This Connecticut man earns more money working at a grocery store than as a college professor

Business Insider ^ | 05/06/2015 | Libby Kane

[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.

[Hardens Hollow]

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

I find it ironic that some of the best books depicting the inevitable outcome of socialism/fascism/communism came from a self-proclaimed socialist.