Online Adjunct Faculty Positions Win the Game

If may seem somewhat disingenuous to describe post-secondary instruction as a game, but the reality of the academy is that the labor market for individual with earned graduate degrees is so slippery now that a mindset focused on winning the game is required in order to continue earning a paycheck from teaching college and university students. This paradigm shift, however, need not mean long term unemployment for agile adjunct faculty members. First, it is vitally important for teachers at any level of the education system to grasp the hard fact that the funds needed to actually pay teachers is coming from a source that is drying up. Make no mistake about it: as the semesters roll by the faculty budgetary funds will continue to shrink, which will result in less money for teaching an individual college class in a physical classroom. The online bachelor degree programs and the online master’s degree program, however, will only increase in numbers and truly represent a way that an online adjunct instructor willing to take the time to master the functional navigation of the Internet with a personal computer can develop a full time roster of online adjunct faculty positions.

Any person with a Ph.D. or master’s degree can certainly learn how to apply for an opportunity to teach one or more online college courses in order to supplement an income derived from teaching for traditional community colleges, state universities and four year colleges. It is not at all necessary to permanently leave the traditional post-secondary classroom in order to take full advantage of distance education technology. In fact, a combination of traditional campus teaching and online degree programs participation may be the best strategy for many adjunct college professors. The actual bright spot online college degree programs represent for prospective adjunct college teachers is that they will eventually replace the vast majority of physical post-secondary classrooms. This will happen simply because it much more cost-effective for university administrators to deliver college-level instruction over the Internet than it is to continue trying to maintain the expensive physical plant known as the campus with ever-diminishing amounts of budgetary funds.

Here is now the economic side of online teaching works for an online adjunct instructor. It is possible to acquire eight to ten online adjunct jobs and successfully address them from an academic perspective by simply using an inexpensive laptop computer. Further, it is possible to easily access the online bachelor degree programs from any geographical location on the globe that offers a connection to the Internet, which today means practically any location. Generally speaking, online courses are shorter in duration and run throughout the year. So, it is possible for an adroit online instructor to generate eight or ten individual online adjunct income paychecks eleven or twelve months a year. Even better, it is easy to replace an online course with an individual online degree program, which will need to be done from time to time due to emerging conflicts with administrators demanding more instructional and administrative work than they are will to pay for, by identifying and applying to additional online nursing schools, online law degree programs or online business degree programs.

A Real Living From Online Adjunct Faculty Positions

As difficult as it is these days to earn enough money teaching college students on a adjunct basis to qualify as a real living, it will be something of a relief to discover online adjunct faculty positions. For those with an earned graduate degree in a core subject area such as English or math there is an almost endless supply of online adjunct jobs, and while these online adjunct job openings do not pay all that much individually, they can pay quite handsomely when engaged collectively. Since the technology is now in place to earn an online university degree, there are many new and returning college students choosing to earn an online bachelor degree or an online masters degree from their personal computers rather than physically traveling to a traditional campus. This decided preference for taking online college classes leading to a law degree online or an associate degree online is creating a real opportunity for intellectuals with graduate degrees, or anybody, really, with an earned masters degree and a need to earn a living instead of banging on the doors of corporations who have no intention whatsoever of hiring anyone again, to become academic entrepreneurs and earn a solid monthly income.

The very best method of locating and applying for online adjunct faculty positions is a technique known as cold calling. This approach involves applying directly to each and every community college, state-funded college and university and for-profit school that has a website, and these days every one of them has a website. It is true that there are several academic employment websites that can and should be monitored, but those sites have to wait until a school sends them the job openings to post on their forums. The direct application strategy goes to the schools themselves and offers online teaching to their students. In terms of a success rate, the cold calling search strategy for online teaching opportunities should have a much higher return rate for the effort and time involved in submitting applications to online college programs.

Undoubtedly, the direct application strategy is more time consuming that simply waiting for the schools themselves to post their online college adjunct openings, but with the proliferation of online education courses the extra effort can be worth it in terms of positive responses. Keep in mind that two or three online courses for an online nursing program, for example or an online mba program can provide a healthy income. In the same sense, teaching five or six online business courses, for example, can equal a full time income, and that full time income can be earned at home or at a coffee shop or just about anyplace there is an available Internet connection.

The availability of online adjunct faculty positions combined with the freedom of teaching online college classes from almost anywhere you choose is a sinner for anyone with an earned graduate degree. In addition, since distance education will only grow in popularity with new and returning college students, teaching online will remain a sustainable way to earn a real living for academics and intellectuals for decades to come.

Online Adjunct Faculty Positions Availability

If the current economic downturn has you on the financial ropes, and you have an earned graduate degree in hand, this is an excellent period to research the prospects offered by the availability of online adjunct faculty positions. These days, with more and more people losing their incomes to downsizing, the prospect of generating multiple small income streams is attractive. Further, that these income streams can come from teaching English, history or psychology to new and returning college students from a personal computer is actually quite interesting in that it represents a very eco-friendly way to make a decent living. It is possible to teach five or six online college courses full of college students attending several degree programs online without ever setting a physical foot on a traditional post secondary campus.

The reason that online degree programs such as online associate degrees, online counseling degree and a law degree online creates an opportunity to earn money with your graduate degree is tied directly to the budget troubles of individual states. Traditional academics relies heavily on the concept of taxpayer funding from the state level, but that financing model has broken down as a result of many states losing enormous amounts of tax revenue. As the state tax revenue continues to erode, the budgets for community colleges, state colleges and state-funded universities also shrink in tandem. As dire as this set of circumstances appears on the surface, these economic realities have encouraged the implementation of online university programs at a rate that would not occur under normal funding conditions.

The ease and convenience of attending an online college degree program and earning a degree creates a need for qualified online adjuncts, and since this technological innovation, the online college degree, is so new that there simply are not enough online instructors to meet the demand. There are many online adjunct faculty positions available now, and there will be more of them as time goes on. Since there does not seem to be any increase in corporate positions on the immediately horizon, and the expense of having to drive a vehicle to work is likely to become even more of a burden in the coming months and years, the prospect of being able to teach college students in online college classes from your spare bedroom or living room or home office in the garage is actually an inviting idea.

Of course, you will need an earned graduate degree for an accredited academic institution to be hired by colleges online, and as you probably already know there are many more students in the core academic classes so a master degree or Ph.D. in English, history, math or psychology will be the most needed by the many accredited online degree program. The first step you need to take is to familiarize yourself with the online adjunct faculty positions listed at the academic employment web sites, but at the same time it is an excellent idea to apply directly to any many post secondary institutions as possible. The best way to apply directly for online adjunct jobs is to search for the online faculty application page at each school’s web site. Once you have found the application page, load in your academic credentials and submit. While it may take some time and effort to actually be hired as in more than one online adjunct faculty positions, it will become easier to add yet other online university programs to the list of schools for which you teach online college courses.