College students are getting a raw deal, a recent New York report asserted. The problem is they’re taking too many classes from part-time, or adjunct, professors.

But that same report unwittingly revealed something about how higher
education is more culpable than it likes to admit when it comes to
creating the problem.

The issue is a huge one in higher education far beyond New York,
with about half of the nation’s college faculty now on part-time
contracts. Adjuncts are cheaper for colleges, but they often lack the
time and resources for focused teaching, and research shows students’
performance suffers if they are taught by part-timers too often.

In its report last month, a 30-member commission called for New
York’s state (SUNY) and city (CUNY) systems to alleviate the over
reliance on adjuncts by hiring 2,000 more full-time faculty for their
87 campuses.

But just one page away, the report also called for adding at least 4,000 new doctoral students.

There’s a connection between those numbers that deserves more attention.

In many fields, there are already too many Ph.Ds awarded for the
full-time academic posts available, creating a surplus of likely
jobseekers. That pool becomes adjuncts, who command wages and benefits
so low that universities find them irresistible hires.

"It’s not uncommon to have a disconnect like this in higher
education, in which people are both concerned about the difficult
career prospects being faced by recent Ph.D. graduates and concerned
there aren’t enough Ph.D. students," said Michael Teitelbaum, of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The ideas, he said, "often don’t get connected. It’s puzzling."

Adds Jeff Crane, an adjunct who teaches two art courses at SUNY-New
Paltz: "There’s this tendency to turn a blind eye to things like that
and not make those kinds of equations."

Of course, some adjuncts have other jobs and like working part-time.
But many are adjuncts by necessity. Crane, an artist, says he likes
working part-time so he can paint, but thinks he should be paid
equitably. He earns about $5,200 per semester for teaching two courses.

The national average for full-time assistant professors is about
$60,000, and $100,000 once they get tenure. Crane says many of his
colleagues work mostly for the health insurance, which, unlike many
places, New Paltz offers to adjuncts.

Teitelbaum is quick to point out New York
may have good reasons to add doctoral students. They will help improve
the state’s standing in the research sector, and of course, many may
find work in the private sector.

But if they come seeking full-time professorial jobs, some will be disappointed.

It’s well known that jobs in, say, philosophy, are rare. Even at the
very top doctoral programs, only one in 10 who start will end up
teaching at an elite research university, according to Brian Leiter,
whose blog "Philosophical Gourmet" tracks the field. In fields like
history, recent numbers show the market improving, and there will be
more jobs as baby boomers retire. But some fields like American and
European history still have such a surplus that even community colleges
now commonly look only at candidates with a doctoral degree.

It’s not just humanities. Groups such as the Business Roundtable
have grabbed headlines with urgent warnings about the need to ramp up
production of American scientists. In fact, Teitelbaum testified to
Congress last year, there is no evidence of a shortage of scientists
and engineers — particularly on the Ph.D. track.

In the life sciences, the U.S. is awarding twice as many doctorates
as two decades ago, but has no more faculty jobs, according to one
recent study that prompted the journal Nature to editorialize that "too
many graduate schools may be preparing too many students." A 1998 National Research Council made much the same warning.

Nonetheless, universities keep flooding the academic pipeline.

The latest federal data show about 45,600 Ph.Ds were awarded in
2005-2006, 5.1 percent higher than the year before. It was the fourth
straight increase and tied for the highest percentage gain since 1971.

Faculty like having graduate students around. They’re good
intellectual companions, and they bolster a professor’s research
efforts.

Particularly in the sciences, they also often come with funding from sources such as the National Institutes of Health, which doubled its budget between 1998 and 2003.

But funding usually leads to more slots for graduate students,
not for professors. That’s why the percentage of science Ph.D.s moving
on to "post-docs" (temporary university posts where they do research
while continuing to apply for faculty jobs) is surging — from 43
percent to 70 percent in physics, for instance, in just a few years.

Of course, universities could cut back on using adjuncts and pony up for better wages and more full-time jobs. Some, like Rutgers in New Jersey, have agreed to add tenure-track positions,
and the American Federation of Teachers is pushing for legislation in
11 states to require more teaching come from full-timers.

But with universities already under fire for skyrocketing
prices, it’s probably unrealistic to expect most will pay more than the
going rate for a captive labor pool.

Saying "no" to students definitely isn’t easy. If education is
good, it seems to follow more is better. And when qualified students
come to a university — particularly a public one — it can be hard to
justify refusing them the education they say they want.

But if public universities (and really that means legislatures
and taxpayers) won’t pony up for more full-time faculty, higher
education will have to take more responsibility for its role in
creating the oversupply problem.

"We have flooded the labor market with Ph.Ds who can’t get jobs
doing what they’ve been trained to do," said Cat Warren, a North
Carolina State English professor and state American Association of University Professors
leader, who recently gave a talk to graduate students at nearby Duke
warning them to be realistic. "I think we have to think very hard about
that."

Via Yahoo News