Unless you have been living under a bus, it is apparent that adjuncts are being used more and more by colleges as well as by law schools. Adjuncts get paid a fraction-a very small fraction of what the full-timers get, generally have no benefits and almost always are not on a tenure track. 

A new survey looked into what colleges do with this savings. One would have hoped that these monies went into supporting the FT faculty or faculty development. Unfortunately, the study suggests that adjunct savings are often utilized to reduce institution costs. An Insider Higher Education article concerning this issue is available here. As the article states:

  • Private four-year colleges that use large proportions of non-tenure-track faculty members spend 37 percent less on full-time faculty members of all kinds than do similar institutions with small shares of non-tenure-track faculty members. But looking at spending on all categories of full-time employees, these institutions are spending only 19 percent less than those with small shares of non-tenure-track faculty members. So more spending seems possible on the administrative side of the house.
  • The same is true for public four-year colleges, although the spending gaps are 24 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
  • Public four-year colleges are using the savings in instructional costs from relying on adjuncts to increase spending on other areas — namely maintenance, administrative and student-services staff. Most of this spending is in recruiting, admissions, counseling, student organizations and athletics.
  • Community colleges and private four-year colleges also reduced instructional costs, but they didn’t add to expenses elsewhere, so costs do not actually shift due to increasing reliance on adjuncts.

The above findings come from one of the reports, "The Relationship Between Part-Time and Contingent Faculty and Institutional Spending."

The other report — "The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty?" — provides data on the pervasive use of adjuncts.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein