It is often the case that at the end of a traditional college class the adjunct college instructor wonders how in the world it will be possible to pay the bills with a small amount of money the traditional college or university pay for intellectual activity. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that there will not be any way to earn a decent living by teaching on adjunct basis for a traditional postsecondary academic institution any time and the near future. So why is an individual with an earned graduate degree, doctorate or masters degree, to do in order to continue teaching college students and have a sustainable career?
The answer to this serious academic question is to acquire multiple online faculty positions with a variety of accredited online college degree programs. Happily, it is easier than ever to find online degree programs for which to teach. Distance education technology is a mature technology, and its continual development offers college teachers a clear alternative to the poverty wages now being experienced at the traditional colleges and universities. Online bachelor degree programs and online master degree programs will continue to proliferate as the physical academic institutions catch up with the for-profit colleges that offer the bachelors degree online and the online master degree to their students.
New and returning college students find that enrolling in online degree program that offers them the opportunity to earn an online nursing degree, online business administration degree and a library science degree online is not only more convenient for them since they can participate in the online college courses with their personal computers, it is a much more user-friendly path to higher education in general. In the past, both the adjunct college teacher and a college student were required to drive a personal vehicle to a remote location and sit for hours and uncomfortable chairs while listening to a droning lecture or taking a paper test. For nontraditional college students this was especially vexing since they had family obligations and employment responsibilities that often created conflicts with the time frame that required them to be on the physical campus. Today, however, a college student and an online adjunct instructor can interact anytime of the day or night and an online college classroom since the classroom is on the Internet and is available at any given time.
The distinct advantage this constant access to online college classes gives the online adjunct instructor is that it is possible to scale the teaching schedule in ways that were impossible just ten years ago. In the past, the adjunct college instructor teaching on an adjunct basis for traditional postsecondary academic institution had to wait quietly until a department head assigned one or two, are at the most three, physical college classes to teach during the long traditional semester. Now, an online adjunct college teacher can use an inexpensive personal computer with wireless access to the Internet to approach thousands of colleges, universities, community colleges and for-profit colleges in search of additional online adjunct jobs to teach for semesters that last only six to eleven weeks.
The shorter class periods in general increase an online adjunct’s ability to acquire more online college classes, which also means that an online adjunct instructor can make a decent living by teaching for multiple online university degree programs.