1 Feb 2017
Spotlight

Spotlight on Contingent Faculty

Image of college professor with class

Colleges and universities are relying heavily on contingent faculty—part-and full-time faculty who are appointed off the tenure track—to increase flexibility and reduce costs. These resources explore this trend to determine where contingent faculty are most often hired and savings actually result in lower overall costs.

Infographic: Contingent College Faculty by Flagship State School
23 Feb 2017
Infographic

Infographic Series: The Non-Tenured Majority

Contingent—also known as adjunct or clinical—faculty are college instructors who are not in a tenure-track position or are at an institution without a tenure system. According to a recent study by AIR’s Delta Cost Project for the TIAA Institute, contingent instructors made up at least half of instructional faculty in 2013 among different types of institutions. Find out more in this infographic.
Steven Hurlburt
23 Feb 2017
Blog Post

Trade-offs of Increasing Contingent Faculty

U.S. colleges and universities are increasingly hiring contingent faculty, or full- and part-time faculty who work on contract. While institutions say doing so saves money, two studies by the Delta Cost Project at AIR find the strategy has not translated into a large overall savings. In this blog post, Deanna Hill and Steve Hurlburt share these results and consider whether long-term unintended consequences may off-set short-term cost savings.
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.
4 Jan 2017
News Release

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

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 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.
Delta Cost Report: Increased reliance on part-time college faculty
5 Feb 2014
Infographic

Increased Reliance on Part-Time College Faculty

Using data from the Delta Cost project, this infographic shows the increasing rate of part-time faculty and instructors in higher education over the period 1990-2012.
5 Feb 2014
News Release

Report: Colleges Trim Costs by Hiring Part-Time Faculty But Savings Undercut by Increases in Benefits Costs and Hiring of Non-Instructional Staff

Colleges and universities increasingly rely on part-time faculty to meet instructional demands and rein in costs, but rising benefit costs and increased hiring for other types of positions have undercut those savings, a new report by the Delta Cost Project at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) finds.
college classroom
5 Feb 2014
Report

Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive? Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education

Skyrocketing college tuitions and trillion-dollar student loan debt have put college and university spending in the spotlight. "Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive? Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education," a report by the Delta Cost Project at AIR, finds that colleges and universities increasingly rely on part-time faculty to meet instructional demands and rein in costs, but rising benefit costs and increased hiring for other types of positions have undercut those savings.

Further Reading