Is horrible.
Administrators use them as cash cows. They generate a ton of credit hours and a ton of tuition money.
They are retiring tenure track folks and replacing with adjuncts teaching their classes and saving scores of thousands.
But step back one level. There is a place for adjumcts. They should be that person with a successful career in the field who teach that one class because they have a passion for it and they benefit students by bringing in a perspective beyond the ivory tower. There shouldn't be career adjuncts. It isn't a career.
Now rake another step back, why are people making a career out of adjunct-ing? Because they got a PhD and there are more PhDs than there are tenior track jobs. Why? Because academics make money making PhDs and prestige but there is no place to put them because state legislatures have cut higher ed funding for years, at least since the recession, using any excuse they can find. Unable to raise tuition to make up the difference administrators froze faculty lines, and with the sparse tenure track positions the corps of professional adjuncts grew. Its a vicious cycle, they don't have to pay more because there's another hungry PhD who they can stand in front of the crowd in the gen ed class.
Its a travesty all around. It is unfair to the adjuncts, the students who are viewed as the cash cows, the academy itself and frankly society. It is the corporate downsizing and outsourcing of higher ed, and we are bringing ng it to crumbles while politicians are happy if overpaid adminstration beurocrats can bring in a MBA spread sheet that sho s the number of state college grads is going up, regardless of any measure of the quality if those degrees.
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