Universities to Screw Adjunct Professors with Obamacare Loophole.

[LowDown]

Universities have top professors in one tier. These guys get paid high salaries and are totally involved in their own research. They seldom have to teach undergraduate students. The professors who actually teach and do the grunt work of academe are paid low wages and have no guarantee of employment. These teachers are called the adjuncts and they now make up to 70% of a universities faculty.

When obamacare comes in these adjuncts are going to be screwed because they will all be cut to part time in order to avoid having to provide health insurance for them.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen serious unintended consequences from Obamacare, and it’s unlikely to be the last. It’s already become painfully obvious that the law’s creators failed to think through its full implications.

But beyond alerting us to one of the many problems that implementing Obamacare will cause, this news provides a depressing look at the underbelly of the academy. Universities are citadels of blue model thinking and most faculty members are relentlessly liberal in their politics. But the reality is that these same universities are some of the nastiest and most exploitative employers in America. The exploitation of adjuncts is an ugly feature of contemporary American academic life, and the smug complacency about it among many beneficiaries of the two tier system should remind us all that moral hypocrisy can co-exist with impressive degrees.

The university faculty is an aristocracy squatting atop a pyramid of serfs and spewing hypocrisy about equality.

 

[Fisher]

The professors will still be able to get their insurance subsidized privately if they are truly low wage exploited down-trodden victims. Plus a lot of adjuncts do have other jobs.

 

[Guy Incognito]

I'm shocked to see such an idiotic argument coming from a self-described libertarian. (I shouldn't be surprised since most libertarians have no clue what the word liberty means). The reason adjuncts get screwed is they have nothing of value to offer. It is called supply and demand. We have a glut of PhDs. You make the stupid decision to join this saturated market, you take the consequences of ****ty job prospects. After all, for every adjunct with ****ty pay there are fifty unemployed PhDs who would kill for that adjunct spot.

 

[ttwtt78640]

The professors will still be able to get their insurance subsidized privately if they are truly low wage exploited down-trodden victims. Plus a lot of adjuncts do have other jobs.

How? Did you really mean publically, as in PPACA, low income, tax subsidies?

 

[Fisher]

How? Did you really mean publically, as in PPACA, low income, tax subsidies?

Yes.........private policies is what I meant by that

 

[Helix]

contract faculty has always sucked. most professionals do it as a second job, at least in my area. I looked into a couple bio postings, and the pay was too low to live on; plus, no benefits. this was pre-PPACA. I'm all for improving the pay and benefits for contract faculty, though.

 

[longview]

In my area the adjuncts were all part time.
Almost all worked in the field they taught in.
I added a lot to the classes to have people with real world experience.
When I left the university, I looked at doing some adjunct work,
but it only paid about 2K per class,(no benefits)
A person might go teach classes at that rate for other reasons, but not the money.

 

[Fiddytree]

I'm shocked to see such an idiotic argument coming from a self-described libertarian. (I shouldn't be surprised since most libertarians have no clue what the word liberty means). The reason adjuncts get screwed is they have nothing of value to offer. It is called supply and demand. We have a glut of PhDs. You make the stupid decision to join this saturated market, you take the consequences of ****ty job prospects. After all, for every adjunct with ****ty pay there are fifty unemployed PhDs who would kill for that adjunct spot.

If they had nothing to offer, they wouldn't be becoming upwards of 40% of our faculty.

 

[Guy Incognito]

If they had nothing to offer, they wouldn't be becoming upwards of 40% of our faculty.

What minuscule value adjunct faculty has to offer is directly correlated to what they are compensated right now. They get crappy pay because that is exactly what they are worth.

 

[Fiddytree]

What minuscule value adjunct faculty has to offer is directly correlated to what they are compensated right now. They get crappy pay because that is exactly what they are worth.

Sorry, Guy, when universities begin relying upon them to teach their undergraduates at extraordinary percentages, this loses its reality.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Sorry, Guy, when universities begin relying upon them to teach their undergraduates at extraordinary percentages, this loses its reality.

What a ridiculous thing to say. PhDs are cheap and plentiful and easily replaceable. If universities rely on them in large numbers that is just good business. They don't have to pay them well because the ones who don't like what they are paid can easily be replaced. You obviously do not understand or do not care to understand basic principles of supply and demand. You are the one who has lost all reality.

 

[Fiddytree]

What a ridiculous thing to say. PhDs are cheap and plentiful and easily replaceable. If universities rely on them in large numbers that is just good business. They don't have to pay them well because the ones who don't like what they are paid can easily be replaced. You obviously do not understand or do not care to understand basic principles of supply and demand. You are the one who has lost all reality.

Alright guy. You're right. I do not understand anything, you really get it, and should be read as a sensible person on matters of education without any sense of irony. You win.

 

[Diogenes]

The university faculty is an aristocracy squatting atop a pyramid of serfs and spewing hypocrisy about equality.

Very true. That is an accurate and complete description.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Alright guy. You're right. I do not understand anything, you really get it, and should be read as a sensible person on matters of education without any sense of irony. You win.

You would be fine if you'd just admit that you don't give a **** about supply and demand, that you just want to force universities to pay dime-a-dozen adjuncts more than they are worth. But you wan to play at economics, when you clearly don't understand what you're talking about, either from sheer ignorance or the willful ignorance of economic realities that only a dyed in the will socialist can blunder into.

Face it, adjuncts are worth nothing more than what they are paid, and bitching and moaning about it won't change their real worth (or worthlessness as it were). Hiding behind sarcasm is a tacky way to lose an arument. At least be a man and admit that you at flat out wrong.

 

[Fiddytree]

You would be fine if you'd just admit that you don't give a **** about supply and demand, that you just want to force universities to pay dime-a-dozen adjuncts more than they are worth. But you wan to play at economics, when you clearly don't understand what you're talking about, either from sheer ignorance or the willful ignorance of economic realities that only a dyed in the will socialist can blunder into.

Face it, adjuncts are worth nothing more than what they are paid, and bitching and moaning about it won't change their real worth (or worthlessness as it were). Hiding behind sarcasm is a tacky way to lose an arument. At least be a man and admit that you at flat out wrong.

The only reason why I am backing out is because I cannot recall a fruitful conversation with you.

 

[Diogenes]

You would be fine if you'd just admit that you don't give a **** about supply and demand, that you just want to force universities to pay dime-a-dozen adjuncts more than they are worth.

No, it is the tenured faculty aristocracy who are paid more than they are worth.

 

[Guy Incognito]

No, it is the tenured faculty aristocracy who are paid more than they are worth.

No it isn't. Just because you resent them does not mean they are overpaid. It's the superstar faculty that get the asses in seats. Noam Chomsky, idiot that he is, is worth more than ten thousand workhouse adjuncts. That's just reality. Cope.

 

[Guy Incognito]

The only reason why I am backing out is because I cannot recall a fruitful conversation with you.

You're backing out because you have no case. You argument is facially absurd. You can't recall a fruitful discussion with me because I consistently destroy your mushy headed socialist sophistry with my relentless logic.

 

[Diogenes]

No it isn't. Just because you resent them does not mean they are overpaid. It's the superstar faculty that get the asses in seats. Noam Chomsky, idiot that he is, is worth more than ten thousand workhouse adjuncts. That's just reality. Cope.

Unfortunately the "superstar" status to which you refer has very little (if anything) to do with their ability to teach students to think, which is the nominal reason for their positions. Chomsky would better serve society if he were cleaning public toilets, perhaps under the supervision of Fauxcahontas.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Unfortunately the "superstar" status to which you refer has very little (if anything) to do with their ability to teach students to think, which is the nominal reason for their positions. Chomsky would better serve society if he were cleaning public toilets, perhaps under the supervision of Fauxcahontas.

Look, Diogenes, I agree with you. You're a lot like your namesake. But the truth is you can't find an honest man with a flashlight at the major universities. But that's what happens in a free market.

Chomsky is a fool but for good or ill he is famous. And that is a lot more valuable than all the brilliant and talented but obscure adjuncts in the world.

 

[Diogenes]

Chomsky is a fool but for good or ill he is famous. And that is a lot more valuable than all the brilliant and talented but obscure adjuncts in the world.

Valuable to whom? And why? He (and his ilk) certainly have no value to me as a parent paying tuition.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Valuable to whom? And why? He (and his ilk) certainly have no value to me as a parent paying tuition.

Value to the market at large. You might make the intelligent choice not to value Chomsky but you are in the minority.

 

[Mach]

Look, Diogenes, I agree with you. You're a lot like your namesake. But the truth is you can't find an honest man with a flashlight at the major universities. But that's what happens in a free market. Chomsky is a fool but for good or ill he is famous. And that is a lot more valuable than all the brilliant and talented but obscure adjuncts in the world.

If I understand your point, it does seem appropriate. First people have to understand (I think) that when you say adjuncts are not valuable, dime-a-dozen, you mean in financial terms only, not in relatively "value" to human existence, society, etc. Which is easy to misinterpret.

Expanding on that, in a market system, when it comes to what most everyone wants/needs really, really good ****, should become really, really cheap and easy to obtain. That's kind of the point. I mean, food, water, shelter, etc., over time these things have become so terrifically cheap in the U.S. compared to our own history, and much of the world. To say that "life sustaining food and water are a dime a dozen" is a positive. To say that 5-star cuisine is a lot more valuable than a sack of rice, is true. For life needs, it's not necessarily more valuable, and certainly not to "humanity as a whole", but to the market it is. Separating out those too can be hard to do sometimes. Like when we apply that to certain job functions and labor, some see it as a personal attack on people or a class of people, etc., when in the strict sense, its just about the job function. So yeah, I suppose I agree, if universities have been able to dramatically lower labor costs and still maintain quality education, that seems like a good thing.

A really strange phenomenon of markets is how they often can take seemingly bad things in society, or things with little intrinsic value to most of us, and build a system that channels those things into other things that we actually want, is kind of amazing. Case in point, rockstar educators who are not actually better teachers, but who through their efforts (or existence!) make education more affordable overall for everyone else. (or greed that diverts someone from violence and into building an empire that provides jobs and benefits, etc.)

 

[Fisher]

I loved adjunct professors (hated TA's). Most of my adjuncts were people with tons of real world experience and note-worthy backgrounds who came in to teach a class, or a few per semester or a year, or whatever. Except for a couple, they were not nearly as insufferable as the tenured Phd. Of course, most of them got paid as well as or better than the tenured professors which they did not like so much.

 

[Guy Incognito]

If I understand your point, it does seem appropriate. First people have to understand (I think) that when you say adjuncts are not valuable, dime-a-dozen, you mean in financial terms only, not in relatively "value" to human existence, society, etc. Which is easy to misinterpret.

I don't see that as easy to misinterpret. A dandelion has enormous beauty by its value is nonexistent. No matter how wonderful that dandelion is you aren't going to get paid much for it when you take it to market.

Expanding on that, in a market system, when it comes to what most everyone wants/needs really, really good ****, should become really, really cheap and easy to obtain. That's kind of the point. I mean, food, water, shelter, etc., over time these things have become so terrifically cheap in the U.S. compared to our own history, and much of the world. To say that "life sustaining food and water are a dime a dozen" is a positive. To say that 5-star cuisine is a lot more valuable than a sack of rice, is true. For life needs, it's not necessarily more valuable, and certainly not to "humanity as a whole", but to the market it is. Separating out those too can be hard to do sometimes. Like when we apply that to certain job functions and labor, some see it as a personal attack on people or a class of people, etc., when in the strict sense, its just about the job function. So yeah, I suppose I agree, if universities have been able to dramatically lower labor costs and still maintain quality education, that seems like a good thing.

A really strange phenomenon of markets is how they often can take seemingly bad things in society, or things with little intrinsic value to most of us, and build a system that channels those things into other things that we actually want, is kind of amazing. Case in point, rockstar educators who are not actually better teachers, but who through their efforts (or existence!) make education more affordable overall for everyone else. (or greed that diverts someone from violence and into building an empire that provides jobs and benefits, etc.)

Interesting observations. I am just looking at this objectively and dispassionately. The minuscule value of an adjunct compared to the enormous value of a Noam Chomsky is not good or bad, it just is. It's a fact. This fact leads to an imbalance in pay. If you want to change that imbalance in pay you are creating something artificial. It is unnatural to pay adjuncts well.