Who teaches UT’s introductory courses?

Tenured and tenure-track faculty taught 38.65% of UT’s reported lower-division student credit hours in fall 2024, down from 41.90% in 2013. I would read that as a change in who carries introductory teaching, while checking the teaching team before judging a particular course.

The remaining hours can include professional teaching faculty and graduate instructors. The public series doesn’t divide them cleanly, count their sections or measure which group teaches better. It also doesn’t supply a reliable price per course.

The full trend is uneven

Fall	Share
2013	41.90%
2014	45.58%
2015	45.87%
2016	41.62%
2017	40.56%
2018	40.94%
2019	40.57%
2020	40.60%
2021	38.64%
2022	37.17%
2023	38.37%
2024	38.65%

The decline is 3.25 percentage points between the endpoints. Choosing the 2015 peak gives a larger 7.22-point decline, but hides the early increase and recovery after 2022. Fall 2024 was close to 2021.

These are THECB’s reported lower-division credit-hour shares, measure 250 for UT Austin. Credit hours weight teaching by enrolled credit, so a large introductory lecture contributes more than a small seminar. The measure isn’t the percentage of classes led by a professor.

THECB changed its class-reporting structure starting spring 2022. The exact crosswalk needs checking before treating the 2022 trough as entirely a staffing change. Much of the decline from 2015 had already occurred by 2021, so the reporting transition can’t explain that earlier movement.

Faculty totals tell another part of the story

Category	Fall 2013	Fall 2024	Change
Tenured/tenure-track	1,720	1,622	−5.7%
Non-tenure-track	734	954	+30.0%
Total	2,454	2,576	+5.0%
Tenure-line share	70.09%	62.97%	−7.12 points

The second table counts FTE faculty with teaching responsibility across all course levels and excludes teaching assistants. Its tenure-line share fell from 70.09% to 62.97%. It describes a different group from the lower-division credit-hour table; combining the two would create a misleading graduate-teaching share.

A title can mislead too. Liberal Arts changed Lecturer titles to Professor of Instruction titles in 2021–22 without changing tenure status or automatically raising pay. A schedule search for “professor” versus “lecturer” would misclassify those appointments. The college’s title policy matters when interpreting the name beside a course.

Departments have long used different teaching arrangements

The recovered 2009–10 faculty-course data show large subject differences. These are historical shares of responsibility-weighted undergraduate credit hours by faculty home department, not current department rankings.

Home department	Tenure-line	Other faculty outside the tenure line	Graduate instructors
Mathematics	29.8%	63.1%	7.1%
Biological Sciences	35.6%	64.4%	0.0%
Chemistry & Biochemistry	40.5%	59.5%	0.0%
English	75.2%	19.0%	5.8%
Spanish & Portuguese	19.2%	17.1%	63.6%
Art & Art History	59.9%	24.2%	15.9%
UT total	46.8%	42.3%	10.9%

The graduate column uses the historical source’s classification of graduate instructors and assistants. A graduate student leading discussion sections can support a professor’s lecture without appearing as its principal instructor. The table therefore shouldn’t be read as every minute of contact students received.

The official historical release provides a starting point for a longer comparison. The requested annual department-by-department teaching and payroll join hasn’t been completed, so that historical table isn’t projected into 2026.

Why a stipend isn’t the cost of a class

Liberal Arts’ fall 2026 guidance lists an Assistant Instructor (AI) fall stipend of about $12,025. An eligible tuition benefit for nine resident graduate credits has a $4,464 face value. Together that is about $16,489 before benefits, supervision and other support.

At an illustrative 25 students, the combined amount is about $660 per student, while cash stipend alone is about $481. Those rounded calculations use the exact published stipend and tuition amounts in the full manuscript. They aren’t audited course costs. The tuition reduction benefit reduces a tuition bill; it isn’t cash available to pay rent.

A professor’s salary also pays for research, advising, graduate teaching and service. Dividing the whole salary by undergraduate sections would charge all those duties to the introductory student. A fair course comparison needs assigned workload, linked assistants, benefits and enrollment for the same term.

Texas’s funding formula adds another incentive: eligible credit hours taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty receive a 10% teaching-experience weight supplement. UT’s listed allocation is about $4.4 million annually for FY2026 and FY2027, using a prior teaching period. Lower payroll alone therefore doesn’t settle a staffing decision’s financial effect.

What to check when choosing your class

• The main instructor and the people leading discussions or labs.
• Class size, office hours and how work receives feedback.
• Required linked sections and their schedules.
• The course’s current grade distribution, with the term and student group visible.
• Whether the section gets you through the prerequisite when you need it.

The data here don’t show that adjuncts or graduate instructors are easier graders, less effective teachers or substitutes for particular professors. Your course guide and the current schedule should help with the section you can take.

I would use the trend to ask better questions about the teaching arrangement. I wouldn’t turn an instructor’s employment category into a verdict on the course.

How we got this

The November 2 research uses THECB’s fall credit-hour and faculty measures, the 2009–10 official faculty-course release, and current college and graduate-employment policies. The twelve-year credit-hour series and table arithmetic were checked against the exported workbook. Current department shares, causal grade effects and audited section costs remain unknown. The broader requested teaching-cost study needs more data; this article publishes the narrower findings the available sources support.