The Challenges of Online Education

Online adjunct teaching jobs in today's digital academy can produce a nice income for the dedicated college adjunct. There can be no question about the quality of the technology needed to provide acceptable post-secondary educational material on the Internet, and there can be no question as to the need evidenced by new and returning college students desire for more and more online college courses as they pursue the completion of an AA degree online, an online bachelor degree or an online master's degree. These circumstances combine to create a relatively new economic playing field, so to speak, that can be engaged by college instructors willing to lean the specific dynamics of earning an online adjunct income. The sheer number of existing and emerging online universities demands qualified college instructors to teach the classes, and as a focused adjunct instructor can teach as many online classes as he or she can manage on a daily basis. Granted, in order to teach ten online college courses requires razor-sharp time management skills and the ability to focus on a computer screen for eight or ten hours a day, but the person with a graduate degree in the core areas of higher education who can successfully juggle the multiple responsibilities can certainly bring in serious money every month.

For example, if an adjunct is teaching online for four different community colleges, state colleges, state universities or any of the for-profit post-secondary educational institutions, and the adjunct has two online classes at each school, then there is income from eight different classes. Assuming a general fee of two thousand dollars for each class and assuming that each class runs eleven weeks long, and many community colleges and an even greater number of for-profit schools are now offering eleven-week academic "Quarters" to their students, that teaching schedule would generate approximately sixteen thousand dollars for the teaching adjunct before taxes. Further, if the classes are repeated throughout the year, and it is more often the case now that online college degree programs run a full forty four weeks across a twelve month span since computer technology doesn't need any time off during the summer, then a college instructor teaching core subjects such as English, math, history or psychology would earn as much as sixty four thousand dollar a year. The geographical difficulties alone of trying to make this kind of money as an adjunct at traditional college campuses offer on-ground courses is the stuff of legend since access to multiple physical schools would require dependable personal transportation, large amount of travel time and residence in a city that actually had that many schools. However, it is different with online adjunct employment because all that is needed is a computer and an internet connection to make online adjunct teaching jobs produce a living wage for those who teach college courses.

Online Education

Online Adjunct Teaching Jobs Paradox

Teaching online as an adjunct is much more like working as a small business owner than it is a traditional academic on the tenure track. This is something of paradox because adjuncts are generally considered part time employees by the schools they work for during the year. For example, there are some tax breaks that independent contractors and small business owners would be able to take advantage of but the online adjunct is not afforded because they are part time employees. So, the positions with the schools contain some paradoxes. For example, the online college teacher is required to supply their own computer and Internet connection. In addition, there are some drawbacks in terms of ordinary benefits usually associated with being an employee even on a part time basis and they must be understood and accepted if there is to be any real engagement with the new academic paradigm of distance education. Full time online adjuncts will probably not have access to employer-provided health care benefits, but they probably won't have it offered to them at on-ground schools either because the entire point of hiring a lot of part-time college teachers is to save money on the cost of health care by not offering it to every teacher on campus.

Therefore, the online adjunct who teaches ten classes will have to find and pay for health care on a retail basis. On the other hand, there are several for-profit schools that offer a voluntary retirement package to their online adjunct teachers, and that is a decided improvement because it indicates that adjunct are working online in such large numbers now that they are being seen as a cash cow by those that monitor labor trends. Still, from the perspective that the chances of landing a full-time academic position on the tenure track are dwindling to a trickle the prospect of being able to earn a decent living from the comfort of almost any location has a distinct appeal, and the saving alone from not having to fuel and maintain an automobile could go a long way to paying private insurance premiums. Happily, since online teaching can be engaged and accomplished from almost any place on the planet, it has a lot going for it in terms of personal and professional freedom.

Online Adjunct Teaching Jobs Futures

As more online classes are made available to new and returning college students attending accredited online degree programs there will be more and more work for college instructors with earned graduate degrees. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of work will be available to those instructors with degrees in core subjects every college student must enroll in and pass in order to earn a college degree in any academic discipline as there are always more new students than upper level students in any academic program. It will certainly take a serious amount of work and attention to find and teach eight online college classes, but it will certainly be worth it since the alternative is to continue barely scraping by teaching on-ground courses are multiple traditional schools that require the adjunct to maintain an automobile so they can show up to class at the various campuses. The college teaching work is on the Internet now, and there will be more of it as time goes on. As a result of this academic certainty it is a very good idea for anyone who a graduate degree to start seeking out online adjunct teaching jobs now by visiting every community college, college and for-profit school's web site and applying to teach an online class.