This College Professor Has a Master's...And Is Living in Poverty

[exboyfil]

41. I agree with you on the spending priorities

but one huge consideration is the reduction in state support for public universities. In general the pay of those teaching reflects the market forces in the country as a whole. For example non-tenured lecturer positions in engineering at my daughter's university can make $80k. That is what her Statics teacher with a Masters degree was getting paid. I have adjuncted a couple of times for engineering classes (the same scenario you describe). Us doing this is part of the problem. Our willingness to take low wages creates a downward pressure on salaries, but we are actually only a small part of the problem.

Go through the organization chart at a large university with which you are familiar. Try to figure out why some of the positions exist. You will find of these people are busy doing something - is that something adding value to the students' experience. Almost every university have "efficiency experts" come in and make recommendations. Most of them are more damaging that the savings which are accrued. My father in law was the long time head of a department. His opinion is many of the tenured professors are prima donnas who have no interest in being in the classroom. Unfortunately they are right. Even if you get all sorts of teaching awards you will not get tenure if you do not publish and/or bring in external money. These professors salaries have probably gone up faster than the inflation rate, but there teaching load has been reduced dramatically. Any university that tries to expect more from their professors than is typical in academia will quickly see them leaving. Especially for the courses that don't mostly service their majors, I think most departments do the minimum to retain accreditation