Are Kansas Professors in KPERS? Kansas & Missouri Retirement Plans

Most retirement content for educators assumes a state pension formula: years of service multiplied by a percentage and a final average salary. For a large share of university faculty in Kansas and Missouri, that formula does not exist. The mandatory plan is a defined-contribution account - an accumulation of contributions and investment results that the member must turn into income - and the plan a given person is in depends on which institution employs them, what kind of position they hold, and when they were hired.

This article is aimed at faculty and academic staff at Kansas and Missouri public universities and colleges - the six Kansas Board of Regents institutions, the nine Missouri regional institutions covered by CURP, and the four-campus University of Missouri System - at any career stage. It explains which retirement system actually covers each group, what defined-contribution coverage means compared with a K-12 pension, the voluntary savings layers above the mandatory plan, the Social Security position of each group, and the decisions each career stage raises. It does not address how a balance is turned into income; that decision has its own article in the related reading.

Kansas: the KBOR Mandatory Retirement Plan, and where KPERS still applies

Benefits-eligible faculty and unclassified professional staff (generally at least half-time) at the six Kansas Board of Regents universities - the University of Kansas, Kansas State, Wichita State, Emporia State, Pittsburg State, and Fort Hays State - participate in the KBOR Mandatory Retirement Plan, a 403(b) defined-contribution plan. Those employees are not in the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS); an employee cannot contribute to both plans at the same time. University support and classified staff are KPERS members.

The contribution structure is fixed: the employee contributes 5.5% of gross salary, mandatory and pre-tax, and the employer contributes 8.5%. There is a one-year waiting period, waived for immediate participation where the employee had at least one year of employer-contributed higher-education retirement coverage in the prior five years, or at least one year in a Kansas state plan such as KPERS within five years. Both employee and employer contributions are 100% vested immediately. Members choose between two providers, TIAA and Voya Financial.

The boundary between the KBOR plan and KPERS is not the same on every campus. Wichita State moved all non-police hires on or after November 24, 2024 into the KBOR plan, so support staff hired there since that date are KBOR members while those hired earlier remain in KPERS. Some unclassified employees may elect to remain in KPERS under a KPERS-3BORelection. Because the faculty-versus-support boundary now varies by institution and hire date, the only reliable answer is the one on a specific person's own enrollment record.

Fort Hays State University's human resources page cites a regular retirement age of 60 and early retirement at 55 with ten or more years for the KBOR plan; that is FHSU's statement, and members at other campuses should confirm the plan-document terms that apply to them. Kansas faculty are in Social Security-covered employment - Kansas State's policy states that "nearly all University employees contribute to Social Security," with exceptions such as most student employees and certain visa holders.

Missouri: CURP, MOSERS, and the University of Missouri System are three different answers

Missouri public-university faculty fall into one of three systems. The College and University Retirement Plan (CURP) isa 401(a) defined-contribution plan covering "education employees" first hired on or after July 1, 2002 at nine regional institutions only. The Missouri State Employees' Retirement System (MOSERS) covers other employees at those institutions. The University of Missouri System - Columbia, Kansas City, Missouri S&T, and St. Louis - is in neither; it runs its own hire-date-tiered program.

CURP's nine institutions are Harris-Stowe State, Lincoln, Missouri Southern State, Missouri State, Missouri Western State, Northwest Missouri State, Southeast Missouri State, Truman State, and the University of Central Missouri. "Education employees" means teaching personnel, professors, and academic administrators with faculty rank whose primary duty is teaching or research. The employer contributes 6% of payroll, set by law; employees first hired on or after July 1, 2018 also contribute 2% - hires between 2002 and 2018 were employer-funded only, and the two dates should not be conflated. Accounts are fully and immediately vested. TIAA is the third-party administrator.

CURP carries a distinctive election. After at least six years of CURP participation, while still employed in a CURP-covered position, a member may elect to join MOSERS' MSEP 2011 plan as an immediately vested member. The CURP account stays with TIAA; the MOSERS benefit is based only on MOSERS service from the election onward, and the CURP years earn no defined-benefit credit. Whether to make that election is a question with real trade-offs on both sides - a matter for an adviser, not a default.

MOSERS, a defined-benefit system, covers state employees including regional-university employees who are not CURP participants - which, on CURP's own eligibility rules, generally means non-academic staff and academic staff hired before July 1, 2002 at the nine CURP institutions; confirm with the institution's HR office. Under MSEP 2011(first benefit-eligible employment on or after January 1, 2011), the employee contributes 4%, vests at five years, and reaches normal retirement at age 67with five years or at 55 or older under the Rule of 90 (age plus service of at least 90); the formula is final average pay × 0.017 × credited service. Members hired before 2011 are in MSEP or MSEP 2000, with different rules.

The University of Missouri System's core plan is set by hire date, not job type. Employees hired before October 1, 2012 are in a defined-benefit pension; those first hired from October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2019 are in a hybrid pension-plus-defined-contribution plan; and those first hired or rehired on or after October 1, 2019 are in a Defined Contribution Plan with a100% employer match on up to 8% of eligible pay (default deferral 8%,changeable), immediate vesting of employee contributions, and employer-match vesting after three years. The recordkeeper is Fidelity, not TIAA. A 2026Voluntary DC Opt-In allowed some pension and hybrid members to switch.

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What defined-contribution coverage means compared with a K-12 pension

A K-12 teacher in KPERS 1 or 2, or in Missouri's PSRS, retires on a formula: final average salary, a statutory multiplier, and years of service produce a monthly benefit for life. A faculty member in the KBOR plan, CURP, or the UM System DC plan retires on a balance. There is no formula benefit; the member decides how the balance is invested and how it becomes income at the end - by annuitizing some, all, or none of it.

That difference cuts both ways, and neither direction is a recommendation. Defined-contribution coverage is portable: KBOR and CURP accounts vest immediately, so a faculty member who moves between institutions or states keeps everything contributed, whereas a KPERS or PSRS member who leaves before five years is not vested and, on withdrawal, receives only their own contributions and interest. The price of portability is that the longevity, inflation, and investment risks a formula pension carries for its members sit with the faculty member instead. The companion article on faculty retirement income examines the annuitization decision that follows.

The voluntary layers above the mandatory plan

Every group has a supplemental savings layer. Kansas Regents employees can join the KBOR Voluntary Retirement Plan, a supplemental 403(b) with immediate eligibility, pre-tax or Roth contributions, no employer contribution, and the age-50 and 15-year catch-ups, through the same two providers. University of Missouri System employees have voluntary403(b) and 457(b) plans and a Supplemental Retirement Plan 401(a) through Fidelity; faculty and staff at Missouri's state universities can also use the State of Missouri Deferred Compensation Plan (a 457 plan).

For 2026 the elective deferral limit is $24,500 for a 403(b) and for a governmental 457(b), with an $8,000 catch-up from age 50 and an $11,250 catch-up for those aged 60 to 63 where the plan permits - and the two limits are separate, so a faculty member with access to both plan types can defer up to the full amount in each. The403(b)-versus-457(b) choice, including the 457(b)'s distinctive early-withdrawal treatment, is covered in the related reading.

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Social Security: covered, mostly - and unlike Missouri PSRS teachers

The Social Security position of university employees differs from that of most Missouri K-12 teachers. Kansas State's policy states that nearly all university employees contribute to Social Security, and the University of Missouri System's HR-306 policy states that all university employees participate in the federal Social Security program except extension employees with Civil Service Retirement, enrolled students, and qualifying nonresident aliens. Most Missouri PSRS members, by contrast, do not contribute on PSRS-covered earnings.

CURP members at the nine regional institutions should confirm their own Social Security coverage with their institution's human resources office; this article does not assert it. Where coverage applies, faculty build a Social Security record alongside the plan balance - which matters for the income design, because the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 (Public Law 118-273, signed January 5, 2025) repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset for months after December 2023, and the PSRS-and-Social-Security story that article covers is a different one from the covered-employment story faculty live in.

The decisions by career stage - as questions

Because the plan does the accumulating but not the deciding, faculty face a distinct set of questions at each stage. Early career: which plan am I actually in on this campus, given my classification and hire date; do I qualify for the waiting-period waiver; and which provider and investment line-up have I defaulted into? Mid-career: am I approaching a CURP six-year election point; do I hold accounts at prior institutions; and is the voluntary layer being used?

Late career: what does the balance need to do that a pension would have done - and how much of it, if any, should become lifetime income; how does Social Security timing interact; what are the plan's retirement-age terms, in the plan document rather than a campus summary; and how is a distribution taxed in the state where I will actually live? Those are the material for a conversation with an adviser - and, for Kansas Regents members, a Kansas tax professional, given the state-tax treatment of Regents annuity contracts described in the companion tax article.