Professors in Poverty

[AthenaAwakened]

The truth is adjuncts are struggling to meet their own needs, and thus struggling to do what they love: teach. About 22 percent of adjunct professors live BELOW the poverty line. That does not account for the thousands of others who live at or just above it, in a US economy who's "poverty line" would actually have to be doubled in the majority of it's cities for a family of three to afford basic living necessities. In short, many adjuncts are poor. With well over a 40 hour work week preparing curriculums, grading papers, and writing lectures, their pay generally averages out to about $10.00 an hour.

The starting pay at Starbucks is generally about $10.00.

Men and women who have dedicated their lives to academia are often taking on course loads on multiple campuses, in hopes of making ends meet. They have no idea if those same courses will be offered the next semester and must do what they can to make their money stretch. Many take jobs outside of academia, from retail to driving Uber to supplement income. Others need even more help. Twenty percent get earned income tax credit payments. Over 100,000 adjunct professors nationwide are on government assistance. Seven percent are on Medicaid.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-jones/students-in-debt-professo_b_8402560.html

 

[dismal]

Hopefully this educational video will convince many wannabe adjunct professors to pursue a livelihood that society values more than adjunct professoring.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Hopefully this educational video will convince many wannabe adjunct professors to pursue a livelihood that society values more than adjunct professoring.

Society values adjuncts, legislatures and universities don't. So laws and regulations are passed and initiated that allow for poor wages and no benefits.

 

[Derec]

The first one, 10 seconds into the video:
English major. "Urban" Education Masters. Education PhD. The low pay is explained due to oversupply of these relatively non-challenging degrees.
Glassdoor says the average for adjuncts is about $30k but that is across disciplines and course loads. Also, if you have a part time course load there is no reason why you should not have another job (like Uber) although I am shocked the first woman in the video still qualifies for public assistance despite two jobs - must be because of the kid(s).
But the most important thing is that adjunct positions are not meant to be long term. They can still look for tenure track positions and/or non-academia work. I guess adjuncts can be compared to post-docs (average pay $45k), which are research-oriented and more common in science and engineering disciplines than adjuncts. Moral of the story: she should have picked a better major.

 

[dismal]

Hopefully this educational video will convince many wannabe adjunct professors to pursue a livelihood that society values more than adjunct professoring.

Society values adjuncts, legislatures and universities don't. So laws and regulations are passed and initiated that allow for poor wages and no benefits.

Laws and regulations are the things we do together.

 

[Trausti]

Hopefully this educational video will convince many wannabe adjunct professors to pursue a livelihood that society values more than adjunct professoring.

It does seem like there's a glut of adjuncts, especially for liberal arts. I've always viewed adjuncts as just what some professionals do as a side interest or to pad a resume. Don't know why someone would look at it as a career. Besides, I'd guess that there is little movement among the tenured professors. So if you're an adjunct waiting for an opening, you'll probably be waiting for a long, long, time.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Hopefully this educational video will convince many wannabe adjunct professors to pursue a livelihood that society values more than adjunct professoring.

Society values adjuncts, legislatures and universities don't. So laws and regulations are passed and initiated that allow for poor wages and no benefits.

I am curious how you say society values adjuncts. Do people hire adjuncts off the street?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Society values adjuncts, legislatures and universities don't. So laws and regulations are passed and initiated that allow for poor wages and no benefits.

I am curious how you say society values adjuncts. Do people hire adjuncts off the street?

Ask a student how much s/he thinks his History 220 professor makes?
Ask a parent how it feels to know his or her child is dining at the home of his econ professor?

Professors are still for the most part thought of as smart and held in some esteem among the general public.

What that public does not know is the differences among an adjunct, an associate, and an assistant professor are or exact which one of those their kid's professor is.

Most people watching that video will probably think adjuncts should be paid more. No one with a PhD should be on food stamps.

 

[dismal]

No one with a PhD should be on food stamps.

Nonsense. If no one is willing to pay you to do something there is no "shouldness" that says you should get paid to do it.

My desire to earn a living oiling up supermodels for bikini shoots does not entitle me to make a living oiling up supermodels for bikini shoots.

Even if I get a PhD in supermodel oiling.

 

[Bomb#20]

Society values adjuncts, legislatures and universities don't. So laws and regulations are passed and initiated that allow for poor wages and no benefits.

I am curious how you say society values adjuncts. Do people hire adjuncts off the street?

If the legislatures and universities pay, say, $25K for a job, but society values the job at more than that, what this generally means is that a typical person would regard getting that work done as worth less to him than $25K in his pocket but worth more to him than $25K in your pocket. Judgments of monetary value are usually content-free noise when you're not the one paying for them.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I am curious how you say society values adjuncts. Do people hire adjuncts off the street?

If the legislatures and universities pay, say, $25K for a job, but society values the job at more than that, what this generally means is that a typical person would regard getting that work done as worth less to him than $25K in his pocket but worth more to him than $25K in your pocket. Judgments of monetary value are usually content-free noise when you're not the one paying for them.

Excpet if no one is willing to do that job for less than $25K then the university will have to pay more to find someone. Is there a shortage of adjunct professors? As dismal said, the poor pay should be a statement for someone to say I don't want to be a adjunct professor.

 

[Bronzeage]

Hopefully this educational video will convince many wannabe adjunct professors to pursue a livelihood that society values more than adjunct professoring.

It does seem like there's a glut of adjuncts, especially for liberal arts. I've always viewed adjuncts as just what some professionals do as a side interest or to pad a resume. Don't know why someone would look at it as a career. Besides, I'd guess that there is little movement among the tenured professors. So if you're an adjunct waiting for an opening, you'll probably be waiting for a long, long, time.

As long as adjuncts are available for low wages, there won't be any openings for tenured professors. That's the point of hiring adjuncts.

The oversupply of advanced degrees in liberal arts was predictable. If a person gets an engineering or business degree, they can expect to find a job as an engineer or manager. There is no such thing occupation as "liberal artist."

In the beginnings of our modern University system of education, colleges produced ministers. A graduate of any of the Oxford colleges was qualified to be a priest of the Anglican Church. The liberal arts study was conceived to give the sons of rich families enough education to prevent them from becoming ignorant boors. It was never intended to be the foundation for a career. These men were never going to work for a living.

These days, colleges pump out English majors and Art majors by the millions, the sons and daughters of the rich, the middle class, and the poor alike. There will always be a need for a certain number of liberal artists, but never that many.

Sooner or later, reality will need to be faced. There is no reason to to work for a degree, which does not qualify a person for a job that pays well enough to pay back the loan which paid the tuition.

 

[Trausti]

Sooner or later, reality will need to be faced. There is no reason to to work for a degree, which does not qualify a person for a job that pays well enough to pay back the loan which paid the tuition.

Watch it. The well-paid faculty at the identity politics department of your local university may accuse you of a microagression.

Others benefit if students work toward worthless degrees, even if the students don't.

 

[laughing dog]

If the legislatures and universities pay, say, $25K for a job, but society values the job at more than that, what this generally means is that a typical person would regard getting that work done as worth less to him than $25K in his pocket but worth more to him than $25K in your pocket. Judgments of monetary value are usually content-free noise when you're not the one paying for them.

Excpet if no one is willing to do that job for less than $25K then the university will have to pay more to find someone. Is there a shortage of adjunct professors? As dismal said, the poor pay should be a statement for someone to say I don't want to be a adjunct professor.

While there are adjunct professors do wish to be adjunct professors (they have other means of support and this is a sideline), many adjunct professors have no desire to become adjunct professors. My guess is most of them do not want to be adjunct professor - they want to be professors.

The rise of the adjunct professor is part of the long trend in academia to reduce labor costs associated with professors (not administrators).

 

[Bronzeage]

Sooner or later, reality will need to be faced. There is no reason to to work for a degree, which does not qualify a person for a job that pays well enough to pay back the loan which paid the tuition.

Watch it. The well-paid faculty at the identity politics department of your local university may accuse you of a microagression.

Others benefit if students work toward worthless degrees, even if the students don't.

That's what the system is designed to do. Student loans have allowed colleges to expand programs and inflate tuition far beyond the economic value of the degrees they offer. The result is large numbers of college graduates who seek jobs that are suited for a high school graduate and the special job skills needed are learned on the job.

 

[beero1000]

The cost-benefit of replacing tenure lines with adjunct positions is about more than just money.

Sure, adjuncts are cheaper, but they are generally temporary hires that are overworked and less qualified than a tenure hire at the same school. It's a detriment to the hire, the university, the departmental culture, and the students who take their classes.

 

[coloradoatheist]

The cost-benefit of replacing tenure lines with adjunct positions is about more than just money.

Sure, adjuncts are cheaper, but they are generally temporary hires that are overworked and less qualified than a tenure hire at the same school. It's a detriment to the hire, the university, the departmental culture, and the students who take their classes.

Are college professors rated on how well they can teach, or what their research is?

 

[beero1000]

The cost-benefit of replacing tenure lines with adjunct positions is about more than just money.

Sure, adjuncts are cheaper, but they are generally temporary hires that are overworked and less qualified than a tenure hire at the same school. It's a detriment to the hire, the university, the departmental culture, and the students who take their classes.

Are college professors rated on how well they can teach, or what their research is?

Both. Traditionally, at a research university promotion decisions are considered at approximately 50% research, 30% teaching, and 20% service.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It does seem like there's a glut of adjuncts, especially for liberal arts. I've always viewed adjuncts as just what some professionals do as a side interest or to pad a resume. Don't know why someone would look at it as a career. Besides, I'd guess that there is little movement among the tenured professors. So if you're an adjunct waiting for an opening, you'll probably be waiting for a long, long, time.

As long as adjuncts are available for low wages, there won't be any openings for tenured professors. That's the point of hiring adjuncts.

The oversupply of advanced degrees in liberal arts was predictable. If a person gets an engineering or business degree, they can expect to find a job as an engineer or manager. There is no such thing occupation as "liberal artist."

In the beginnings of our modern University system of education, colleges produced ministers. A graduate of any of the Oxford colleges was qualified to be a priest of the Anglican Church. The liberal arts study was conceived to give the sons of rich families enough education to prevent them from becoming ignorant boors. It was never intended to be the foundation for a career. These men were never going to work for a living.

These days, colleges pump out English majors and Art majors by the millions, the sons and daughters of the rich, the middle class, and the poor alike. There will always be a need for a certain number of liberal artists, but never that many.

Sooner or later, reality will need to be faced. There is no reason to to work for a degree, which does not qualify a person for a job that pays well enough to pay back the loan which paid the tuition.

Second this. Too many people go for the easy degree rather than the degree that will pay well.

 

[dismal]

It seems like some degrees prepare you for nothing else but to teach that degree.

Obviously if you're sitting in a class getting a degree in X with 15 other people who want to become a teacher of X someone is heading for disappointment, and may be wasting their time and money.