Adjunct Professors: We Need to Talk About the System, Not Just the Pay





 Adjunct Professors: We Need to Talk About the System, Not Just the Pay  

I have spent years teaching college students as an adjunct professor.  

I love teaching.  

I love watching a student finally understand something that confuses them. I love seeing a student become a better writer, a better researcher, or simply more confident in their ability to think critically.  

That is why I think higher education needs an uncomfortable conversation about adjunct faculty and the system that relies on them.  

This is not simply a question of whether adjunct professors should be paid more.  

It is a question of whether the system we have built makes sense.  

According to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), adjunct professors now account for approximately 40 percent of the faculty workforce in American higher education. At associate-degree institutions, that figure rises to 66 percent (Johnson and Fuesting 2026).  

Think about that for a moment.  

At many institutions, adjuncts are not peripheral to the educational mission.  

They are part of the infrastructure that makes the educational mission possible.  

Yet the economics of adjunct teaching show why the system deserves closer scrutiny.  

CUPA-HR found a median adjunct pay rate of $1,166 per credit hour, or about $3,498 for a typical three-credit course (Johnson and Fuesting 2026). Its study included data on 43,279 adjunct faculty members from 263 institutions.  

The latest AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey tells much of the same story from a different dataset. For the 2024–25 academic year, average pay for a standard three-credit section was $4,093 among reporting institutions. Among institutions reporting minimum pay, the median minimum was approximately $3,130, and 70 percent reported minimum compensation of $4,000 or less for a three-credit section (American Association of University Professors 2026).  

But pay is only part of the problem.  

The CUPA-HR data show that only 37 percent of institutions offered health benefits to adjunct faculty in 2024–25 (Johnson and Fuesting 2026). AAUP similarly found that only 30.6 percent of reporting institutions contributed toward medical insurance premiums for some or all part-time faculty paid by the course. In comparison, only 32.7 percent contributed toward retirement plans (American Association of University Professors 2026).  

Then there is job security.  

At 70 percent of institutions surveyed by CUPA-HR, an adjunct-led course that failed to meet enrollment requirements was canceled, and the adjunct scheduled to teach it received no pay for that course (Johnson and Fuesting 2026).  

Imagine building your household budget around classes that can disappear because enrollment comes in a few students short.  

And the work does not necessarily stop at the classroom door.  

CUPA-HR found that while 67 percent of institutions reported that adjuncts were not expected to perform duties beyond teaching, another 22 percent expected or encouraged additional activities without additional compensation. Only 10 percent reported paying adjuncts for such additional activities (Johnson and Fuesting 2026).  

These concerns are not new. A U.S. Government Accountability Office investigation found that contingent faculty described short-term contracts, late contract renewals, uncompensated work, limited opportunities for advancement, limited participation in institutional decision-making, and inadequate institutional support among the disadvantages of contingent academic employment (U.S. Government Accountability Office 2017).  

So perhaps we are asking the wrong question.  

Instead of asking:  

“How much should we pay adjuncts?”  

Maybe we should ask:  

“What should a fair adjunct system actually look like?”  

I do not believe the answer is necessarily eliminating adjunct teaching.  

There are legitimate reasons for having a part-time faculty. Professionals can bring valuable real-world experience into the classroom. Some professors genuinely prefer teaching one or two courses. Institutions also need flexibility when enrollment changes.  

But flexibility for the institution should not require instability for the professor.  

What if institutions began looking seriously at:  

• minimum compensation standards tied to the actual work required to teach a course;  

• compensation when a course is canceled after an instructor has already begun preparing it;  

• prorated access to retirement or health benefits for long-serving adjunct faculty;  

• paid expectations for advising, committee work, curriculum development, training, and other responsibilities beyond classroom instruction;  

• longer-term appointments for adjuncts with established records of successful teaching;  

• clearer pathways from contingent positions into full-time teaching positions when those positions become available; and  

• meaningful adjunct representation in the conversations where policies affecting adjunct faculty are actually made?  

Those are proposals, not magic solutions. Colleges and universities differ enormously in mission, enrollment, funding, and financial resources.  

But the data raise a question higher education should be willing to confront:  

Can we continue treating a workforce as temporary when our institutions have made that workforce a permanent part of how higher education operates?  

Adjunct professors do not need sympathy.  

They need a serious conversation about compensation, stability, professional respect, and what institutions expect in return for the work they perform.  

And I think that conversation should include adjunct professors themselves.  

What would a genuinely sustainable adjunct model look like to you?  

#HigherEducation #AdjunctFaculty #CollegeTeaching #HigherEd #Faculty #AcademicLabor #CommunityCollege #Education #Teaching  

References  

American Association of University Professors. 2026. The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2025–26. Washington, DC: American Association of University Professors.  

Johnson, Brielle, and Melissa Fuesting. 2026. Adjunct Faculty in the Higher Education Workforce. Knoxville, TN: College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.  

U.S. Government Accountability Office. 2017. Contingent Workforce: Size, Characteristics, Compensation, and Work Experiences of Adjunct and Other Non-Tenure-Track Faculty. GAO-18-49. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

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