Dive Brief:
- Strong opposition has formed against the idea that paying adjuncts better would be too expensive for institutions, more recently highlighted in a paper by Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness in the Journal of Business Ethics.
- Gawker reports the $15 billion more per year it would cost the higher education sector to pay adjuncts $50,000 salaries plus benefits and office space, as outlined in the paper, has been explained as an either-or proposition with other “social justice-oriented” projects.
- For its part, Gawker suggests finding that money by reducing the pay of top administrators or cutting NCAA programs entirely.
Dive Insight:
Salary disparities across college campuses continue to cause tension, especially as the non-tenured share of the higher education workforce grows, becoming more important to institutional operations. In 1975, 57% of faculty were tenured or on track to be, while the portion today is less than one-third. The American Association of University Professors has been a vocal opponent of the shift, arguing it is bad for faculty, students, and entire institutions.
Union organizing among adjunct faculty groups has been successful in the last couple years, offering a glimpse into a potential future for the higher education teaching force. Contracts and bargaining protection could largely replace tenure or it could push institutions back toward tenure, which, in comparison, may not be so hard to guarantee.