From 2011-16, CUNY’s tuition rates have increased by $300 a year. By contrast, adjunct professor earnings have stagnated, typically estimating $20,000-30,000 annually; the CUNY Adjunct Project reported the average at $13,100 a year. Adjuncts represent nearly a whopping two-thirds of Hunter College’s faculty.
According to The Huffington Post, the national average professor’s salary is $84,303 a year; NPR reported the average adjunct’s salary falls within $20,000-25,000. The average Hunter professor’s salary is $113,982 a year, over quadruple the salary of adjuncts.
“It impacts the way we’re able to teach,” said Anna Ozbek, adjunct professor of Hunter’s Film and Media Department. Ozbek works two additional jobs to supplement her earnings from teaching. Helping her students has proven to be a challenge: “I still try to meet with students, but it makes it that more difficult.”
The heavy reliance on adjunct labor is a widespread national trend; over 50 percent of college professors in the United States are part-time. However, under 10 percent are full-time, tenure-track faculty. At Hunter, full-time professors account for less than 30 percent of its faculty.
Explanations for this include institutions’ desire to cut costs, and the unwillingness of veteran full-time professors to retire. PBS NewsHour economics correspondent and Yale professor Paul Solman argued that professors across the country are working long past the normal retirement age of 65 years. He expressed, “One-third of George Mason’s tenured professors are 60-plus, up from just 10 percent in 1990. It’s one of many schools trying to grease the skids to retirement.”
“There’s more financial pressure on the institutions to do more with less,” said Jeff Allred, associate professor of Hunter’s English Department. Allred argued that CUNY’s solution to budget issues is to hire contract adjunct labor who, “live a kind of precarious existence with little job security and low wages.”
In 2016 Governor Cuomo sought a $458 million cut in CUNY’s budget; this plan was ultimately shut down.
Adjuncts’ wages at Hunter are less sustainable when considering the living costs in New York City, which according to SmartAsset is, “at least 68.8% higher than the national average.” According to Slate, 25% of college adjuncts in the country rely on public assistance such as Medicaid, welfare, and food stamps. For healthcare, CUNY only covers 20% of the cost of insurance for the minority of adjuncts who qualify.
Additionally, adjuncts are only compensated for time spent in the classroom – this does not include creating lesson plans, grading assignments, or assisting students outside class hours.
“Someone, for example, plans to take sabbatical, and then they don’t take sabbatical,” remarked Megan Rossman, another adjunct from Hunter’s Film and Media Department, on uncertain job security. Having been dropped from teaching classes on numerous occasions, “There’s no guarantee that you’re going to get all those classes to meet that level of income.”
Hunter students voiced dismay at the college’s treatment of its adjuncts. “They’re all overworked and underpaid and very tired,” expressed Ben Pakman, a student taught by numerous adjuncts. “Every single professor I’ve had at CUNY has been a fantastic professor, including all of the adjuncts.”
“I had a [adjunct] professor talk about how she had a law degree…. She just felt very underappreciated,” remarked fellow Hunter student Joel Pérez-Romano, recalling how despite teaching multiple classes and struggling to pay bills, she, “Took her class very seriously, very passionate about the material.”
Offering a glimmer of hope, Ozbek asserted that CUNY adjuncts will continue to teach, in spite of their wages. “We will continue to work, and take these [teaching] jobs. Most of us love teaching as well.”
Sources
“Amid Protests by Students and Others, CUNY Trustees Vote to Raise Tuition”
By Richard Pérez-Peña (The New York Times)
http://seethroughny.net/payrolls/
CUNY Adjunct Project http://cunyadjunctproject.org/2015/02/24/national-adjunct-walkout-day/
College Factual http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/cuny-hunter-college/academic-life/faculty-composition/
“Faculty Pay Survey Shows Growing Gap Between Public, Private Colleges”
By Tyler Kingdale (The Huffington Post)
“The Sad Death Of An Adjunct Professor Sparks A Labor Debate”
By Claudio Sanchez (NPR)
Startclass http://faculty-salaries.startclass.com/l/7997/CUNY-Hunter-College
“Trends in Faculty Employment Status, 1975‐2011” (American Association of University Professors) https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/Faculty_Trends_0.pdf
“Colleges and Universities See Graying Workforce Holding On to Coveted Positions” (PBS NewsHour)
“New York State Remains at Odds With Interest Groups,” By Jacob Sonenshine (The NYSide)
“PSC Receives $240 for Contract Negotiations,” By Caroline Blute (The NYSide)
“What is the True Cost of Living in New York City?” By Nick Wallace (SmartAsset)
“Someone Calculated How Many Adjunct Professors Are on Public Assistance, and the Number Is Startling,” By Jordan Weissmann (Slate)
“FAQs on Adjunct Health Insurance,” By Clarion Staff (PSC CUNY)
“As a CUNY adjunct I’ll make less over my career than my coworker Paul Krugman does in a year,” By Marcie Bianco (Quartz)
Ezra Wolfgang 