Skip to main content
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact

Search form

American Institutes for Research

  • Our Work
    • Education
    • Health
    • International
    • Workforce
    • ALL TOPICS >
  • Our Services
    • Research and Evaluation
    • Technical Assistance
  • Our Experts
  • News & Events

You are here

  • Home

Colleges Increasingly Use Contingent Faculty to Cut Costs, but Savings are Modest When Accounting for Compensation of All Employees

4 Jan 2017
News Release

Washington, D.C. – Colleges are increasingly hiring lower-paid part-time and limited-term contingent faculty, who in 2013 made up more than half of all instructors in higher education, finds an American Institutes for Research (AIR) study for the TIAA Institute. This trend has led to cost savings in salaries and benefits for instructors, but hasn’t translated to the same level of savings when looking at the total compensation of all employees.  

Part-time, also known as adjunct, contingent faculty working on contract, range from half of instructors at public bachelor’s degree-granting institutions to 83 percent at public community colleges. At public flagship universities, they account for 68 percent of faculty at the University of Washington-Seattle and about 40 percent of instructors at the University of California-Berkeley, the University of North Carolina and the University of Texas.

Between 2003 and 2013, the share of all faculty who were contingent increased from:

  • 45 to 62 percent at public bachelor’s degree-granting institutions,
  • 52 to 60 percent at private bachelor’s-granting schools,
  • 44 to 50 percent at public research universities and
  • 80 to 83 percent at community colleges.

The drop in tenure-track faculty has had a number of possible causes. For example, colleges and universities have cited efforts to contain staff costs at a time of tight state budgets, combined with the need to increase the total number of instructors, as reasons not to make greater long-term investments in tenure-track faculty.

There are concerns about what this reduction means for low-income and part-time students, who often are in greater need of instructor support and are generally less likely to seek help. While some research suggests that contingent faculty, who are not as integrated with their schools, are less likely to provide support, other studies show students may be more engaged with contingent faculty because of their more relevant and current experience in the field.

The AIR study shows that although hiring more contingent faculty helped schools tighten instructional compensation costs, total savings for all types of employees were more modest. When looking at total compensation per full-time faculty at private four-year schools, those with high shares of contingent instructors spent 37 percent less than those with small shares. But when looking at total compensation per full-time employee, this difference narrows to 19 percent. At public four-year schools, those with large shares of contingent instructors spent 24 percent less on total compensation per full-time faculty over those with small shares, with the difference dropping to 14 percent when accounting for total compensation per full-time employee.

Public four-year institutions appear to use savings in instructional costs to increase spending on maintenance, administrative and student-services staff in areas such as recruiting, admissions, counseling, student organizations and athletics. While community colleges and private four-year colleges also reduced instructional costs, they showed little cost-shifting.

The study, using data from AIR’s Delta Cost Project, is published in two reports, The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty? and Cost Savings or Cost Shifting? The Relationship Between Part-Time and Contingent Faculty and Institutional Spending. Both can be found at www.air.org.

About AIR
Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity. For more information, visit www.air.org.

###

Related Content

15 Nov 2016
Brief

The Shifting Academic Workforce: Where Are the Contingent Faculty?

Contingent faculty—that is, full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track—now comprise the majority of all faculty at U.S. colleges and universities. The first of a two-part series, the goal of this brief is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the landscape surrounding changes to the academic workforce, and to identify whether contingent faculty are more likely to be employed in certain types of institutions.
30 Nov 2016
Brief

Cost Savings or Cost Shifting? The Relationship Between Part-Time Contingent Faculty and Institutional Spending

Colleges and universities are relying heavily on contingent faculty to increase flexibility and reduce costs, yet little is known about whether such savings actually result in lower overall costs or if the money saved on instruction is being spent in other areas. This brief documents the financial trade-offs being made by institutions as they hire more part-time contingent faculty.
Share

Media Contact

Dana Tofig

Director, External Communications
(202) 403-6347

 

Topic

Education
Postsecondary Education

Related Projects

Delta Cost Project

Delta Cost Project: Trends in College Spending

RESEARCH. EVALUATION. APPLICATION. IMPACT.

About Us

About AIR
Board of Directors
Leadership
Experts
Clients
Contracting with AIR
Contact Us

Our Work

Education
Health
International
Workforce

Client Services

Research and Evaluation
Technical Assistance

News & Events

Careers at AIR


Search form


 

Connecting

FacebookTwitterLinkedinYouTubeInstagram

American Institutes for Research

1400 Crystal Drive, 10th Floor
Arlington, VA 22202-3289
Call: (202) 403-5000
Fax: (202) 403-5000

Copyright © 2021 American Institutes for Research®.  All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap