Employment
1,862,528
Total employees (Census CBP)
Educational Services ·NAICS 611310
NAICS 611310 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools - Industry Benchmarks
$56,181/yr average annual pay, with 41 SBA loans on record for NAICS 611310.
- 9.3%
- Educational Services sector margin
- 1.9M
- Workers employed
- $56,181/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $57M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 611310
New York leads Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Educational Services sector runs a 9.3% net margin.
- 9.3%
- Educational Services sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 1.9M
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $56,181/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $57M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools
Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools sits inside Educational Services, a sector that runs a 9.3% net margin overall.
3,989 establishments employ 1,862,528 workers (466.9/location) at $56,181/yr average annual pay. New York leads employment, followed by Pennsylvania and California.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$56,181/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
3,989
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 76,563; establishment count decreased by 117. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $104.6B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 466.9
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| New York | 265,885 |
| Pennsylvania | 179,792 |
| California | 171,846 |
| Massachusetts | 162,904 |
| Illinois | 93,566 |
| Texas | 69,246 |
| Florida | 64,588 |
| Ohio | 53,628 |
| Indiana | 39,382 |
| Virginia | 37,321 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
41
Total Loan Volume
$57M
Avg Loan Size
$1384K
Jobs Supported
1,105
Program Breakdown
7(a) 29 (71%)
504 12 (29%)
Top SBA Lender
Mortgage Capital Development C
5 loans in this industry
New Business Share
14.6% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 5
2021 7
2022 9
2023 4
2024 7
2025 8
2026 1
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 611310 level. New York leads this industry nationally. The broader Educational Services sector runs a 9.3% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools?
3,989 business establishments. Together they employ 1,862,528 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools?
$56,181/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 466.9 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools employment?
New York leads with 265,885 workers. Pennsylvania (179,792) and California (171,846) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools receive?
Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools businesses received 41 SBA loans totaling $57 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $1384K. These loans supported 1,105 jobs at origination. Most lending (71%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Its Census employment total exceeds 99% of that same 801-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
- Commercial Banking 1,630,919
- Home Health Care Services 1,618,759
- Religious Organizations 1,576,295
Benchmarking Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Educational Services
- 3,989 establishments, 1,862,528 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 41 SBA loans on record. SBA lending rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 611310 · Data year: 2023
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.