Dive Brief:
- The Service Employees International Union says adjunct professors deserve to be paid $15,000 per course.
- The union hopes that setting the mark at $15,000 will start a discussion about how much of college tuition is actually spent on instruction, Inside Higher Ed reported.
- The union says it won’t use the $15,000 target in its contract negotiating efforts — yet — but it doesn’t consider the figure unrealistic.
Dive Insight:
Besides demanding $15,000 per course, including benefits, SEIU’s “Faculty Forward” awareness campaign aims to call out for-profit colleges with shabby track records and to make quality education more accessible. The first adjunct professors to negotiate a union contract under SEIU’s organizing campaign, at Tufts University, will make at least $7,300 per course by September 2016, or $8,760 with eight years or more experience. As a comparison, an adjunct instructor teaching three courses in both spring and fall semesters would make $90,000 under the SEIU target, while associate professors make an average of $75,220 to $91,200 per year, according to the American Association of University Professors.