Best States for Postsecondary Education Administrators: California Tops Rankings as Texas, New York and Others Trade Off Pay and Scale

Across the United States, postsecondary education administrators have a reported national median salary of $104,590 and national employment of 180,470 positions. National employment for this occupation is projected to grow by 1.7%, which offers broad context for interpreting the state‑level results. Within that national picture, LaborCove’s state rankings show that the ten highlighted states differ substantially on three measurable dimensions: median pay, the size of the in‑state employment count (where supplied), and their overall Geography Scores. These measures do not move in lockstep. Some states rank highly with comparatively large employment counts, others with higher salaries, and others with intermediate values of both. The fact that New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey all have higher median salaries than California but rank below it illustrates that a higher salary alone does not guarantee a higher LaborCove Geography Score. Conversely, Texas has a larger supplied employment count than California but a lower Geography Score. These cross‑over patterns are an important feature of the rankings and set up the more detailed comparisons that follow.

At the national level, postsecondary education administrators have a reported median annual salary of $104,590 and an employment count of 180,470 positions. National employment for this occupation is projected to grow by 1.7%, which provides a broad backdrop for comparing the top‑ranked states. When set against this national benchmark, several top states show higher median salaries. New York ($139,640), New Jersey ($131,570), Massachusetts ($128,970), Washington ($127,630), and California ($125,460) all report median pay above the national median. Other ranked states sit close to, or somewhat below, the national figure: Virginia at $120,840 and Maryland at $118,550 are above it, while Texas at $104,390, Pennsylvania at $103,740, and Illinois at $99,770 are at or below the national level. Because LaborCove’s Geography Score incorporates more than salary alone, the national median is best viewed as a reference point rather than a standalone indicator of where a state will rank. The top‑ten list reflects how each state scores once salary, employment (where reported), and other factors embedded in the scoring system are taken into account.

California holds the #1 ranking with a LaborCove Geography Score of 76.15, a median salary of $125,460, and employment of 14,870 postsecondary education administrator roles. Among the ten highlighted states, only Texas has a larger supplied employment count, at 16,660 positions. Compared directly with the national benchmarks, California’s median salary of $125,460 is higher than the national median of $104,590, and its 14,870 reported jobs represent a meaningful share of the 180,470 positions nationally. The combination of a higher‑than‑national salary and a relatively large in‑state employment count aligns with its top Geography Score in these rankings, though the proprietary scoring formula may also incorporate additional inputs. California’s lead is also notable because several lower‑ranked states report even higher salaries. New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey all have higher median pay than California but rank below it, underscoring that the Geography Score is not ordered strictly by salary and that multiple dimensions shape the final ranking.

New York, ranked #2 with a Geography Score of 69.43, reports the highest median salary among the top states at $139,640 and an employment count of 7,280. Massachusetts at #3 (Geography Score 66.72) has a median salary of $128,970 and employment of 9,120, while New Jersey at #5 (Geography Score 57.83) posts a median salary of $131,570 and employment of 4,100. Each of these three states has a higher median salary than California’s $125,460, and all of them also exceed the national median of $104,590. Yet all rank below California in the Geography Score. This shows that salary, while important, does not by itself determine the overall ranking. Looking at employment counts where supplied, Massachusetts’ 9,120 jobs and New York’s 7,280 both trail California’s 14,870 and Texas’s 16,660. New Jersey’s 4,100 positions are lower than the counts reported for California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois within this top‑ten set. These differences help illustrate the trade‑offs among higher pay, overall score, and the size of the measured employment market.

Texas ranks #4 with a LaborCove Geography Score of 64.40, a median salary of $104,390, and the largest supplied employment count among the featured states at 16,660. Its employment figure is higher than California’s 14,870, Massachusetts’s 9,120, Illinois’s 9,530, Pennsylvania’s 8,000, New York’s 7,280, New Jersey’s 4,100, and Washington’s 2,140. On salary, Texas is very close to the national median: its $104,390 median pay is slightly below the national median of $104,590. That contrasts with several other states in the top ten that sit well above the national number, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Washington, California, Virginia, and Maryland. Texas’s position—below several peers on salary but with the largest reported employment count in this group—highlights how the Geography Score can rate a state highly even when it is not among the top salary leaders. Within this ranking, Texas sits behind California, New York, and Massachusetts in overall score despite having a larger supplied employment count than each of them.

New Jersey (#5), Virginia (#6), Maryland (#7), and Washington (#8) cluster in the middle of the top‑ten rankings by Geography Score but differ in how fully their data are reported. All four have Geography Scores between 51.70 and 57.83, and all report median salaries higher than the national median. New Jersey’s median salary of $131,570 and Washington’s $127,630 both exceed California’s $125,460, and all four states—New Jersey, Virginia at $120,840, Maryland at $118,550, and Washington—are above the national median of $104,590. Among this group, only New Jersey (4,100 jobs) and Washington (2,140 jobs) have supplied employment counts, which are smaller than the reported counts for California, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Because Virginia and Maryland have employment marked as not supplied, it is not possible to compare their employment counts numerically with other states. Their rankings instead must be interpreted using their Geography Scores and median salaries, recognizing that LaborCove’s proprietary scoring may incorporate additional inputs beyond the visible fields.

Rounding out the top ten, Pennsylvania ranks #9 with a LaborCove Geography Score of 48.08, a median salary of $103,740, and employment of 8,000. Illinois ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 46.09, a median salary of $99,770, and employment of 9,530. Both Pennsylvania and Illinois have lower median salaries than the national figure of $104,590, and Illinois has the lowest reported median salary among the ten states listed. At the same time, their employment counts are substantial within this group: Illinois’s 9,530 jobs are higher than the counts supplied for New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington, and California, while Pennsylvania’s 8,000 jobs exceed the counts for New York, New Jersey, and Washington. Their combination of comparatively lower salaries but sizeable employment counts—alongside lower Geography Scores than the other top‑ten states—illustrates another way in which the ranking integrates multiple metrics rather than following salary or employment alone.

LaborCove builds these rankings from authoritative U.S. labor‑market data combined with its own LaborCove Geography Score methodology. For this article, national figures and state metrics (rank, median annual salary, employment where supplied, and Geography Score) for postsecondary education administrators (occupation code 11-9033) are drawn from Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) observations with a reference period of May 2025. The 1.7% projected employment growth cited for this occupation is a separate national projection and is not an OEWS observation. LaborCove’s Geography Score summarizes multiple inputs into a single value for each state, producing the ranking shown here. The precise weighting of each underlying input is proprietary and not detailed in this article. Because the Geography Score captures more than any single metric, users should interpret rankings alongside their own priorities for salary level, state, and scale of the employment market. State‑level projections are not used in this analysis. The only growth figure referenced is the national projected employment growth rate for the occupation as a whole.