Liang Zhang and Ronald G. Ehrenberg write,
The share of part-time faculty among total faculty has continued to grow over the last two decades, while the share of full-time lecturers and instructors has been relatively stable. Meanwhile, the share of non-tenure track faculty among faculty with professorial ranks has been growing. Dynamic panel data models suggest that employment levels of different types of faculty respond to a variety of economic and institutional factors. Colleges and universities have increasingly employed faculty whose salaries and benefits are relatively inexpensive; the slowly deteriorating financial situations at most colleges and universities have led to an increasing reliance on a contingent academic workforce.
Slowly deteriorating financial situations? Then why are the salaries of tenured faculty so high?
The amazing fact about the economics of college teaching is that a subset of professors is completely insulated from the excess supply that is all around them. Between subsidies to demand handed out by the government and restrictions to supply imposed by limitations on tenured faculty, salaries are maintained far above where they otherwise would settle.
I’ll say again. Ask people if they would rather have 1975 health care at 1975 prices or current health care at current prices, and many will admit that they would prefer what we have today. But many people would say that although college education costs far more today, the quality of what students get is actually worse. Of course, the benefits of a college education appear to be higher today, until somebody figures out alternative ways of providing assortative mating and credentialing.
Wouldn’t the 1975 healthcare argument depend a great deal on what kind of healthcare we are talking about. If its a treatment with documentable improvements since 1975, maybe. If its something that hasn’t really changed outcomes much, people would probably prefer 1975 prices.
Don’t other countries essentially have 2015 healthcare at 1975 prices (or insert relevant year here).
I’m relatively healthy and would greatly prefer 1975 healthcare at 1975 prices. I’ve never had anything done to me that required technology that didn’t exist for at least 10-20 years and would much prefer a world where I could just pay cash for basic medical services and not have to worry about getting logged into complicated insurance programs.
The point made in the post about college then and college now is well taken, and IMO very revealing.
Is it possible that the rules which govern the acquisition of tenure – which require that those denied tenure must leave – tends to increase the supply of non-tenured people and thereby put downward pressure on their relative wages? This, of course, would add to the downward pressure caused by the fact that adjuncts are good substitutes for those who are denied tenure.
No–usually, professors who don’t get tenure will have a chance to start a new tenure track elsewhere. Other than stress, they don’t suffer too much. Adjunct faculty are not considered good substitutes for professors who are denied tenure (even though they may have the same skills). Think of a highway side road. If you miss the ramp, you’ll be on the side road a long time, and probably forever.
Tenure as applied has become grossly unfair. The security of tenure remains a reasonable goal, but it should be more closely related to the median tax-payer’s income, about $50k/year.
Much higher than that, and it becomes less clear that such a professional should be working in a not-for-profit organization. Those who want to “work for more than average money” should be in the private, peaceful, profit oriented sectors. Non-profit “morally superior” types should not have orgs with big tax benefits so as to have some special groups with higher incomes.
The inequality between tenure and non-tenure should become an election issue, but is unlikely to.
My simple hypothesis is that over time, as the number of students has increased steadily, each university’s demand for teaching has increased, but their demand for research has not. Tenure track faculty have two outputs, teaching and research. Adjuncts have one output. Over time, the demand for research is quickly satiated, so there is only a need for the teaching output, and adjuncts are a cheaper way to provide that.
Relatedly, universities are willing to pay high salaries to a small number of faculty to continue to be “part of the club”, and with what money is left over they fill out the ranks with adjuncts.
About a year ago I spoke with the new president of our small community college. I was lobbying for the replacement of two full-time faculty who were about to retire by full-time faculty. His response: “The dirty little secret of faculty hiring today is that we save money on contingent faculty and funnel that money to tenured faculty.” He was fired by the trustees within two years of his hiring.
Related to Jack PQ’s hypothesis, note that in 1975 only about 35% to 40% of high school graduates went on to college. Today, that % is pushing 70%.