Research

Pay and Benefits:

• The average pay reported by adjuncts is $2,987 per three-credit course, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Adjunct Project.
• Seventy-nine percent of adjuncts do not get health insurance at their college and 86% did not receive retirement benefits or the opportunity to buy into a group retirement plan.[1]

Increasing numbers:

• Approximately 70% of instructional faculty at all colleges are working on a contingent basis.[2]
• More than two thirds of instructional faculty is now non-tenure track. In 1969, tenured and tenure-track positions made up approximately 78.3% of the faculty. In 2009, tenured and tenure-track faculty had declined to 33.5% and 66.5% of faculty were ineligible for tenure.[3]
• Nationally, the numbers of part-time faculty members has increased at almost three times the rate of full-time faculty in the last 15 years. Between 1995 and 2011 the number of part-time faculty doubled.[4]
• 54% of contingent faculty teach in more than one institution; 29% teach in two institutions. [5]

Barriers to professional development and effective teaching:

• According to an August 2012 Survey by the Center for the Future for Higher Education (CFHE), prep time for courses taught by contingent faculty is often minimal; two-thirds of faculty reported receiving three weeks or less notice to prepare for class assignments.[6]
• In the same survey, 94% of respondents said they received no departmental or university orientation, despite the fact that half were new to the campuses where they were teaching. [7]
• Access to university services is often limited: 47% received copying services less than two weeks before classes started and 45% gained library privileges two weeks before the start of class. Twenty-one percent never received any curriculum guidelines or access to office space.[8]