I am an adjunct professor who teaches five classes. I earn less than a pet-sitter

[Adrahil]

112. That's good to see.

My wife is a tenured Professor (thanks to her hard work and good luck). She adjuncted for 3 years after getting her PhD, before landing the tenure-track position. We were fortunate, since I had a good job that paid the bills. Otherwise, she may have had to get another job to cover basic living expenses (she would have been making about $15,000/yr in the Washington, DC area.... tough to live on), and she may not have ever been able to keep up her research and publishing which eventually got her the tenure-track job.

Fortunately, her new University does not use many adjuncts. Most non-tenure-track professors, are on annual contracts that pay a living wage (not GREAT pay, but livable, with benefits), and most are rehired on a year to year basis. When she arrived, there WAS a tendency to not replace tenured faculty, instead just trying to replace them with contract faculty, but a new President came in last year and halted that trend, though he hasn't reversed it yet. He saw that quality recruits were moving on to better jobs with a couple years, thwarting the schools ambitions to increase its reputation. Now they just have to pay the tenured faculty what they are worth.