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The Relative Earnings of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education

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Abstract

Part-time and full-time non-tenure-track faculty currently represent almost half of all faculty in U.S. higher education, yet little is known about their earnings relative to traditional tenure-track faculty. I find that full-time non-tenure-track faculty earn approximately 26% less per hour from their academic institution and 18% less in total earnings from all sources per hour than comparable tenure-track assistant professors. Part-time non-tenure-track faculty earn 64% less per hour from their institution, but only 1% less in total earnings per hour, than tenure-track assistant professors.

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Notes

  1. Respondents were asked how many class sections they taught in the fall of 1998. The number of class sections taught per year is assumed to be 2 times the number taught in the fall.

  2. All dollar values are in 2001 CPI-U adjusted dollars.

  3. The percentage difference is calculated as exp(β)-1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, 23173, USA

    James Monks

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  1. James Monks
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Correspondence to James Monks.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 7

Table 7 Multinomial logit of faculty status (relative to full-time tenure-track)
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Monks, J. The Relative Earnings of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education. J Labor Res 28, 487–501 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-007-9002-5

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