According to the WSJ, U.S. universities have relied on relatively cheap adjunct professors for cost control (just profit maximization). However, adjunct professors have started unionizing, demanding better compensation and benefits.
Well, here are my predictions.
1. Universities will try to kick out adjunct professors before they unionize. Universities are smart and unions are not really good for management....
2. Online courses will takeover. Universities will increasingly use Coursera, edX, and other online education. This is actually good for the universities as a whole since courses taught at Coursera and edX are really high quality and cost less then maintaining a professor.
3. PhD students will be teaching more! Tata! no surprise here. If the adjunct professors become too expensive then they will have PhDs teach more. This already happens in lot of state schools. We will see an increase in other schools as well. Unfortunately, PhDs are less likely to unionize because they need to graduate and are usually quite busy with their research....
So what happens to the excess supply of adjunct professors? Well, here are some options.
1. They can go teach in community colleges and other technical institutes with a cut in pay but they will raise the education quality there.
2. If they are adventurous, they can go teach abroad since the faculty quality is not so high compared to the U.S. The pay will be probably lower but the cost of living will be lower as well.
3. They can go teach at prestigious high schools and raise the education quality there.
4. If they are very good then they can start their blog, youtube channel, and twitter, and start a new teaching career online, earnings advertising revenues.
No comments:
Post a Comment