The State of Linguistics in Higher Education Annual Report 2020. Eighth Edition

In an effort to document demographic changes in the academic linguistics community, the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has commissioned an annual report detailing information about job titles, students, degrees awarded, average salaries, and more. The report offers information about trends in student enrollment and employment by industry. Data for the report was compiled primarily from self-reported information to the LSA's online Directory of Linguistics Programs and Departments. It also includes information based on U.S. federal surveys of PhD linguists and institutions, along with data gleaned from the LSA membership database. Trends in linguistics for this year include: (1) The most common career outcome for linguistics PhDs is a position at an institution of higher education; (2) Within higher education, departments report that 26.6% of their faculty are full professors, but the non-professorial category is growing, particularly for women in other part-time positions; (3) If 2020's numbers are similar to the past few years, the five-year period from 2016-2020 will definitely confirm a downtrend in the number of doctoral students; (4) More linguistics doctoral degrees are awarded to women, who represent over half of graduate students in linguistics. This trend has remained consistent over the past eight years; and (5) More linguistics degrees, including Bachelor's, Master's, and PhDs, are awarded to White or Caucasian recipients than any other ethnicity. [This edition is based on the original report prepared by prepared by Lauren Friedman and Alyson Reed. The data found in this edition were compiled with assistance from Robert Townsend and Daniel Ginsberg. For the 2019 report, see ED607314.]