This seems like a reasonably balanced view from an adjunct:
‘I understand how this all happened. Originally adjuncts were supposed to be a temporary stop-gap to fill the occasional teaching shortage. A faculty member had to leave for a semester, so you hired some young graduate student or new PhD to fill in temporarily. Now adjuncts pull a major share of the workload, but nobody really wants to sacrifice their own interests to accommodate us, so they go on treating us like we’re a minor and temporary phenomenon even when we obviously are not’
I remember thinking when I was an undergraduate (most people view higher ed through the undergraduate lens, and it’s a limited view), that there was clearly a supply/demand problem for teaching positions.
There seemed to be lots of talented post docs, pressured to publish, many of whom would likely make excellent tenured material, with no place to go.
Addition: My view, of course, was as a student of the humanities.
Related On This Site: Reihan Salam At Reuters: ‘Online Education Can Be Good Or Cheap, But Not Both’
Repost: Mark Cuban From His Blog: ‘The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon’…From The New Criterion: ‘Higher Ed: An Obituary’,,,Ron Unz At The American Conservative: ‘The Myth Of American Meritocracy’
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Should you get a college degree, probably, but you also probably shouldn’t lose sight of why you’re going and divorce yourself entirely from the cost: Gene Expression On Charles Murray: Does College Really Pay Off?…Charles Murray In The New Criterion: The Age Of Educational Romanticism…