By Professor Doom
In a recent radio
interview with Jeff Rense I touched on a
broad range of issues in higher ed right now. While the focus was mostly on the
deep hatred of white people in higher ed and associated infestation of Social
Justice Warriors, I also mentioned the immense fraud that is accreditation, the
horrible fraudulent nature of many of our for-profit, non-profit, and state
schools, and, of course, the atrocious student loan scam.
There are so
many grim problems in higher ed that an hour long interview isn’t long enough
to even list them all, much less discuss anything in great detail. One problem
I missed was the adjunctification of higher education.
In times past, a
professor was fairly respected on campus, and it was a respectable job. You
weren’t likely to become a millionaire, but you were allowed a decent living
while you engaged in intellectual pursuits and taught the next generation the
most advanced (if not necessarily the most useful) subjects humanity had come
to know. That’s the image most people have of “college professor,” but the
reality, like the reality of most things in higher ed, is farrrrrrrrrr
different.
Most
college faculty are adjuncts, closing in on 70%, and so the adjunct should
be what people think of when they hear “college professor.” For newcomers to my
blog, an adjunct is a part time worker, generally paid less than minimum wage,
often qualifying for welfare, and it’s so bad in some areas that the
local food banks specialize in just keeping them fed.
Administration
justifies hiring adjuncts to do most of the work, saying “well, we only need
them for the one semester.” Because they are part-time, adjuncts get no
benefits, so this position is not intended to be a long term job. Trouble is,
adjuncts end up working this “temporary” position for years, decades even,
waiting for the time that admin realizes “hey, we need this guy every semester,
have needed him every semester for years, so saying he’s just a temp worker is
a lie.” Trouble is, admin has no interest in making this realization, because
adjuncts are very, very, cheap, and every $1000 not spend on paying the
professor is another $950 that goes into administrative pockets (with the rest
generously allowed by the administration to pay for education expenses).
It’s a vicious,
nasty, exploitative system, and quirks in the laws mean adjuncts can easily be
paid lower than minimum wage, and not even qualify for unemployment between
semesters (when they get no paychecks).
There are many
reasons our best and brightest allow this level of exploitation. A big part of
it is the huge
glut of Ph.D.s, a surplus created by the same leaders in higher ed who
profit so mightily from all the cheap labor.
To
this surplus is added a great number of Educationists (also a big source of
Social Justice Warriors), as accreditation allows Education to be used as a
“joker” for many lower level college courses.
A semi-recent
article tries to convince adjuncts to keep on slaving away to help
administrators buy more lake front property:
Hysterically, the author giving the advice not to
quit actually quit for himself. I’m scratching my head here on why anyone
should take this seriously, or how such an article could even be published.
My enthusiasm for teaching was
undiminished, but I could see trouble on the horizon, consigned to a single
course, semester after semester, no room for growth or new challenges. I didn’t
want to be angry, or worse, bitter.
Because I had some advantages, my
transition was easy. I was already making more money writing than teaching. I
have an emotionally supportive partner who also could support us financially
without me earning a dime.
So,
knowing the guy doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying, it’s tough to keep
reading his words. For the most part, he’s responding to the common idea that
“all adjuncts should quit at once.” Theoretically, it would help, as simple
economics means reducing the supply of potential teachers would lead to higher
wages and better working conditions.
“Theoretically” is the weasel word here…all adjuncts aren’t going to
quit overnight because they’ve student loan payments to make, rent to pay, and
so on.
Unsurprisingly, the author doesn’t understand either aspect of basic
economics and indicates his own reasons why everyone quitting wouldn’t work:
Will this sort of action cause a giant pot of money to fall
from the sky?
Uh, higher ed
has billions and billions to spend constructing buildings that no student will
ever enter. Higher ed showers insane
amounts of money on legions of diversity commissars, Poo Bahs, and deanlings
who have nothing to do with education.
There is
a ridiculously huge sum of money in higher education…the trouble is none of it
is going to education. I doubt that all adjuncts quitting overnight would
change that but…at least in theory it would help a little.
The
author goes further off the rails:
If adjuncts have truly disappeared, credentials for teaching
will be lowered or credit requirements will either be changed or offloaded to “alternative”
providers.
Credentials have already been lowered dramatically, as I’ve already
discussed, it’s easy to find “math education” professors teaching math courses
they know nothing about.
Credit
requirements have also been lowered. Computer courses used to be big on campus,
but because it was too expensive to hire even dubiously qualified teachers,
many campuses have eliminated the programs rather than pay a fair price for
teachers of a critical subject for the modern world.
On many
campuses, the
vast majority of college courses aren’t even college…admin would absolutely
reduce requirements further if all adjuncts walked away.
It’s
curious the author doesn’t mention another idea: make classes larger. We
already have courses with a 1,000 students in them…the trouble here is most
campuses don’t have enough rooms that large. It’s pretty funny, as I watch yet
another administrative palace go up, I at least take pleasure in knowing that
admin forgot, yet again, to build more oversize auditoriums.
The rest
of the article is more irrelevancies, but some comments bear mention:
After
two years of full-time adjuncting, I'm convinced more than ever that teaching
undergraduates is hardly one of the top priorities of higher education. And
once you take away the incentive for universities to provide quality education,
there's really nothing they won't do to deliver a degree for as little cost as
possible, including completely removing the human element in education.
The above
highlights one of the big issues in higher ed: nobody cares about quality. It’s
all about just getting those student loan checks into the pockets of
administration as quickly as possible.
The other
issue is admin, and a commenter links to an important site. Seriously, the
problem is way too many administrators:
Let the implications of the above
sink in. Faculty pay is basically flat (or falling, if you’re an adjunct, which
most faculty are nowadays—quirks in accounting mean adjunct pay doesn’t always
count as faculty pay), and faculty numbers are flat as well.
Administrative pay
is skyrocketing, stratospheric with no end in sight, along with benefits so
luxurious that many faculty, if they forego pay and just got administrative
benefits, would be better off.
And administrator
numbers are up 221%, over faculty numbers being up 3%, in a period where
student population on campus more than quadrupled.
Anyway, yes, all
adjuncts should quit overnight. Also, we should cure cancer overnight while
we’re at it. A more reasonable solution? Kill the student loan scam, as none of
that money goes to adjuncts, and all of it goes to the people exploiting them.
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