The Human Cost of Higher Education

[Anonymous]

It sucks for adjuncts. I don't know how they do it. I know the why (they love teaching and researching), but it's becoming impossible to survive as one in the US.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/adjunct-professors-higher-education-thea-hunter/586168/

[Anonymous]

Or, having slogged through a PhD they really don't have other skills. A huge part of the problem are the graduate programs, who admit far more students that can logically be placed in the field.

This paragraph and statistic leaps off the page.

"Nearly 80 percent of faculty members were tenured or tenure-track in 1969. Now roughly three-quarters of faculty are nontenured. The jobs that are available—as an adjunct, or a visiting professor—rest on shaky foundations, as those who occupy them try to balance work and life, often without benefits."

There's a reason why there is a growing movement among adjuncts to unionize. And I'm cheering them on.

That said, some universities are changing. At UMd, you can only teach as an adjunct for a limited number of semesters. Once you have hit a threshold of courses taught over 3-4 semesters, if the department wants to keep using your services they must put you in a job called instructor.

The pay is still low, but slightly better, and you get health care and some meager retirement benefits. It is a start.

[Anonymous]

I am STUNNED that a black woman who went to Columbia and studied under Eric Foner wound up as an adjunct. She is not really a good example of the adjunct problem, because she went to a prestige institution and did, in fact, get a tenure track job after she got her PhD (after that, the fact is, she didn't play the game right). The "classic" adjunct did not go to an Ivy, did not get a tenure track job offer, and had to work as an adjunct before giving up on academia entirely.

[Anonymous]

Universities often tout the benefits they give adjuncts, such as free courses or access to fitness centers, as if those things were salary equivalent. Meanwhile adjuncts need to dedicate full-time hours to their work for pay that is often less than $25k/yr. for full-time work in major cities ($1500-$1800 per course for PT work). With the hours that they work, there aren’t many other part-time jobs that one can take to supplement academic income, except in the bar/restaurant industry. You’d better be childless, energetic, and not disabled!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am STUNNED that a black woman who went to Columbia and studied under Eric Foner wound up as an adjunct. She is not really a good example of the adjunct problem, because she went to a prestige institution and did, in fact, get a tenure track job after she got her PhD (after that, the fact is, she didn't play the game right). The "classic" adjunct did not go to an Ivy, did not get a tenure track job offer, and had to work as an adjunct before giving up on academia entirely.

But she is a striking example of what does happens once you are on that track. Other people from elite institutions wind up on that track when they have children or family issues that prevent them from publishing.

I think the broader point, which this article doesn't make, is that universities cannot or will not fill all of the teaching positions they need from permanent faculty. And we are all paying a LOT to send our kids to college. I have no doubt that many adjuncts are great teachers -- some may be even better teachers simply because they are not pre-occupied with their own research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Universities often tout the benefits they give adjuncts, such as free courses or access to fitness centers, as if those things were salary equivalent. Meanwhile adjuncts need to dedicate full-time hours to their work for pay that is often less than $25k/yr. for full-time work in major cities ($1500-$1800 per course for PT work). With the hours that they work, there aren’t many other part-time jobs that one can take to supplement academic income, except in the bar/restaurant industry. You’d better be childless, energetic, and not disabled!

Or have a spouse that makes better money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Universities often tout the benefits they give adjuncts, such as free courses or access to fitness centers, as if those things were salary equivalent. Meanwhile adjuncts need to dedicate full-time hours to their work for pay that is often less than $25k/yr. for full-time work in major cities ($1500-$1800 per course for PT work). With the hours that they work, there aren’t many other part-time jobs that one can take to supplement academic income, except in the bar/restaurant industry. You’d better be childless, energetic, and not disabled!

Or have a spouse that makes better money.

Nope. Fair pay is fair pay. A job stands on its own or not at all. You can’t have a job that discriminates against single people, people who need to get out of abusive relationships, widows/widowers, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Universities often tout the benefits they give adjuncts, such as free courses or access to fitness centers, as if those things were salary equivalent. Meanwhile adjuncts need to dedicate full-time hours to their work for pay that is often less than $25k/yr. for full-time work in major cities ($1500-$1800 per course for PT work). With the hours that they work, there aren’t many other part-time jobs that one can take to supplement academic income, except in the bar/restaurant industry. You’d better be childless, energetic, and not disabled!

Or have a spouse that makes better money.

Nope. Fair pay is fair pay. A job stands on its own or not at all. You can’t have a job that discriminates against single people, people who need to get out of abusive relationships, widows/widowers, etc.

sure you can. Any low pay job will do this.

[Anonymous]

To me, this is similar to what happens when a famous designer starts to sell clothes at Target. Ya, they do well for a while, but they are eating their seed corn.

The universities that do this will eventually fall to community colleges, who provide that level of instruction (or better) for much cheaper. A few universities that still tenure will survive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am STUNNED that a black woman who went to Columbia and studied under Eric Foner wound up as an adjunct. She is not really a good example of the adjunct problem, because she went to a prestige institution and did, in fact, get a tenure track job after she got her PhD (after that, the fact is, she didn't play the game right). The "classic" adjunct did not go to an Ivy, did not get a tenure track job offer, and had to work as an adjunct before giving up on academia entirely.

But she is a striking example of what does happens once you are on that track. Other people from elite institutions wind up on that track when they have children or family issues that prevent them from publishing.

I think the broader point, which this article doesn't make, is that universities cannot or will not fill all of the teaching positions they need from permanent faculty. And we are all paying a LOT to send our kids to college. I have no doubt that many adjuncts are great teachers -- some may be even better teachers simply because they are not pre-occupied with their own research.

As someone who got off the academic track, because I couldn't afford it, I think the adjunct system is bad for students. When I adjuncted I definitely inflated grades because I needed good evaluations to be rehired and I wasn't always around to write recs or do the other kind of followup work that is really important to students. I earned my Ph.D. from an elite program and wrote a "with distinction" diss. It can be tough coming out of a really strong program if you aren't a superstar because lower tier schools don't necessarily want a 2nd rate Ph.D. from an elite program. The feedback I got on the job market was that candidates from my school likely wouldn't stick around if hired, spoiled by elite undergrads and wouldn't be effective at teaching other students, didn't have enough teaching experience, and were generally spoiled. I think universities should have to offer all teaching staff salaried positions even if they have a 2-tiered system where instructors make a basic educators salary with benefits and the tenured-track faculty make a much higher salary. One-off adjuncts should only be those who offer an extraordinary perspective that cannot be provided by regular faculty (want to hire Maya Angelou to teach your writing seminar, fine, but schools should not be hiring adjuncts to teach basic classes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To me, this is similar to what happens when a famous designer starts to sell clothes at Target. Ya, they do well for a while, but they are eating their seed corn.

The universities that do this will eventually fall to community colleges, who provide that level of instruction (or better) for much cheaper. A few universities that still tenure will survive.

Virtually every university, except the most elite, hires adjuncts. And many others hire upper-level graduate students to teach classes when there is no one else available to do it.

[Anonymous]

You can look up professor, staff and adjunct faculty salaries and positions via this database by university. https://data.chronicle.com/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am STUNNED that a black woman who went to Columbia and studied under Eric Foner wound up as an adjunct. She is not really a good example of the adjunct problem, because she went to a prestige institution and did, in fact, get a tenure track job after she got her PhD (after that, the fact is, she didn't play the game right). The "classic" adjunct did not go to an Ivy, did not get a tenure track job offer, and had to work as an adjunct before giving up on academia entirely.

+1. She is a really poor example of the real problem the article is supposed to highlight. She had a tenure track job, but left it in large part because of a bad commute. Plus, it was clear that she was only willing to look at jobs in or fairly near to NYC.

It also sounds like she essentially stopped publishing for reasons only partly related the difficulties of being an adjunct.

Even for highly qualified people, the academic market is tough. You usually can't be all that picky about location and voluntarily leaving a good job without having something lined up and for less than the most compelling reasons, is often going to leave you in a lurch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me, this is similar to what happens when a famous designer starts to sell clothes at Target. Ya, they do well for a while, but they are eating their seed corn.

The universities that do this will eventually fall to community colleges, who provide that level of instruction (or better) for much cheaper. A few universities that still tenure will survive.

Virtually every university, except the most elite, hires adjuncts. And many others hire upper-level graduate students to teach classes when there is no one else available to do it.

Even elite universities us adjuncts, but the pay is better. I was making between $8,000-$11,000 per course at Hopkins (several years ago). I felt the rate was fair, but it's still very unstable employment if you are using it as your main source of income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I think the broader point, which this article doesn't make, is that universities cannot or will not fill all of the teaching positions they need from permanent faculty.

This is the issue. Take a typical PhD program at a university. They graduate 5-10 PhDs' per year, but are they creating 5-10 job openings also? Typically it's 2-3 at most, due to retirement, attrition, and maybe funding for one new position.

I'm not sure why PhDs don't realize this -- they are really smart people, after all. I guess they are so focused on their research that they don't think practically.

Is there any field where the department has at least as many job openings per year as the number of PhDs they graduate?