How our best and brightest can work tirelessly for 8 years only to receive food stamps, debt, and no career.
- Tenure track professor ($120,000 avg) vs.
- Adjunct ‘professor’ ($20,000 avg.)
Only one out of ten PhD’s get the job they studied 8.2 years on avg. for
- With 140,000 doctorates awarded last year [4]
- And only 16,000 new professorship openings listed.
- Leaving adjunct positions to swell to %76 of college faculties[10]
- Your chances by subject have declined
- English: -%41.4
- Math: -%40
- Sociology: -%35
- Political Science: -%39
- Your wages have declined
- From $53 an hour
- To an avg of$8.90 an hour
- [For 20k/56/40 and 120k/56/40]
- And that’s the best possible scenario. With 4 in 5 adjuncts making
less than
- $20k yearly
- Probable Adjunct Experience
- Teaching two classes= $900 a month
- $750=rent
- $35 per week on gas (you live away from campus where housing in cheaper)
- =10$
- And foodstamps
This has led to the number of Masters and PhD holders on food stamps tripling in three years.
- Rising to 360,000 masters holders
- And 30,000 PhD holders
Adjuncts make 50% less than secretaries, but it’s not all about the money. It’s also about quality of life.
- Adjunct vs. Secretary
- No job security vs. great job security.
- $45k in debt vs. didn’t need to pay a cent
- No insurance vs. full benifits
- Pending loss of hours from the Affordable Care Act vs. 40 hours a week
- [fines employers with 50+ part time employees working over 30 hours]
Why do they do it?
- Determinants
- Social (peer pressure)
- Psychological (gambling)
- Project (past commitment)
- Structural (cultural and environmental factors)
- Sunk costs: involves the increased investment (time, money, future) in a path that is not lucrative just because one has previously invested in the path.
Foot in the door technique: tactic involving getting one to agree to a large request by first making a smaller related request. What does this mean? (bigger picture)
Adjuncts are keeping the system afloat, and work in indentured servitude
- States are spending $16 billion less on public colleges than in 2008. That’s $2,353 less per student.[9]
Flagship University systems like California are reducing funding by 29.3%[11]
- Leading to (in CA) 4,200 fired staff members[11] 9,500 positions unfilled[11] And the elimination of 180 programs [11]
And that’s only possible because they’re charging 70% more in tuition [11]
- \
While undergradute matriculation has skyrocketed. Leaving adjuncts with harder jobs than the tenure track positions they dreamt of in grad school.
- There are 5.7 million more college students than there were 10 years ago. A 45% increase in full time students.[11] While tenure track positions have only increased 28%
in 32 years.
- (from 1975-2007)[12]
Matriculation and tuition are on the rise. Yet the value of an education clearly IS NOT. Support humane treatment of educators.
[citations]
- http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57468913/12-reasons-not-to-get-a-phd/
- http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/5659486-95/editorial-for-adjunct-professors-a-hard-job-about-to-get-harder
- http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0815.pdf
- http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72
- http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/do-college-professors-work-enough/
- http://www.finaid.org/loans/
- http://www1.salary.com/Secretary-I-Salary.html
- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/20134119156459616.html
- http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3927
- http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/09/17658326-meet-your-new-professor-transient-poorly-paid?lite
- http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98
- http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2012/08/post.html
