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This Connecticut man earns more money working at a grocery store than as a college professor
Business Insider ^ | 05/06/2015 | Libby Kane

Posted on 05/06/2015 10:36:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

In January, Matt Debenham got a job at the grocery story in his Connecticut town.

There's nothing unusual about that, except for the fact that 44-year-old Debenham, married father of two, earns more stocking shelves and bagging groceries than he does working his other job as an adjunct college professor.

"Adjunct" is industry speak for "part-time," an arrangement that's increasingly common at colleges and universities. Huffington Post reports that while the majority of college professors are now adjuncts, 60% of them admit to having at least one other job.

In the 2015 edition of its annual report, the American Association of University Professors listed the average salary for a full-time professor as $122,171. Looking only at professors teaching at private schools, it's $148,036, and at public schools, $115,592.

Adjuncts, however, have a different experience.

In an essay at Buzzfeed, Debenham describes his earnings from working part time at two different schools:

If I teach undergrad for the Connecticut school, it's just under $4,800 per course per semester. For the small New York college, it's $2,000. It sounds like there's a clear winner here, except there's a rule in Connecticut: Adjuncts can't teach more than two courses at one time across the entire Connecticut State College system, which comprises 4 four-year colleges, 12 two-year colleges, and an online university.

So the most I can make in-state is $9,600 for a semester, regardless of which state institution I teach in. But there's also no guarantee I'll get more than one undergrad class, and most of the time I haven't; there are too few classes and too many other adjuncts to go around. Meanwhile, there's the graduate program, which pays a fraction of what the undergrad classes do — but Connecticut counts the MFA courses and the undergrad classes as the same thing.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: college; grocery; obamacare; professor; salary
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1 posted on 05/06/2015 10:36:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

So where is all the tuition money going?


2 posted on 05/06/2015 10:40:12 AM PDT by ballplayer (hvexx NKK c bmytit II iyijjhihhiyyiyiyi it iyiiy II i hi jiihi ty yhiiyihiijhijjyjiyjiiijyuiiijihyii)
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To: SeekAndFind

Is this article supposed to be a statement that professors are underpaid? What is their point?


3 posted on 05/06/2015 10:41:40 AM PDT by gr8eman (Don't waste your energy trying to understand commies. Use it to defeat them!)
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To: SeekAndFind

We need people stocking shelves too.


4 posted on 05/06/2015 10:42:20 AM PDT by Gamecock (Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered. R.C. Sproul)
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To: SeekAndFind

This is a big inconveniance for the part time professors, but there may be unseen benefits. These part time professors will be forced to continue their interaction with the public sector, and this may allow their thinking to become more tolerant of the capitalist system.


5 posted on 05/06/2015 10:42:52 AM PDT by lee martell (The sa)
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To: SeekAndFind
This Connecticut man earns more money working at a grocery store than as a college professor

They say this like it's a bad thing!

6 posted on 05/06/2015 10:43:57 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: gr8eman
Is this article supposed to be a statement that professors are underpaid? What is their point?

"Support teachers' unions"?

7 posted on 05/06/2015 10:48:06 AM PDT by Alex Murphy ("the defacto Leader of the FR Calvinist Protestant Brigades")
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To: SeekAndFind

‘Adjuncts can’t teach more than two courses at one time across the entire Connecticut State College system, which comprises 4 four-year colleges, 12 two-year colleges, and an online university.’

Has he thought about... leaving Connecticut to find a full-time job?????


8 posted on 05/06/2015 10:48:12 AM PDT by Made In The USA (Yes Ma'am, I said I'd like three sides of bacon with my eggs. and bacon.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I guess he is unable to land a permanent faculty position maybe because, gasp, he is not a leader in his area of expertise?


9 posted on 05/06/2015 10:48:27 AM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel (Cruz-ing to January 20, 2017!)
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To: from occupied ga

Haha, I came in here to say the exact same thing.


10 posted on 05/06/2015 10:49:48 AM PDT by Objective Scrutator (All liberals are criminals, and all criminals are liberals)
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To: gr8eman

Hmm.

The only point I see is that Obamacare has had the exact same effect on education employment hours as in other sectors of the economy.

That’s a really really good thing.


11 posted on 05/06/2015 10:50:29 AM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: SeekAndFind

There’s a real simple answer — if you don’t make enough as an adjunct professor, then don’t be an adjunct professor.


12 posted on 05/06/2015 10:51:28 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: SeekAndFind

Adjunct means they are paid a set amount of money to teach class(es).


13 posted on 05/06/2015 10:52:07 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Good. Maybe he’ll learn something about life.


14 posted on 05/06/2015 10:52:40 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Union baby, that is why you cant teach more than two courses.

Eat broadly and deeply of leftist law, sucker, and keep the cans straight on the shelves.


15 posted on 05/06/2015 10:53:07 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The article is staggeringly disingenuous, trying to compare apples to oranges, golf balls, q-tips, fireflies...

Upshot is he makes something like $37.50/hr for some 256 hours of teaching, and roughly $10/hr for 2000 hours (a full year full time) or $20/hr for half-time work.

Well, yeah.

The clickbait headline fails to note that the dramatically less-profitable job limits him to less than one-quarter the hours of the other job. Little surprise that working significantly longer hours will net more pay than 12-25% of those hours.


16 posted on 05/06/2015 10:53:47 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (Hillary:polarizing/calculating/disingenuous/insincere/ambitious/inevitable/entitled/overconfident/se)
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To: SeekAndFind
... there's a rule in Connecticut: Adjuncts can't teach more than two courses at one time across the entire Connecticut State College system, which comprises 4 four-year colleges, 12 two-year colleges, and an online university.

That's so the State doesn't have to pay for health insurance and other benefits.

Of course, most libs don't even know when they are being bitten in the @ss by their own advocacy. Proving George Orwell's point:

"So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."

(And Orwell was a liberal and a socialist but he had the sense to see through much of libs lack of foresight)

17 posted on 05/06/2015 10:54:01 AM PDT by Lorianne (fed pork, bailouts, gone taxmoney)
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To: SeekAndFind

Not to mention the higher prestige enjoyed as a store clerk.


18 posted on 05/06/2015 10:55:47 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: ballplayer

The full time employee’s pensions.


19 posted on 05/06/2015 10:55:55 AM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: ballplayer

We have liberal professors railing against “income inequality”. How about these liberal professors apply the proposed rules to their profession?

Most full time college professors teach only a few courses a year. This goes back 50 years. When I went to a small liberal arts college 1965-1969, the department head taught a class per semester, the other professors taught maximum of three courses per semester. What made their jobs easy was the fact that they taught the same courses every class cycle (two years of academics) - NO new material. Once the material was fully developed it was cast in concrete and never changed.

My proposal is simple - full time college professors need to be paid the same rate as the college’s adjunct professors. After all they have voluntarily restricted themselves to the same work load - why not the same pay scale?


20 posted on 05/06/2015 10:57:55 AM PDT by Nip (BOHEICA and TANSTAAFL - both seem very appropriate today.)
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