Turned down adjunct job due to pay

Discussion in 'Online & DL Teaching' started by jam937, Feb 4, 2014.

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  1. Smirnoff

    Smirnoff New Member

    I am also in the IT field.....and in the process of augmenting or adding online schools/classes to facilitate (more $$$), this week I also removed myself from the interview process when I was presented with $1500/12wks/30students. Not to offend anyone, but if they pay peanuts, they will get monkeys.....sorry.
     
  2. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Not necessarily, many schools hire international faculty. You don't want it, no problem, a PhD from IIT from India will take it. TUI offered me once 50 dollars per student, i turned it down but i see they have many faculty from overseas so they were not worry that I did not take the job.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 23, 2014
  3. Smirnoff

    Smirnoff New Member

    When I ran the numbers, it was significantly less than minimum wage, exactly $4.73/hr......
     
  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Were those faculty members actually resident overseas, like they didn't have Social Security numbers and the like, or were they immigrants? When I was at Keiser they were very reluctant to do as you describe, I believe for accounting reasons, but then that was a while ago.
     
  5. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Some schools do not hire faculty unless they have an American SSN while others hire without a SSN. I don't want to put schools in trouble but I am a Canadian citizen and have worked for several schools without a SSN nor a work permit as a contractor.

    Again, I don't want to mention name of schools, but some had people from Indian living in India.

    The reality is that the pay is low for American standards but it wasn't too bad for me for Canadian standards as at some point the US dollar was at 1.5 Canadian back in 2000.
    I can imagine that this is even better for an Indian resident.

    The reality is that for a low pay, you can get a high qualified individual with a PhD from a top school like IIT for 1500 dollars a course.

    As for the student is concerned, he or she wouldn't know if the professor is an Indian living in the US or in India but the student would be impressed by knowing that the professor has a graduate degree from a top school. An American resident with a PhD from a top school wouldn't take the 1500 a course most of the time, so the school has the option to recruit from overseas in order to get people with impressive degrees that can be displayed in a catalog or just recruit locally an get people with PhDs from very low profile schools that wouldn't impress anyone.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 24, 2014
  6. Smirnoff

    Smirnoff New Member

    And then we wonder why our education & academic system is & continues to be in the toilet....."slave wages". My customer hourly bill rate is $250/hr......
     
  7. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    You can do what a lot online adjuncts do, take the 1500 dlls contract and then outsource it to a guy in India for 750 and pocket the rest.

    I know at least of one adjunct that was doing it but got caught and got his contract terminated. If one was doing it, I am sure few are doing it as we speak.

    If I get 100 contracts a year and outsource them, I can make $75,000 just as a middle person.

    IT Companies do this all the time, they charge a customer $200 bucks an hour and then hire a guy in India to do the job. The customer gets a call from an IT consultant with an American area code but with an Indian accent, it is impossible to know if the guy is really an immigrant in the US or just using skype from India with an American area code. The guy in India is getting $20 bucks for the work and the American company pocketing the rest.

    When I call my bank, all the reps have Indian accents, I wouldn't know if they are Indian living in Canada or just Indians living in India.

    My take is that people in India need the job and they are competitive enough to do it as good or even better than Americans for less. This doesn't mean that the quality of service would be lower but it is just cheaper to deliver and makes some people rich.

    Welcome to globalization.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 24, 2014
  8. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    The American subject matter that I facilitate is highly esoteric and is unique to the United States and it would be extremely difficult for an Indian to teach it, although nothing is impossible. Outsourcing might be more relevant for standard subject matter that doesn't change, such as Math, IT or even English.
     
  9. graymatter

    graymatter Member

    I have a colleague who "outsources" masters-level psychology courses to his wife... who has a BA in business.
     
  10. Smirnoff

    Smirnoff New Member

    I recently read something about this.....article was about global academic capitalism pertaining to greedy schools that offer DL to increase profits & refuse to pay domestic born professors at least minimum wage. Something about a sweatshop in Afghanistan, PhD addicts in a wifi cave teaching for cents & false incentives.....
     
  11. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    No problems with attendance

    This is hilarious:

    " My students were ALWAYS punctual, their homework was ALWAYS turned in on time...and they were all men".

    He he!

    Abner


     
  12. jam937

    jam937 New Member

    When teaching at the prison it must be great not having administrators breathing down your neck and wanting you to deal with students' work/family/transportation/personal issues to get your "student engagement" (<-- puke!) up.
     

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