Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
      • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

        Barbara Rodriguez · October 14
      • Emily’s List expands focus on diverse candidates and voting rights ahead of midterm elections

        Errin Haines · August 30

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Illustration of a miniature woman lifting very large books.
(Malte Mueller/Getty Images)

Education

Adjunct professors, the ‘backbone’ of higher education, push for better wages and benefits

Part-time professors, more likely to be women and people of color, are a permanent underclass in academia, they said.

Nadra Nittle

Education reporter

Nadra Nittle

Published

2022-03-18 13:52
1:52
March 18, 2022
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Nicole Braun has earned too little as a working single mom to save for retirement. At times, she’s used government assistance to get enough food to eat and a place to live. She’s cleaned houses and walked dogs to earn extra cash, and she’s never had a job that provided health insurance. 

Most people who know the 54-year-old Chicagoan don’t suspect she’s struggled this much financially, Braun said. After all, she has two master’s degrees and an occupation that many assume makes her middle-class.

She’s a part-time professor.

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

“A lot of adjuncts like myself have a whopping student loan debt, and not only are we making poverty wages, we have no health benefits typically,” said Braun, who teaches sociology at one community college and three universities. “We have no retirement plan. We work multiple jobs, and we’re completely disposable.”

A new study about part-time professors by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) bears this out. In 2020, the union surveyed about 1,900 adjuncts, also known as contingent faculty. These part-time professors often lack the advantages of being full-time faculty such as competitive wages, health benefits, retirement plans and job security. Many contingent faculty do not have their own offices and work at multiple colleges to ensure they teach a full load of classes each term. 

Although 90 percent of these educators have at least a master’s degree, 60 percent make less than $50,000 per year, according to the AFT report. Almost a quarter bring home less than $25,000 annually, below the federal poverty line for a family of four. Adjuncts also often go uncompensated for the routine tasks that come with the job — prepping for classes, holding office hours, writing recommendation letters and serving on committees, the union’s study found. 

“Adjunct teachers, basically, are the backbone of our colleges and our universities,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Four in 10 of them need government assistance to get by. That tells you a huge amount about priorities in this country, and how we do not prioritize knowledge and innovation, creativity and critical thinking or the academic foundations of America.”

  • More from The 19th
    Teachers rally at the Minnesota State Capitol.
  • Minneapolis teacher strike is part of a wider labor struggle for educators around the country
  • There’s a push to get more electric school buses on the streets — moms are driving it
  • Principals are expected to be the ‘rock’ of schools, but they’re stressed out

With women of all racial backgrounds and people of color less likely to be hired for full-time tenure-track positions, adjuncts overwhelmingly belong to groups traditionally marginalized in higher education. About 64 percent of the AFT study respondents were women; other studies have also found that women make up the majority of adjuncts. Thirty-one percent were men, 1 percent were gender nonconforming, and the remainder were transgender or did not disclose their gender identity. 

By relegating educators from underrepresented groups to adjunct roles, colleges and universities uphold the racial, gender and class hierarchies that have fostered inequities in academia historically, adjuncts and their supporters say. The AFT estimates that 47 percent of faculty hold part-time positions. They’re necessary for colleges and universities to function, adjuncts told The 19th, but they remain an invisible and permanent underclass in academia.

“People don’t understand what’s happening, so the school districts, the administration and the state, which funds us, haven’t really had to do anything because there’s no pressure,” said Bobbi-Lee Smart, a Los Angeles-area adjunct who helped draft the AFT report. “They’re saving tons of money by hiring people to teach classes at half or less the rate and then not having to pay for benefits or anything else. So, it saves states a lot of money, but there’s also no outrage because no one knows what’s happening.”

But, Smart said, colleges and universities would be in trouble without adjunct faculty: “There’s no way that these places could operate without us.” 

By hiring adjuncts, colleges and universities cut salary and benefit costs and, they say, it allows them to offer new courses to students without having to invest in hiring permanent staff. All types of colleges and universities hire adjuncts, but community colleges are especially likely to rely on these part-time staffers. The California Community College system is the nation’s largest, and according to 2019 data from the chancellor’s office, part-time professors comprise, on average, 69 percent of its faculty. 

Paul Feist, vice chancellor of communications and marketing for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, told The 19th that faculty compensation is determined through collective bargaining at the local level but that the Chancellor’s Office does advocate for additional state budget resources that colleges can devote to part-time faculty, such as funding for part-time faculty office hours. The office is also pushing for increased state funding for health insurance for part-time professors.

As the union with the largest number of adjunct professors, AFT is advocating for a better quality of life for part-time faculty. It has 240,000 higher education members, 85,000 of whom are contingent workers and 35,000 of whom are graduate employees. On March 7, the union announced that it was pursuing a new affiliation with the American Association of University Professors. If the leadership of the 1.7 million-member AFT and the 44,000-member AAUP vote to join forces, the organizations will work together to advocate for their New Deal for Higher Education. This legislative agenda aims to increase government funding to higher education, end the practice of employing low-wage contingent faculty, make education more affordable, protect academic freedom and cancel student debt.

With a $22 billion investment in higher education, the Build Back Better Act would have given colleges and universities more financial resources. The AFT argues that higher education institutions could have used this funding to provide job security for adjuncts and raise their wages, but the legislation has stalled in the Senate. The union hopes that parts of the legislation can be passed piecemeal or incorporated into the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, a federal law designed to boost the resources of colleges and universities and provide financial assistance for students.

“This is about investing in higher education,” Weingarten said. “This is about investing in knowledge. This is about investing in our democracy. This is about having the promise and the potential of higher ed happening in this country. It’s about having these two very strong organizations actually come together to help us have affordable, accessible higher education for everyone. It’s about making sure that academic freedom and shared governance and tenure is available.”

Weingarten criticized colleges and universities for paying administrators top salaries or reserving millions of dollars for new sports facilities on campuses, while adjuncts struggle to make ends meet. Geoff Johnson, an adjunct professor for 20 years, said that he knows adjuncts who are unhoused or working as bartenders, food delivery drivers or waiters to supplement their income. 

“A lot of them are older adjuncts,” said Johnson, who helped draft the AFT report and chairs the union’s adjuncts committee. “It’d be one thing if these guys were young folks kind of enjoying the lifestyle of being footloose and fancy free, but that’s not the reality.”

Sixty-two percent of the adjuncts AFT surveyed are 50 or older. Less than half (44 percent) of contingent faculty members have health insurance through their employer. Because of health care costs, 64 percent of survey respondents said they postponed dental checkups during the previous year. Forty-four percent said they did not see a doctor, and 27 percent said they did not get a recommended medical test or treatment. Ten percent admitted to cutting pills in half or skipping doses of medicine because of their financial situation.

Johnson is more fortunate than most adjuncts because he has received health insurance through the San Diego Community College District for more than 15 years. It came just in time. 

“When we got onto the plan, a year after that, my wife had contracted type II diabetes, and there would have been no way we could have afforded the insulin,” he said. 

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Many adjuncts press on because of the hope that they will one day become full-time professors. But full-time openings are rare. Fifty percent of adjuncts would prefer a tenure-track position, according to a 2018 study. 

Adjuncts can refuse to perform duties for which they’re not paid, whether that’s writing curriculum, holding office hours or serving on committees, Smart said. But, she added, contingent faculty members know that not completing these tasks would hurt their students.

“As long as we keep doing more for less, it’s never going to change,” she said.

She suspects that a major reason contingent faculty earn low pay and benefits is because women tend to serve in these positions. 

“A lot of people think that the majority of adjuncts are voluntary, that they have a full-time job somewhere that they’re taken care of, that they’re doing this job on the side,” Smart said. “It’s a woman taking care of her kids, and so she’s doing this when the kids are in school … and getting benefits from her husband.”

Braun agreed. She’s never married and said the idea that adjunct work is a “hobby job” has hurt her professionally. She’s continued working as a part-time faculty member because she loves teaching, her field of study, and her students, she said.

“We don’t teach because of the money,” she said. “We teach because we care about society, and we care about justice. But, obviously, I do feel like everybody deserves a living wage.”

As she approaches her 55th birthday, Braun said that it hurts to see people her age achieving goals that have eluded her. They’ve paid off their student loans, bought homes and take the occasional vacation, she said. 

Meanwhile, Braun continues to juggle adjunct jobs and side hustles. Retirement is out of reach for her, and she’s not alone. AFT reports that 37 percent of adjuncts surveyed cannot imagine how they’ll retire. 

Laughing, Braun said, “My retirement is death.” 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Help sustain what we started

Your monthly investment is critical to our sustainability as a nonprofit newsroom.

Donate Today

Become a member

Up Next

View of school buses in a parking lot.

Environment & Climate

There’s a push to get more electric school buses on the streets — moms are driving it

They just got a boost from Vice President Kamala Harris, after she announced the EPA would distribute $17 million to convert diesel school buses to electric and low emission buses.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram