NEW YORK TIMES Editorial: …“The Just-In-Time Professor,” released last month by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, describes a growing population of more than one million adjunct and other nontenure-track instructors. “In 1970, adjuncts made up 20 percent of all higher education faculty,” the report says. “Today, they represent half.”
As a rule, adjuncts have few or no benefits. They are generally paid per course, and paid poorly. (The Coalition on the Academic Workforce estimates that the median pay for a standard three-credit course is $2,700.) Because adjuncts often teach several classes in order to cobble together a living, they have little time for the research necessary to advance their careers.
This increasing dependence on inexpensive adjuncts may be bad for students, as well. According to the report, students who took more courses taught by adjuncts “experienced lower graduation rates, lower grade point averages, and fewer transfers from two-year to four-year colleges, compared to other students.” … (more)
EDITOR: It isn’t even a question of the relative competence of ad junct teachers. They are so miserably underpaid and dependent upon supplementing their income that they can little afford extra time to work with students and comment on papers. This is a disgrace and Millersville University, among other colleges and universities, has long been party to it.
I fail to see a causal connection between graduation rates and adjunct professors. Perhaps the raw data could be released so that others may study it. However, something must be wrong since the cost of college is almost outrageous and it’s not due to adjunct salaries. However, adjunct professor jobs were intended to be supplemental jobs, not one’s primary source of income. I heard today the new Penn State president, Eric Barron, has a total compensation salary of $1 million annually. Go figure.
EDITOR: Perhaps the writer is thinking of Teacher Assistants, usually garduate students who are modestly paid to mark papers and supplement the teaching of the professor giving the course.
An Adjunct Professor is supposed to be a 100% substitute for a regular professor. So either the adjunct is being cheated or the student is being cheated; probably a bit of both.
I know it’s been a long time but perhaps Newslanc’s editor should enroll in a college coarse and see how it’s changed. Adjuncts (not grad students) are everywhere. Without them there would be few evening divisions.
Incidentally, I did not attend college until I was 42 and saw no difference between tenured professors and adjuncts. Both seemed competent to me.
EDITOR: That’s the tragedy of it all. Is it proper that professors should earn large salaries and adjuncts have to live on food stamps?