Why do for-profit colleges pay so little?

When I was looking for adjunct and other part-time openings, I saw a pattern of very large for-profit colleges and for-profit-esque colleges offering abysmally low pay rates. When comparing 2-year to 2-year and 4-year to 4-year, why do for-profits pay the least?

https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/TrendGenerator/app/build-table/5/50?rid=1&cid=161

 

To make more profits?

 

SNHU falls under for-profit-esque because it's a former for-profit that still, admittedly, operates like a for-profit. Grand Canyon is another one because they turned one arm non-profit while giving a big chunk of their revenue to their for-profit arm. I'm not sure how to classify Purdue Global; it's a state corporation.

Maybe if they stopped spending more on marketing than instruction, their alumni would land better jobs and have more money to give. It's not like they don't have the money; it just goes to marketing and shareholders.

 

Exactly. They don't need to provide a quality education to be profitable. No matter how many times Walden and Capella are sued over their high turnover rate among doctoral-level faculty, which results in students having to start over on their projects and dissertations, thousands of naive students will continue to enroll.

 

Here's the real scoop from someone who has taught at 5 different online universities, both non profit and profit in 3 different majors, as an adjunct since 2006. Since the Affordable Care Act getting anything more than PT status is exceedingly rare. So you are looking at essentially one course a term or maybe two at best. The rate of pay is around $2400 a class maybe a few hundred less to start. In theory you could make maybe $48,000 year if you worked at 3 or more places at once in reality maybe 30K gross. The upside is that all course materials and rubrics are created for you and that your duties are mainly: managing the discussion board, grading rubriced assignments, and student retention. It is a decent side hustle because it in no way compares to the amount of work an adjunct does at a non online school - where they have to create a syllabus, lecture and show up somewhere.

 

It is a trade off. I worked for few for profits, the reality is that they take less work because courses are canned and do not require much preparation. You are getting paid mainly to grade work and facilitate discussions, a little like a TA does at a traditional university.
They can be lucrative if you specialize, I used to specialize in few subjects including finance, accounting and IT. Many classes are the same so it is just about optimizing your time with the grading and discussion facilitation. Most students are adults wanting to improve themselves and chose for profit mainly because they are flexible and have study terms that last two months so they can complete degree faster. For the most part part, students are not difficult as just want to get through their studies as quick as possible.

I used to teach around 7 to 9 classes for a 8 week term, the average pay was around 2K so this makes it around 20K every 2 months or around 80 to 90K a year.

You can make a living as an online adjunct at for profits but I left it because it affected my family and relationship life as universities expect you to work during weekends, holidays, etc as you need to respond really fast to queries and grades. Paying customers cannot wait for their grades or questions so you are expected to answer to them even during the weekend.

I believe it is an option for a starting academic career or people in the retiring stage.

 

I’ve taught for seven universities and the one thing I hate the most is grading assignments. Ugh. If it was pass/fail, fine. But making tiny distinctions between them was terrible. But I did it because I loved facilitating adult learning (not “teaching”). Take that away and there is little else to do—as noted above Discussion threads and grading assignments. Oh, boy.

 

[QUOTE="RFValve, post:

I used to teach around 7 to 9 classes for a 8 week term, the average pay was around 2K so this makes it around 20K every 2 months or around 80 to 90K a year.

[/QUOTE]

I'd go literally berserk with 6 classes; most I have done is 5 at a time at 4 different schools and some were low enrollment classes. Four different LMS' and 4 different sets of rules. Students demanding instant grading and replies while my son goes to state U. and is lucky if the instructor even answers emails. I still don't understand how regional accreditors allow schools to get away with mandatory rubrics that guarantee a passing grade for even the feeblest effort.

 

It's not as easy to land that many adjunct jobs now. Full-time instructors and professors are opting for online classes, which means adjuncts are expected to teach more on-campus classes. There's also more competition now since anyone can get a master's degree online in one or two years and a doctorate in three.

 

Most nonprofits and public colleges draw in enough students without spending more on marketing than instruction. I guess when you don't have a good reputation that draws applicants in, you have to fish for uninformed students.