Finally, that email message you’ve been waiting for

Are you still underpaid for what you do?

By Warren Mosby

How can you tell? Well, in May of 1998, I surveyed community colleges across the country to find out how adjuncts are paid and what other benefits they receive. In May of 2000, I updated the survey. As you will soon see, we are generally better paid today. But is it enough? You be the judge.

As in 1998, to make the task manageable, I set some ground rules for the research as follows:

Keep it simple to maximize the response rate.
Use the Internet and email to minimize the cost.

From the web site for the American Association of Community Colleges, I found that there are 1,132 community colleges in the U.S.; 995 of which are public. Then, I used a web site at the University of Texas that gives links to web sites of over 800 Community Colleges around the U.S. Finally, I wrote an email message that described what I wanted and sent it to 350 of the colleges. In that message, I asked how the college pays its adjunct faculty and what benefits it offers them. To date, I have received 162 responses. Most of the people that I contacted were very happy to respond since I promised to share the results with them. It seems that I am not the only one interested in adjunct faculty pay and benefits. To lessen the suspense, I can tell you that California again reported the highest pay rate at $1,676 per credit hour and North Carolina again reported the lowest pay rate at $232 per credit hour.

Since many colleges pay according to the seniority or educational level of the adjunct faculty member, I recorded a pay range for each school. I also got enough information from each school to normalize the pay data to reflect the pay rate per credit hour for a 3-hour, one semester course in English or Mathematics. In other words, I ignored pay rates for classes such as automotive or computer repair and lab courses.

For comparison purposes, I calculated the midpoint of the pay range at each school. That gave me a representative number that I could manipulate. I should point out that I collected data, not statistical data. I made no attempt to conduct a random sample of community colleges. Thus, when I average the midpoints of the pay ranges for each responding community college, I do not claim that the result has statistical significance. The manipulations that I made provide information. They can be used to make rough comparisons with the situation at your school.

To present the data in a useful format, I have made a chart of some of the data as well as a table that contains all of the data. I aggregated the data by state. In the table below, I have recorded the highest and lowest pay rates found in the state, as well as the midpoint of the resulting pay range. I also give the number of colleges responding from the state. Most likely, there is no one school in the state that has that pay structure, but I believe that such pay ranges offer useful information.

Graphically, the midpoints of the pay ranges for each state are illustrated in the following chart:

As you can see, most states pay adjunct faculty between $400 and $600 per credit hour.

For both 2000 and 1998, the actual pay ranges, midpoints and number of colleges responding from each state are given in the table below.

State

2000

Lo Pay

2000

Hi Pay

2000

Mid Pay

2000

#'s

State

1998

Lo Pay

1998

Hi Pay

1998

Mid Pay

1998

#'s

$741

$865

$803

$656

$777

$717

$333

$400

$367

$200

$400

$517

$459

$300

$491

$396

$468

$570

$519

$425

$525

$475

$486

$1,676

$1,081

$400

$1,639

$1,020

$315

$669

$492

$420

$452

$436

$904

$775

$834

$805

$356

$594

$475

$465

$345

$600

$473

$304

$617

$461

$450

$840

$645

$210

$400

$305

$1,000

$1,405

$1,203

$1,000

$1,405

$1,203

$368

$520

$444

$336

$490

$413

$600

$750

$675

$450

$750

$600

$350

$690

$520

$330

$630

$480

$500

$270

$715

$493

$300

$419

$360

$450

$700

$575

$425

$700

$563

$500

$400

$680

$784

$732

$655

$761

$708

$390

$589

$490

$460

$535

$498

$293

$373

$333

$270

$425

$348

$334

$695

$515

$393

$925

$659

$525

$1,050

$788

$525

$1,050

$788

$425

$600

$513

$470

$832

$651

$367

$433

$400

$270

$375

$525

$450

$350

$525

$438

$232

$500

$366

$128

$400

$264

$300

$500

$400

$550

$287

$585

$436

$450

$500

$475

$243

$570

$407

$235

$528

$382

$400

$500

$450

$350

$400

$375

$500

$625

$563

$470

$627

$549

$600

$630

$615

$340

$480

$410

$422

$1,000

$711

$340

$910

$625

$270

$833

$552

$310

$875

$593

$350

$587

$469

$300

$450

$375

$498

$722

$610

$338

$765

$552

$525

$909

$717

$465

$867

$666

$609

$693

$651

$329

$400

$667

$534

$750

$400

$750

$575

$360

$480

$420

$335

$450

$393

$400

$775

$588

$270

$729

$500

$475

$625

$550

$370

$435

$403

$431

$943

$687

$402

$894

$648

$567

$750

$659

$468

$1,000

$734

$421

$1,134

$778

$322

$542

$432

$384

$1,384

$884

$264

$1,138

$701

$357

$275

$400

$338

$334

$691

$513

$321

$710

$516

The average of all the midpoints is $575, up from $528 in 1998. If I select those schools in large metropolitan areas (46 replies), the average of the midpoints for that group is $704, up from $586 for a similar group in 1998. The remaining schools (116 replies) produce a midpoint average of $511, down slightly from $521 for a similar group in 1998. Please take these changes from 1998 with a grain of salt. They are not based on exactly the same schools.

I also obtained some information about the benefits that the schools offer. However, I have not made an attempt to clarify this information. In most cases, the library card is the primary benefit. However, since 1998, more and more schools are beginning to offer a number of other useful benefits. Six of the schools reported that the adjunct faculty is unionized. As you might expect, those schools tended to offer the most benefits.

Among the benefits offered and the number of schools reporting them were:

Retirement plans (21)
Health care plans, partially or totally paid by the school in