Academic Con Game
An excerpt from The Splinter an online publication about
public policy
The role of the adjunct in Academia
The accepted story of what an “adjunct professor” is—the myth
that has drawn so many hopefuls into the world of professional academia—is that
adjuncting is not a full-time job at all. It is something that retirees do to
keep themselves busy; something that working professionals do on the side to
educate people in their field; something that, perhaps, a young PhD might do
for a year or two while looking for a full-time professorship, but certainly
nothing that would constitute an actual career.
In fact, this is a big lie. The long-term trend in higher
education has been one of a shrinking number of full-time positions and an
ever-growing number of adjunct positions. It is not hard to see why. University
budgets are balanced on the backs of adjunct professors. In an adjunct, a
school gets the same class taught for about half the salary of a full-time
professor, and none of the benefits. The school also retains a god-like control
over the schedules of adjuncts, who are laid off after every single semester, and then rehired as necessary for the
following semester. In the decade since the financial crisis, state governments
have slashed higher education
funding, and Florida is no exception. That
has had two primary consequences on campus: students have taken on ever-higher
levels of debt to pay for school, and the college teaching profession has been
gutted, as expensive full-time positions are steadily eliminated in favor of
cheaper adjunct positions. Many longtime adjuncts talk of jealously waiting for
years for a full-time professor to die or retire, only to see the full-time
position eliminated when they finally do.
Labels: Education
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