62.6% of full-time undergraduate faculty said teaching load caused some or extensive stress. The older HERI results also found that 75.3% said working with underprepared students caused some or extensive stress.
Technology introduces both optimism and uncertainty. In the WGU Labs 2024 CIN Faculty EdTech Survey, 42% of faculty believed artificial intelligence tools would positively impact faculty experiences, while 49% did not use AI tools in the classroom. In Cengage’s 2024 report, 45% of instructors were using AI in their work, up from 24% in 2023. Positive sentiment about AI rose from 28% in 2023 to 49% in 2024, while 59% of instructors reported not having a generative AI policy for students or being unsure whether one existed.
Combating plagiarism and cheating was a top concern for 49% of faculty in the Cengage 2024 report. Half of faculty said they felt comfortable handling their top challenges alone. Together, these results describe a workplace where instructional technology and AI adoption are developing alongside concerns about policy, academic integrity, and support.
Major sources of faculty stress
The HERI 2010–2011 Faculty Survey measured the share of full-time undergraduate faculty who said each issue caused some or extensive stress.
| Source of stress | Faculty reporting some or extensive stress |
|---|---|
| Self-imposed high expectations | 84.8% |
| Lack of personal time | 82.2% |
| Working with underprepared students | 75.3% |
| Managing household responsibilities | 74.7% |
| Institutional budget cuts | 74.2% |
| Institutional procedures and red tape | 71.3% |
| Research or publishing demands | 70.7% |
| Personal finances | 65.7% |
| Teaching load | 62.6% |
| Committee work | 62.0% |
The highest reported stressors were self-imposed high expectations and lack of personal time. The pattern also includes institutional conditions: budget cuts, procedures, and red tape affected more than seven in ten respondents. Research or publishing demands affected 70.7%, while teaching load and committee work affected 62.6% and 62.0%, respectively.
The HERI survey also found that 86.1% of faculty at public universities said institutional budget cuts caused some or extensive stress. The corresponding figures were 83.4% at public four-year colleges, 47.2% at private universities, and 62.5% at private four-year colleges.
Differences by institution and role
Institutional setting changed how faculty described specific pressures in the HERI 2010–2011 Faculty Survey. Working with underprepared students caused some or extensive stress for 78.1% of faculty at public universities and 77.1% at private four-year colleges. Teaching load caused this level of stress for 71.2% of faculty at public four-year colleges. At the same type of institution, 70.1% reported stress from personal finances and 67.4% reported stress from committee work.
The survey also reported differences by gender in several stress measures. Students were a source of stress for 66.3% of women faculty, compared with 56.8% of men. The review or promotion process was a source of stress for 65.3% of women and 52.8% of men. A change in work responsibilities was a prevalent source of stress for 58.4% of women and 43.8% of men.
Other caregiving-related differences were also reported. Child care was a source of stress for 63.5% of women faculty and 51.1% of men. Being part of a dual-career couple was a source of stress for 58.7% of women and 44.1% of men. Caring for an elderly parent was reported by 56.0% of women and 46.1% of men, while children’s problems were reported by 54.6% of women and 44.1% of men.
The HERI results further reported that 22.3% of women faculty had attained the rank of full professor, compared with 39.5% of male respondents. Subtle discrimination was a source of stress for 40.0% of women and 20.2% of men. By race, 24.7% of White faculty and 63.6% of Black/African American faculty reported subtle discrimination as a source of stress.
Work-life balance and caregiving
The HERI 2010–2011 Faculty Survey found that 17.3% of faculty said they were not at all balancing personal and professional lives, up from 12.9% in 2004. At the other end of the scale, 32.1% said they achieved work-life balance to a great extent, and 50.6% said they achieved it to some extent.
Harvard’s 2019 Faculty Climate Survey identified time pressure as the largest source of work stress. For faculty with children, childcare and children’s schooling were top non-work stressors. The 2019 Harvard survey had participation from 63% of Harvard faculty. For context, 72% participated in the 2013 Harvard Faculty Climate Survey, and more than three-quarters reported a generally positive atmosphere in that 2013 survey.
The 2013 Harvard survey also found that women reported greater work-life stress than men across all work-life dimensions. These Harvard findings come from 2013 and 2019 survey periods and should not be treated as current national estimates. They are useful for showing how time pressure and family responsibilities can sit alongside broader measures of faculty climate.
Research pressure and campus climate
Stanford’s Faculty Quality of Life Survey 2019 found that 74% of Stanford faculty rated their overall quality of life as good or excellent, while 17% were likely to leave within the next three years. More than half said finding time to do research caused a lot or a great deal of stress, and 43% said securing research funding caused that level of stress. The survey was completed by 61% of Stanford’s professoriate.
Research pressure differed by gender. Finding time to do research caused a lot or a great deal of stress for 59% of Stanford women faculty, compared with 47% of men. Scholarly productivity caused that level of stress for 44% of women and 28% of men.
The Stanford results also measured negative workplace experiences. More than one-third of women faculty reported microaggressions in the last year, compared with 15% of underrepresented minority Stanford faculty reporting microaggressions in the last year. Thirty-five percent of Stanford women faculty reported being mistreated, slighted, insulted, condescended to, or ignored because of gender, compared with 1.4% of men. A sexist remark was reported by 31% of women and 3% of men.
Tenure-related and race-related findings add another dimension. The tenure process caused a lot or a great deal of stress for 34% of Stanford underrepresented minority faculty, compared with 18% of non-underrepresented minority faculty. Fifteen percent of Stanford underrepresented minority faculty reported race-based offensive, objectionable, or discriminatory behavior in the last year.
Taken together, these statistics show that faculty burnout is not measured by one number. The recent surveys provide direct estimates of burnout, emotional exhaustion, workload-related departure concerns, and expectations around student support. The Harvard, HERI, and Stanford surveys add historical and institution-specific measures of time pressure, caregiving, research demands, workplace climate, and discrimination. Each result remains tied to its named survey, population, and measurement period.