Wash U charges top tuition dollar and offers a world-class education for it. So, your instructors must have great jobs, right? Well, all college instructors aren’t treated equally. A trend has swept through higher education in the past 30 years: universities rely increasingly on adjunct instructors.
Adjuncts work on semester-long contracts and pick up classes piecemeal. Originally, adjunct labor was a stopgap for when a class lost a teacher at the last minute, such as when tenured faculty unexpectedly took leave. But schools have increasingly relied on adjunct instructors as their primary labor. Entire curriculums are taught almost entirely by adjuncts; at some universities, adjuncts are up to 70% of faculty. At Wash U, adjuncts teach the introductory courses of many programs in humanities, sciences, and engineering.
These instructors have taught here for years, but they are hired on contracts as though they are short-term, part-time employees, simply because these contracts are cheaper. An instructor with a graduate degree who has been teaching nearly full-time every semester for decades might make only $25,000 a year with no health benefits, regardless of their research productivity or teaching awards. The University can fire these instructors with no notice and no reason, no matter how long they have worked here. Your favorite teacher in your freshman year may be on food stamps.
Full Wash U tuition is $47,300 for 2015-2016. Dividing that by 8 classes equals $5,912 per course. An adjunct who teaches a class with 15 – 20 students each paying this sum can expect to be paid $3,000 – $5,000 total. Of course, there are overhead costs beyond instructor salary, but should you really be paying so dearly for a course where the instructor gets as little as 5% of the cost? Where does the remaining tuition go? It’s a complicated question without a simple answer, but it’s one you or your parents should probably ask the University. It’s your money, after all.
In the meantime, adjunct instructors at Wash U have unionized under the Service Employees International Union, and are currently negotiating a contract with Administration.