3 Adjuncts teaching 2 classes per term for 2 terms each = 3 x 2 x $3,000 x 2 = $36,000
$11,200 + $36,000 = $47,200 which leaves a little extra for some more cats. I assume this is sort of what they did.
But to nitpick those numbers: , BF is a full time college professor at a semester school and he gets one of the three semesters off each academic year. But he’s not doing research… just teaching. But he usually teaches three courses per term. Maybe two courses with higher credit hours would be fine (like two 5-hour courses instead of three 3-hour courses). But an adjunct would probably get more than $3,000 for a 5 credit hour course too.
So their “full time” is a bit skewed. It’s also somewhat disingenuous to assume the students attend year round but the professors don’t teach year round. A lot of students still take summers off.
Yeah, adjunct pay is crap, but it’s not as bad as their math makes it out to be.
I was a post-doc, which generally pays way better than an adjunct for less work, and opted for actuarial before I would have had to accept adjunct pay. But some folks just can’t give up the academic environment, even if it means getting paid a pittance. (Folks at my last university were astounded I - or anyone - could tolerate a 9-5 job.)
Sounds nice. I am not in regular contact with anyone from my university, and I’m reasonably certain none of the alumni have aided me financially. I pretty much lost all contact as soon as I graduated and moved back in with my parents in another state.
So I made some great connections taking students from my school fishing. One of them graduated and went to work at a startup. The owners were looking for some insurance services, and buddy pipes up with ‘hey, I know a guy!’. And shortly thereafter, a small bit of profit! lol, but true story.
I also had a student end up doing a coop at a venture capital firm. He said that there’s zero way to get in front of the folks who make decisions on funding, but if I wanted, he could get me in the front door in front of the decision makers, and make my pitch for funding. I haven’t actually done that, don’t need it, but I’ve got an open offer.
Weird to think that I’m just doing a hobby taking students fishing, and I’ve actually made a couple of small business-type connections with 20yo’s. I guess not so weird when we realize that the students that come with me are absolutely amazing people, driven, interesting, worldly, and smart. So I guess they’re the folks that are good to make connections with at any age.
I have a grad school colleague at a well kmown local university. Tenured. Teaching position, so research not required. Said their salary was like $80k. I think that may be an outlier low pay school, but still.
The head of the actuarial science department at my alma mater made less than $73k last year. Assistant professor, PhD, only teaching, no research. Must be difficult to hear about the entry level job offer salaries that are higher than yours from students you teach who are 20 years younger than you.
For comparison, I looked up some other friends who work at the college. My stepson’s mom made $100k last year doing alumni engagement, and a friend who does systems work in IT made $68k. Kind of depressing that a PhD earns only slightly more than someone who didn’t get a college degree.
There’s a value in having summers off, like not needing caregiving if you have younger children, but if you’re not working a second job, $73k is $73k.
And I don’t know what his summer job responsibilities are, but as head of the department, he’s definitely putting in a lot of hours, setting up industry events, teaching multiple classes, and meeting individually with the hundreds of students in the program.
The last head of the department left a couple years ago to get an entry level job as an actuary. He told me it was lower stress than being in academia, and more money.
Oh, and. Her job isn’t fundraising, at least not directly, it’s coordinating expensive vacations and other events for alumni so they are inclined to give, but the sales pitch isn’t done by her. She goes on two long trips a year and does all the work to organize them.
It’s definitely a lot of work and involves a lot of travel and attending events. But she got out of fundraising when she came to the college to focus more on the relationship aspect, because she spent about 15 years in fundraising and hated it.
An adjunct is a contract worker. Not tenured. Not even close. My first actuarial job paid almost twice what the highest paid adjuncts I knew were getting. And I don’t think they got benefits.
People in teaching jobs look at me blankly when I say I don’t get summers off, like it’s some kind of right. I have to explain that I need to parcel out my PTO carefully, though it’s pretty generous amount, it just doesn’t compare to what a teaching job has.
Summer jobs aren’t that hard to get, I’m guessing he could earn a nice amount if he likes tutoring, unless his job really takes up the summer too.
Sounds like this job is paying less because of the prestige. And maybe because he’s taking the lower salary, and there are enough other people who’ll take it for some reason.
Still don’t feel bad for someone who theoretically can choose to do something else at literally any moment he wants to.
Maybe they’re paying medium high for someone who’s worked in fundraising enough to be smooth around all the edges… a.k.a. fawning over people in a nice way
Oh, and no sick days or vacation. If you were unable to teach, you had to find and pay someone to cover your classes (and the school won’t help with that). Cancel a class because you’re sick, or because weather kept you from campus (but school didn’t close)? Might need to start looking look for new employment.
The rate might be viewed as being higher . . . but that doesn’t change the fact that $73K over 10 months with no work during the summers translates into $73K/year (unless you get an additional job; then it’s NOT the case that you have summers off).
That’s like saying that a job paying $25/hr with a 20 hour work week brings in more money than a job paying $15/hr with a 40 hour work week or a a job paying $12.50/hr with a 48 hour work week.
And if you think that the latter two are equal in terms of gross income, keep in mind that there are laws proscribing additional pay for overtime work.
A lot depends on where you’re at, what the job market in the area looks like, and if the potential employer is willing to take on and train someone who is going to be leaving in a couple of months.
This gets compounded when you have kids who aren’t at a stage to be self-sufficient and you’re competing with individuals who don’t have that “burden”.
i don’t think adjusting an academic year role to an office FT for salary comparison is wrong. it also dosen’t really change the comparison in most cases. it is still leaps and bounds ahead of an adjunct role and I don’t know how or why long-term adjuncts still plug away. But they must love it bc better paying options exist all over (at least in math). Our local public HS would pay a person w a phd $100K w 10 yrs teaching experience (in any subject).
Friend who teaches high school has done a number of “school’s out” jobs. Helps a guy deliver and set up Christmas Trees in fancy-pants houses, then picks the trees up after Christmas. He was an Uber driver before doing the math (I think he did the math, else I would have volunteered to do the math for him). Works for another friend in construction over the summer.
