I am a part time adjunct at a local college (degree granting, but not one of the research universities). Many of us are retired and do this for additional cash and to give back to our industry. We certainly don't do it for a "career".
Facts: I teach project management to engineers and small business owners. I have an engineering degree and a Masters, 20+ years of experience prior to teaching.
This college has 18k full time students and 29k part time students.
Has 600+ part time (adjunct) faculty, teaching between 1 and 6 classes a semester
Has 876 full time faculty
I make about $3k per course, per semester. That is the top rate possible. (The college brings in gross about $16k per course)
Adjuncts:
Pay union dues
Receive medical / dental benefits when in the prior year have taught 7 classes or more.
Do not receive office space (There are 6 shared cubicles provide across 3 campus locations M-Fr only for all 600 of us)
Do not receive parking benefits (rules changed, the parking benefit actually costs more in taxes than the cost of paying for parking in cash if you work only part time evenings)
Provide their own laptops, software, cell phones.. and need to update their own software / windows version as the school does.
Do not receive a faculty email address (only the student email system), so can't get the instructors deals on software.
Can not print handouts directly from a laptop to a photocopier... must wait to share the one after hours computer that can do so.
Do not receive price reduced classes for personal enrichment at the college (I had really hoped this could be a benefit).
Pays for own training, except mandatory instructor skills training is provided free but you are not paid for your time to take it. (Hint, if it is mandatory, should the employee not be paid?)
Meet with students in coffee shop or hallways if there is not a "free" room available nearby the lecture room before or after class.
Do not receive marking assistance. (To be fair, I only have 30 students per class now, max).
Need to complete administrative work to prep for classes. Student correspondence is a large portion of the time spent outside of class hours.
I only have met my boss once (the hiring interview), and get about 3 emails a term from him. I have to handle every problem directly with the college for student setup to asking for help setting up a textbook at the bookstore.
Only find out if you get a contract on a per course basis about 3 months before, that could be cancelled 1 week before class is due to start due to low enrollment.
Would make approx $45-$50k if taking a full time load (three semesters per year, from Sept - end of June), teaching 5 classes a term. Yep, that would be for teaching 5-5-5 load, which would take about 45-50 hours per week, assuming you were efficient by repeating a lot of courses term to term (e.g., stats 101), and only tweaking updates as you go.
Prepare your own lecture materials without guidance (I get an additional $1000 every third or fourth class to update materials)
Still have to receive the bloody student evaluations after the class is over and students can be opinionated brutalists if you give them power and a bit of voice.
Get EI hours credited at about 1/3 the hours actually worked. (because marking and admin time is not considered hours).
Pension vests only after having taught about 20 classes. (a lot more than the full time staff, who vest in 2 years or 14 classes).
The largest peeve is that I am restricted to being an employee, even though pretty much EVERYTHING I do qualifies me as a contractor. --YET.. I can not claim any of the tax deductions for working from home or the expenses of supplies and equipment I provide.
When I found out the history of our employment contract, I realized that the Adjuncts were originally newly retired college instructors on full pension and benefits, or current Full time instructors picking up extra cash, and were provided most of the basic benefits (computer, space to work, benefits) from their full time work, and therefore the adjunct contract was originally treated more like an overtime contract. Then, the pickup of these contracts by newly minted master and phD students with no pushback to revise the conditions, has kept too many of the adjunct terms low and the profits high for the university.
All that said, I have a terrific program head that is supportive. Any issue I think he would back me, first. I enjoy the extra cash and the students, but would never do this close to full time, the pay is just not worth it.