Workers' Comp Rates for College or University - Professional Employees (Class Code 8868)

What's Included Under Class Code 8868

NCCI Scopes language and NYCIRB's classification digest place "professors, administrators, teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, therapists, nurses, athletic coaches and clerical employees" under 8868, along with support staff who perform similar or related duties. Aides and assistants are intentionally swept in even when they are unlicensed or lack the academic credentials of the professionals they support, because their exposure mirrors the professional employee's exposure. Examples include teacher's aides, nurse's aides, and assistant athletic coaches.

Coverage extends by analogy to seminaries, driver-training schools, veterinary schools, military schools, agricultural schools, beauty or barber schools, and correspondence schools. Professional and clerical staff at a hospital or clinic that exists primarily to teach medical students and is operated by a university or school are also included in 8868, rather than being pulled into a hospital classification. Clerical office employees 8810 at a college campus are normally absorbed into 8868 because the scope language already names clerical workers, so a separate 8810 split is generally not appropriate for school clerical staff.

After-school instructors, tutors, child-care employees who work inside a traditional school, and professional staff of religious organizations or secular chapels that perform marriage ceremonies are typical analogy assignments. Where a school operates its own social-services 8864 outreach as a separate organization rather than as integrated student services, the agency side may carry a different classification.

When School Payroll Does Not Belong in 8868

Non-professional school and college payroll is the most common boundary. Custodians, groundskeepers, maintenance personnel, security guards, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and library support staff are generally rated under school - all employees 9101, not 8868. NCCI and many state bureaus describe 9101 as the "School or College - All Other Employees & Drivers" code; this dataset stores 9101 as the local "School - All Employees" landing for cross-state rate comparison. A college that mixes both classifications should keep payroll records separating teaching, counseling, coaching, and clerical staff from facilities, food-service, and transportation crews. There is no separate national class code for K-12 teaching staff; the same 8868 classification covers professional and clerical employees at K-12, trade, and vocational schools as well as colleges.

Day-care centers operated independently of a school carry their own NCCI codes (commonly 8869 and 9059) and should not be absorbed into 8868. Caution: this site's slug dataset uses 8869 and 9059 for unrelated industries, so do not cross-link to those slugs as day-care codes; an independently run preschool or day-care should ask its carrier for the state's correct day-care classification rather than rely on the local 8869/9059 pages.

Operations that look academic but involve real physical hazards exit 8868. Bureau notes specifically call out flight instructors at aeronautical schools who actually fly, instructors who demonstrate hazardous jobs as part of their teaching, and instructors who operate heavy equipment in actual roadwork. Athletic facilities open to the general public look more like a YMCA / health club 9063 than a faculty exposure, and overnight summer programs operated by a school can be split toward camps - day / overnight 9055 when the residential program is significant. Campus medical clinics that treat the general public, rather than the student body for routine care, may pull payroll toward physician and clerical 8832 instead of 8868.

8868 Rate Spread by State

The current 8868 benchmark is narrow because the exposure is mostly classroom, counseling, administrative, and clerical work rather than manual operations. The cheapest displayed jurisdictions are Indiana ($0.35), Texas and Virginia ($0.37), Utah ($0.38), and Arkansas and Colorado ($0.40) per $100 of payroll. The highest displayed benchmarks are New York ($0.65), Alaska ($0.64), California ($0.61), New Jersey ($0.59), and Hawaii and Pennsylvania ($0.58).

That small dollar spread does not make classification casual. Because 8868 already includes clerical office employees, schools usually cannot split ordinary administrative payroll to 8810 just to chase a lower rate. The bigger audit risk is the opposite direction: facilities, cafeteria, transportation, grounds, and security employees should be kept out of 8868 and assigned to 9101 or the state-specific equivalent when their duties are non-professional.

Audit Records for Schools and Colleges

The audit file that protects an 8868 assignment lines up employees with the bureau's professional/non-professional split. Keep job descriptions, departmental org charts, time records for athletic, residence-life, and event staff, payroll detail for adjunct or part-time teaching, and separate payroll reports for facilities, grounds, food service, transportation, and security. Auditors usually decide 8868 versus 9101 from what employees actually did during the policy year, not from titles or department names.

California is a separate verification. California is independent of NCCI and the WCIRB does not use the 8868 number. WCIRB's private-schools learning article explains how California assigns academic professionals and clerical office employees to California-specific classifications, so a California college should check WCIRB's classification search and learning materials rather than rely on a national 8868 comparison.

For quote shoppers, the rate table on this page is a benchmark, not a binding quote. The filed base-rate estimate still changes after payroll, carrier loss-cost multiplier, experience modification, schedule credits, minimum premium, and any audit split to 9101, 8832, 9063, 9055, or a state-specific classification.