Why Colleges Ask Adjunct Professors To Work For No Salary

For six years, the least compensated work I did was teaching as an Adjunct Professor in a renowned University. I once disappointingly calculated that if I amortized the lump sum stipend that I was paid for a semester across the number of hours I actually spent teaching, grading and working with students, it would equate to about $15 an hour. It turns out that I might have been lucky to be paid at all, as a piece in the NY Times focuses on how Adjunct Professors are often asked to work for no compensation and simply for the prestige alone.

The real problem, though, isn't the money. In many cases, professors like myself who own their own business, speak professionally and write books don't need to feed our families through a teaching stipend. The problem is the precedent it creates for others who do rely on this income or can be held back and marginalized based on this assumption that they too can afford to work for the return of prestige alone.