Underfunding Adjuncts Harms Arizona Education

by Carol Bernstein

Deficits in funding adjunct salaries in the 1990s had major repercussions for Arizona higher education. According to the December 2000 Governor’s Task Force on Higher Education Report <http://www.gtfhe.state.az.us/main.htm>, poor salary allocations for adjunct faculty resulted in a slow-down in college enrollment. This may be one cause of the low rate (45%) of high school students continuing on to college in Arizona, the 4th worst percentage in the U.S. The percentages of students in all states continuing on from high school to college, averaging 57.2%, is shown in the graph on this page, obtained from the Task Force Report.

The Report states: "Problems in the state budget in the early 90s led to cuts in state funding for the community colleges. To compound the effects of overall lower funding, additional cuts were made during the second half of the 1992-93 and 1993-94 academic years, after financial commitments to regular faculty had already been made. When funding was lowered - particularly when the mid-year cuts were made - the largest expenditure category that could be cut was that for adjunct faculty, and cuts in that category resulted in many classes being dropped. The reduction in classes made the funding problems worse because the reduced number of student enrollments produced a reduced stream of tuition revenue.

"College officials believe that the effects of these budgetary problems in the state were compounded for several more years as a result of reduced student confidence that scheduled courses would in fact be offered. Additionally, some of the more costly programs (e.g., engineering technology and physical therapy assistant training) were dropped during this period, so the effects of reduced funding rippled on for several years."