Non-tenure faculty jobs are not all alike
I had written before about how tenure-track faculty positions at colleges and universities are declining relative to contingent faculty positions such as lecturers or instructors. And while the American Federation of Teachers thinks this is uniformly bad news, things may not be so clear cut.
Last week, Ronald Ehrenberg, an economist at Cornell University, presented a paper at AEI’s conference “Reinventing The American University” that reveals some surprising trends. Ehrenberg compiles data that show you can actually make more money as a lecturer at a research university than as an assistant professor. And associate faculty at for-profit institutions actually feel less like second class citizens than adjuncts at traditional universities.
