Teaching Online Solves a Host of Academic Problems

Every educator today is faced with the economic dilemma of how to continue teaching and still earn a living from the expended intellectual effort. The cutbacks in faculty budgets are leaving teachers at every level of the academy in a financial corner as more layoffs are announced and more cutbacks at the post-secondary level of public education are made manifest. A person with a graduate degree, a Ph.D. or masters degree, could be forgiven when asking where does it all end if it continues along its current path. Part of the answer could be provided by traditional adjunct college instructors that have been laboring under the yoke of underemployment for at least the last decade. These academics teach in physical college classrooms every day, but they are paid very little for the effort and they must spend a good deal of their meager income on a motor vehicle to drive between physical college and university campuses in order to acquire one or two extra university classes to teach. However, distance education technology is making very serious inroads in post-secondary education, and the result for individual with classroom experience and a graduate degree is that teaching online solves a host of academic problems created by decimated public education budgets.

Today’s college, university and community college students are eager to enroll in online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs leading to an online accounting degree, an online computer science degree or an online masters degree in school counseling because they realize it is much more efficient to participate in online college courses than it is to drive to a remote academic campus and sit in a physical university classroom for hours and then having to drive back to work or home. Instead, these new post-secondary students prefer to use their personal computer to access the Internet and, thus, the online college degree programs offered by community colleges and state universities. Indeed, for-profit colleges have demonstrated over the last decade the attractiveness of accredited distance learning programs.

At the same time, academic administrators are delighted to have a less expensive alternative to spending thinner budgets on the maintenance of the physical campus and the physical college and university classrooms on it. Student populations are larger than at any time in the last fifty or sixty years as a result of the declining economy. The administrators still have meet the educational needs of these swelling numbers of post-secondary students and distance education technology, which allows the quick, easy deployment of online degree programs allows them the flexibility they so desperately need at this time.

Of course, the employment of technology in the form of online college courses instantly creates a need for qualified academics that are prepared to teach the students enrolled in the online college classes. The educators now facing dire economic circumstances should immediately begin applying for online adjunct instructor positions with the thousands of state colleges, four-year universities, for-profit colleges and community colleges. The growth of online college degree programs and the associated need for qualified online adjuncts means that teaching online is a genuine solution for the educated individual with technical skills.

Start Developing Online Adjunct Income Now

Educators with a graduate degree, a Ph.D. or master’s degree, trying to stay ahead of the public school layoffs at the secondary level of the academy and traditional adjunct college faculty members trying to figure out how to pay the rent and eat on the low pay for the few classes available to teach on a traditional college or university campus should start developing online adjunct income now. The sooner a prospective online adjunct instructor begins the application process with online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs the sooner the online teaching paychecks will show up. Academic administrators are really up against it these days since they must decide whether to pay faculty members or spend what few budget funds are available on maintaining the physical plant known as the college or university campus. Of course, it is much easier to shortchange the teachers since the amount of investment in the classrooms and other structures is much greater than it is in the traditional adjunct college teachers and the investment in the physical infrastructure must be protected at all costs, including laying off the teachers or continuing to pay them poverty wages. This means that it is entirely up to the individual with the graduate degree to figure out how to actually earn a living by entirely replacing a lost income from teaching or supplement an insufficient income by teaching online for online bachelor degree programs and online master’s degree programs.

It is of paramount importance for any prospective online adjunct instructor to make as many applications to as many online college degree programs as possible each day. While this may seem overwhelming for the traditional academic used to only a few schools within driving distance it is an action that is not only possible but imminently smart when contemplating online adjunct instructor positions as a new career path. The reasons for this are twofold: the competition for available online college faculty positions is growing with each layoff that occurs at the secondary level and the public post-secondary academic institutions are acting less quickly than the for-profit colleges to deploy online accredited degree programs. On the other hand, the public community colleges and state universities are adding new online degrees such as the associate degree in business administration online, the human resources degree online and registered nursing degree online every semester.

Given these circumstances the correct approach to securing a portfolio of online adjunct positions is to go directly to the individual schools’ website and locate the employment link on the front page. This link will lead to the faculty application page, which will also present a great deal of information about the various accredited university degrees offered by the schools. Of course, the more information the online adjunct instructor with designs on an online teaching career has when making the applications the better the chance are that the application will be successful. In the end, the growth of distance education at public post-secondary schools is a very positive sign for educators seeking an alternative to underemployment or unemployment.