Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014

[unhappycamper]

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/21/professors_on_food_stamps_the_shocking_true_story_of_academia_in_2014/



Forget minimum wage, some adjunct professors say they're making 50 cents an hour. Wait till you read these stories

Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014
Matt Saccaro
Sunday, Sep 21, 2014 06:59 AM EST

You’ve probably heard the old stereotypes about professors in their ivory tower lecturing about Kafka while clad in a tweed jacket. But for many professors today, the reality is quite different: being so poorly paid and treated, that they’re more likely to be found bargain-hunting at day-old bread stores. This is academia in 2014.

“The most shocking thing is that many of us don’t even earn the federal minimum wage,” said Miranda Merklein, an adjunct professor from Santa Fe who started teaching in 2008. “Our students didn’t know that professors with PhDs aren’t even earning as much as an entry-level fast food worker. We’re not calling for the $15 minimum wage. We don’t even make minimum wage. And we have no benefits and no job security.”

Over three quarters of college professors are adjunct. Legally, adjunct positions are part-time, at-will employment. Universities pay adjunct professors by the course, anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000. So if a professor teaches three courses in both the fall and spring semesters at a rate of $3000 per course, they’ll make $18,000 dollars. The average full-time barista makes the same yearly wage. However, a full-time adjunct works more than 40 hours a week. They’re not paid for most of those hours.

“If it’s a three credit course, you’re paid for your time in the classroom only,” said Merklein. “So everything else you do is by donation. If you hold office hours, those you’re doing for free. Your grading you do for free. … Anything we do with the student where we sit down and explain what happened when the student was absent, that’s also free labor. Some would call it wage theft because these are things we have to do in order to keep our jobs. We have to do things we’re not getting paid for. It’s not optional.”

[Eleanors38]

1. This started in ernest over 40 yrs. ago in com. colls.

I taught college level courses for 3 yrs., often 4 courses/sem. No benes, no security, all contract labor. Three-fourths of my colleagues did the same. We were "Freeway professors" because we flew around town & outlying communitues, teaching at as many as three different sites. Everyone was promised to be on the short list for permanent positions. Which never materialized.

[yeoman6987]

23. My university just fired all adjuncts

The Acadenic Dean never liked the idea of them. So now they are all out of a job. The university now only has full time professors. You have 7 years to get full tenure or you are gone. One of my friends just got the boot cuz she didn't get tenure. It was sad but those are the rules. She took it better then I did. I guess I really thought she would have made the tenure board this year and I think she knew she wouldn't and prepared for the bad news.

[The Wizard]

2. Colleges maintain the bare minimum

of full time staff and rely on adjuncts to teach courses that fill the coffers. I worked as an adjunct for seven years, putting in far more hours with students than full time professors. I made more collecting unemployment.

[llmart]

3. Semantics are important here.....

I can't speak to other universities, but the one I work for does not use the term "professor" unless they have a PhD. Almost all of our part time people (about 600 in any given semester) do not have their PhD and they are called "teachers" or "instructors" or "lecturers". If they go on to get their PhD, then they can become a "professor".

The union keeps upper management in line by having it written in the contract how many part time teachers they can employ in relation to full time professors.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. PhD's working part-time are increasingly common; I'm one of them.

The usual term is "adjunct professor", but there is no universal consistency on these terms. No benefits, no permanence -- there's pretty universal consistency on that.

I thought the example in the OP was unrealistic -- I've never been offered the chance to teach three courses in one semester, except as a visiting (full-time) professor. Part time profs are usually hired to teach only one or two classes, which keeps their hours below the minimum needed to qualify as a full-time employee. It also means it's not worth relocating to take such a job.

ETA: Glad you at least have a union with some power. They are badly needed elsewhere.

[Brainstormy]

22. The 3 courses in one semester was truly unrealistic

I managed, for almost fourteen years, by working at two colleges. At the beginning of my teaching career, before I had completed my dissertation, I taught two sections, about 15 students per section, each quarter, had free parking, my own office and telephone. At the end of my "career," and after completing the Ph.D., I was teaching two sections of about 20 to 35 students, paid for parking, shared an office and telephone with two others and made exactly $ 50 per quarter more than when I started out. I loved teaching but still wonder why I stayed so long at that very unfair fair.

[Eleanors38]

24. After 3 yrs of teaching 3-4 sections/sem, I quit and

applied for a doctoral program and was ready to start (1976). I chucked it, and haven't regretted the decision. I liked teaching and was good at it. But there is little recognition of it.

[fasttense]

8. The article makes it clear that people with PhDs are earning less than minimum

"Our students didn't know that professors with PhD's aren't even earning as much as an entry-level fast food worker."

The article specifically addresses professors with PhD's.

Your college is one of the few remaining who still have a union, most colleges got rid of any active unions about 10 years ago.

But the answer is that all those professors get together and stop giving away their labor. They need to unionize.

[llmart]

33. There is power in numbers.....

and people in this country don't realize that they have to stand together on this. If they pull together, vote in a union, then they'll have some bargaining power. If all they do is complain about the university's practices, then they're part of the problem.

Universities are the new corporations. They're top heavy and those at the top get all the "goodies" and do very little productive work. They'll do everything in their power to keep those below them from getting any of those "goodies". But there are still many people who believe that those in power are going to be altruistic and care about fighting for those on a lower rung.

I actually read that first quote as meaning that the students assumed all who teach at a university have PhD's. I know many, many of our students think anyone in front of a classroom has a PhD. I've disavowed them of that. Many of our part timers only have a bachelor's. Some are barely out of college themselves.

We do have many part timers who teach more than two courses and they can bring in quite a bit of money per year. The union makes sure these people get some benefits too.

[Orrex]

4. If they want a living wage they should get some education

Oh, wait a minute...



Disgusting. College football coaches make six or seven figures, while the actual educators are starving on slave wages.

[Fred Sanders]

14. Football sells beer, knowledge is not as profitable. The kids making money on the gridiron are paid

how much?

Private profit motives are skewing everything strangely, human value is being distorted. A professor sex scandal would never be covered up like football player or coach scandals, for a reason.

[Orrex]

20. 100% correct from start to finish

Again, disgusting.

[malthaussen]

5. My friend the adjunct wants to know where she can get $3000/course.

It is really quite amazing how the universities managed to pull this off, while raking in more and more money from professional sports.... uh, I mean, amateur of course.

-- Mal

[marym625]

7. my mom was one of them

And since she taught English, literature and composition, she worked closer to 80 hours a week.

Horrible system.

[Dopers_Greed]

9. Students and professors should go on strike in unison IMO

To protest insane tuition costs and low pay respectively. We'll see how quick the university "bosses" act, when the $$$ that supports their huge salaries quits rolling in.

[dotymed]

10. Imagine...since I attended College,

30 years ago, the tuition has increased approximately 1200%...

[mysuzuki2]

11. I was one of them about 35 years ago.

I had 12 years of college, 3 degrees including a PhD in Anthropology. I was also living in my parents basement and making about $6000/year. I quit in disgust and had an OK career outside the academy but it broke my heart.

[Helen Borg]

16. What did you do outside academia?

I'm always interested in knowing. Thanks.

[mysuzuki2]

29. Thanks for your interest.

I worked for the Social Security Administration. My training in primate biology came in useful - all of my clients were, in fact, primates! I have taken up Anthro a bit in retirement. I have library access to the U of Wisc system and have presented papers at regional conferences recently. All in all, I guess I shouldn't complain. How about you?

[Helen Borg]

30. That is cool. Glad it all worked out well.

I'm still an academic. I guess one of the few lucky ones, employed full-time etc. But moved to the UK, recently.

[Patiod]

12. So where is all the money going? Facilities?

At state-funded institutions, I imagine the tuition is going to make up for cuts in state funding. "Coaches' salaries" isn't the answer, because the people making the huge bucks are generally making it at schools where the programs they coach are raking in bucks.

But if they aren't paying teaching staff, where is all the money going?

My friend's son is engaged to a girl who owes $250,000 for her college tuition - five years at $50K/year for a degree in Special Ed. The stupidity of her parents allowing her to do that is a whole 'nother thread, but where exactly is all that money going?

[pnwmom]

17. That's what I want to know. The excuse for such high tuitions has been fixed costs,

like teacher salaries. And yet salaries have come way down with the switch to adjunct faculty. So where is the money going?

To fancier gyms and swimming pools?

[Helen Borg]

18. A lot of it goes...

To bloated administration layers... Higher Ed has been taken over by business types. And they reward their own kind.

[llmart]

34. Absolutely!

There are way too many layers in administration, all of them making big bucks and doing very little. They bounce around the university from one admin job to another. They create positions for them just to keep them around. I'm in a position where I know what everyone makes and I know whereof I speak. There's usually a bloated legal department too.

[citizen blues]

21. Administrative costs

at the university I attended have increase by more than 30% over the last decade. Professor salaries have flat-lined, more adjuncts have been hired, and tenure is all but a thing of the past. They were within a week of strike this last spring before they settled on a contract.

I graduated with a Masters in teaching English as second language. My choices are to work at a for-profit private school that runs international students through 4-week sessions or to be an adjunct at multiple community colleges and universities. The second option means spending $200-400 a month on gas just so I can go from one job to another.

This summer the private school I had hoped to make it through the summer with cut my hours. What I learned is that there is this handy-dandy federal law [*sarcasm*] that considers summer a normal break between terms, so my income from the public community college I worked at was not used to figure my unemployment benefits. That was two-thirds of my income not counted! I qualified for $131 a week. The next stop was the food stamp office. I'm also selling my house so I will be better able to relocate for jobs, I'm now behind on the mortgage and my credit is shot, so I'm also not sure how I'm going to be able to get into a rental.

It has been so humiliating and I feel completely devalued. I am so angry! Yet the worst is the growing bitterness creeping in, which I absolutely hate.

[progressoid]

32. Actually, it's a myth that college sports bring the big bucks.

It's bringing big bucks for ESPN, Nike, etc. but for most schools it's a drain on univeristy resources.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/05/07/ncaa-finances-subsidies/2142443/

http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/Myth-College-Sports-Are-a-Cash-Cow2.aspx

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/15/athletics-cost-colleges-students-millions/2814455/?showmenu=true

[div class="excerpt"
NATION
Athletics cost colleges, students millions

Cliff Peale, The Cincinnati Enquirer

CINCINNATI -- College sports create undeniable campus pride and identity, but spending has increased so fast it's taking money from academics and student services.
...

The Knight Commission says Division I schools with football spent $91,936 per athlete in 2010, seven times the spending per student of $13,628. Division I universities without football spent $39,201 per athlete, more than triple the average student spending.

Nearly every university loses money on sports. Even after private donations and ticket sales, they fill the gap by tapping students paying tuition or state taxpayers.
Athletics is among the biggest examples of the eruption in spending by universities that has experts concerned about whether higher education can sustain itself.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. I've known quite a few adjuncts over the years, and...

the only reason for this we could think of is that someone has to actually teach the kids when the big names on the faculty refuse a course load. And, after paying those big names, along with the sports coaches, there's not much left over.

[daleanime]

15. K&R....

[sulphurdunn]

19. Something

is seriously fucked up with a system that charges students more to attend classes than it pays instructors to teach them. Where, oh where, does the money go?

[Eleanors38]

25. Grad schl sem. tuition U. Of Texas, 1970: $200. Out of state.

[merrily]

26. Depends on the school & the prof. Meanwhile, the heads of schools like Harvard

live like shahs. Well, maybe not as much bling, but very hefty compensation and tons of perks.

[Al Carroll]

27. This goes on at every school from Ivy League to A & Ms

It does not just go on at the big name schools where the better known professors would rather do research. I taught at a community college where many professors had been adjuncts their entire careers, retired after over 20 years still an adjunct. The pay was 2200 per course. High school teachers just starting out get paid more than double what adjuncts do.

[Doctor_J]

28. Us full-timers are falling way behind too

the supply and demand law works very well for employers in all fields. We have more classes, more students, less resources, and are lucky to get a 1% raise.

[snot]

31. Why don't they unionize?

[greatlaurel]

35. The decision by the GOP to no longer fund public universities is the driver of this problem

The real problem started under Reagan when he started the defunding of the University of California system when he was governor of California. Divide and conquer works so well. Tell the masses those lazy college students should not get their tax dollars and the race to the bottom was started. This worked so well it, the GOP took this to nearly every state.

We are still being fooled by the divide and conquer technique. Stop blaming sports and administrators and blame the GOP who started this plan to defund education. That weasel Grover Norquist and his no tax pledge has harmed education everywhere, too.