The Cost of Being Decent to Adjuncts - Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed

New paper argues that colleges can't afford to improve the pay and working conditions of those off the tenure track. Activists slam the analysis. According to the authors’ rough calculations, institutions across academe currently employ 752,669 adjuncts to teach 1,578,336 courses annually, costing about $4.3 billion. Per-course pay in that estimate is $2,700 -- a commonly cited national average. To illustrate their point, Brennan and Magness put together a “minimally good job” package, including a $50,000 salary (teaching six courses per year), plus benefits and office space, that would cost a university $72,000 annually. To replace these 752,669 adjuncts with 263,056 minimally good jobs would cost universities $18.9 billion, they say -- nearly $15 billion more each year. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/17/paper-argues-adjuncts-push-better-pay-and-working-conditions-prohibitively-expensive