It may be a bit odd for individuals with earned graduate degrees, a doctorate or master’s degree, to think of teaching online in terms of academic prosperity with the current faculty budget downturn looming ever larger on the traditional college or university horizon, but the reality is that the income and the mobility acquired from online adjunct employment can be viewed in just this fashion. One of the ways to re-engineer an academic vision is to take a hard look at how the post-secondary labor market is changing and how the core focus of higher education, meeting the educational demands of the student populations, is transitioning from the physical to the digital. For example, a college or university today must find a way to offer their new and returning students an online mathematics degree, an online masters degree in education or an online undergraduate business degree if it is to stay in business.
As more college students, especially non-traditional college students, discover the convenience of attending online college classes offered by accredited online college degree programs they are flocking to the for-profit colleges that confer the bachelors degree online and the online master’s degree. This is hardly surprising since the alternative is to travel in a personal vehicle to a remote physical plant, a college campus, and sit for hours in a drafty physical classroom listening to a dry lecture that drones on for hours or taking a paper test. The preference college students have for earning an online bachelor degree or online master degree from their personal computers at home or at work is not something that should be ignored out of hand by college teachers seeking to earn a decent online adjunct income.
An online adjunct instructor who masters the time management techniques and digital navigation skills required to move instantly in and out of various online degree programs every day can potentially earn much more income than is possible teaching as an adjunct instructor at a physical community college, state college or four-year university right now. For example, it is possible for an alert online adjunct college teacher to manage eight to twelve online college courses for three or four online college degree programs every day with a high level of concentration and an understanding of how to use a computer to access the Internet. Further, the online courses are portable in the sense that they can be tucked under the arm and carried to any destination that provides wireless access. The personal mobility that flows from the professional portability of teaching online opens up tremendous academic and economic avenues for the college instructor who has the wit and drive to master online adjunct instructor jobs down to the ace.
Naturally, this means that not every professional academic or person with an earned graduate degree will be successful enough at teaching online to earn a full time income from the schools that offer online education employment. However, those who can manage to find their way to the online college degree programs will be rewarded in many ways.
online adjunct employment