BY JANE S. GABIN
Despite the heroic efforts of union organizers, higher education in this country remains a discouraging miasma for applicants, teachers, and families.
Representatives of national groups who could take steps to stop or reverse this trend seem unwilling or unable to do so. Several years ago, the president of the National Association of College Admissions Counselors said to me directly, “We have other concerns.” Accessibility and inclusion are genuine concerns—but so is the value of teaching and teachers.
The response should be not to cut programs in higher education but to underscore a degree’s value by eliminating contingency, where teachers are paid by the course and have few if any benefits, and paying full-time salaries.
Many have read last fall’s survey in the Chronicle of Higher Education on public university presidents’ salaries and reacted with horror, because sixteen make over $1 million a year. This underlines the overall problem with US higher education: too many people are making too much money.
Higher education in America has lost its way and will collapse because of the following:
- Profit is considered above all else.
- Institutions are administration-heavy.
- Education is rapidly becoming too expensive, discouraging students.
- Instructors have long been considered an expendable commodity, discouraging teachers.
Recently, I published a book called The Shortest Guide to College Admissions, a do-it-yourself guide that has students look up each college or university’s Common Data Set. Applicants can learn about things the school doesn’t advertise, such as the “sticker” price, how many places are offered from the waiting list, how many people complete graduation requirements, and how many faculty are hired. Applicants need to learn the selectivity of each school, its retention rate, its six-year graduation rate, and the number of faculty teaching.
Today’s colleges and universities, for the most part, hire their faculty members on a contingent basis. And some schools with only a twenty percent overall rate of contingency may hire all contingents to teach undergraduates. AAUP vice-president Rotua Lumbantobing wrote on June 27, 2024, for the Academe Blog, “Untenured faculty earn lower wages, have less job security, and often bounce from position to position. Non-tenure-track faculty work hard for their students, but they do not have the professional development resources or infrastructure . . . Research has shown that students suffer as a result.”
The demand for teachers at the lowest price has resulted in contingent faculty comprising anywhere from 4 percent to 80 percent (or more) of college and university faculty. In a survey I conducted of 828 schools, 272 had more part-time faculty (contingents) than regular faculty. The 272 were schools of all kinds: state universities, small colleges, large colleges, Catholic schools, private-non-religious schools. And dozens of others have almost as many part-timers as full-time faculty. The numbers are so close they suggest these schools must have studied laws concerning the employment of contingent labor.
Meanwhile the college craze continues. Larger numbers of students continue to apply to the same numbers of “good” schools, or schools perceived as good, ensuring that the craze continues.
Jane S. Gabin has a PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill and has written on women’s literary expatriatism. She is a member of the communications committee of Higher Education Labor United.
Yes indeed, very discouraging. Thank you for the update on a dismal situation. I am curious though as to what you mean by “laws concerning the employment of contingent labor.” State laws, I assume? Are there any? I have begun to think that he only thing that might move this is a truly massive show of force by the educations unions, AFT, NEA, AAUP and the other unions who have been organizing contingent labor fairly efficiently- SEIU, USW and others, but such notions are unfortunately fanciful. I am going on 72 and “retired”–actually I have been retired so to speak, by serious illness–after an adjunct “career” of 35 or so years. withou a dime to show for it. Not pitying myself. It’s normal. As the man says, “We have other concerns.” I heard that the whole of the about seven or so years I myself spent in various ways battling this vampirish industry. Agaon, Thanks for upadate.
About 8 years ago, I wrote on article on the same subject that was accepted for publication in the print edition of Academe. A few weeks later, I was informed that it would NOT be published because some AAUP leaders saw it and ordered it removed. So much for the academic freedom that AAUP purports to promote. It does not exist now for contingent faculty and it will be moot fairly soon as most, if not all, faculty become contingent. This is a subject that AAUP, AFT, and NEA, the major organizations that represent faculty, have over many years published statements about, but have done nearly nothing to address. That is why SEIU, UAW and other unions have stepped in. It is unfortunate that full-time tenure track faculty have no interest in this because in the end, they may face layoffs or “voluntary” reductions in favor of hiring less expensive contingent faculty.
Alan and Jeff – thank you for commenting on my article. I sent a reprint of my article to over 200 counselors advising high school students. I don’t know what else to do to publicize the issue.