Confused professors shocked that schools are cutting their hours to avoid Obamacare penalties (world)

[petch751]

Originally Posted by hawkeye2009

Isn't it just priceless? These idiots could not figure out that the "new healthcare law" that they fully supported, would actually affect them, and not just "the little people".

Is there anything that liberalism has touched that has not turned to crap?!

Yep, wait until it kicks in and we find out what's in it. Priceless!

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

The IRS should have never redefined part time status vs full time status and left that for each company to define.

B-b-b-b-b-but government Bureaucrats know better.

Originally Posted by Katiana

However, there is no reason a college/university couldn't offer ins. to these profs.

No reason that you're aware.

Health plan coverage is not "free" and if an employer doesn't have the money, then they cannot offer health plan coverage.

You also ignore the negative impact of unions.

Offering health plan coverage to adjuncts would only give the unions on campus ammunition to argue for even more benefits for the groups they represent on campus.

Originally Posted by AeroGuyDC

Choosing someone with my experience in the industry is not necessarily an effort to exploit cheap labor, its an effort to bring my experience and expertise to students who are seeking to achieve the same in a niche area of the field.

Well said.

Originally Posted by pknopp

Right, it's not the people that are important, it's the ideas that are important.

That's right....damn the People, full speed ahead.

Originally Posted by punkfan39126

Without labor laws my 10 year old would be out helping with the bills by now!

No, you're 10-year old would be unemployed.

Originally Posted by punkfan39126

Lol. Tenured professors are experts in their fields, usually with decades of professional experience.

No, they are not.

How can one be an "expert" in secondary education without ever having taught in primary or secondary schools?

Very few professors actually have real professional experience. For some degree fields, professional experience really isn't necessary, but for other it is. I had economics professors who were advisers to presidents. I had professors who negotiated treaties, or participated in treaty discussions or other related diplomatic negotiations at government level, including for other governments. That kind of experience is invaluable.

Originally Posted by punkfan39126

The new policies don't even kick in til next year...

Great, another who thinks they know something about Obamacrapâ„¢ but don't. You might want to read the IRS bulletins that have been published over the last few years. Sections of Obamacrapâ„¢ started to be enforced beginning September 23, 2010.

The IRS rules regarding "safe harbor" for determination of part-time employees covered by Obamacrapâ„¢ are in effect now.......not "next year".....they've been in effect since last year.

Originally Posted by helenejen

They have no job security.

So? Who cares? I'm guessing you don't understand "casual labor."

Originally Posted by helenejen

Two classes does not come anywhere close to 29-hours. Cutting his course load from two classes to one has nothing to do with him coming anywhere close to 15 hours of work let alone 29, and therefore has ZERO to do with Obamacare.

He's employed by the State (of Ohio).

Suppose he teaches Condom Utilization 101 for 1 hour three times per week. Under union contract rules with the State that govern/apply to adjuncts, that 3 hours is actually 12 hours (if I remember correctly). It's sort of like railroad employees where 4 hours is 12 hours (because working around steam engines is an health issue --- uh there haven't been steam engines for decades.....doesn't matter to unions).

Originally Posted by helenejen

It isn't liberals calling for the slashing of university budgets. Liberals would have adjuncts treated as real teachers who can making a living teaching at one school.

Um, one reason for using adjuncts is to manage class-loads.

Originally Posted by helenejen

The rise of the adjunct goes hand-in-hand with the lack of support for higher education,...

No, the rise of the adjunct goes hand-in-hand with the increase in government-backed student loans with interest rates artificially depressed below market rates, causing a rapidly expanding and ever fluctuating student-body, that strains the resources of the university.

Originally Posted by helenejen

"For decades, colleges and universities have cut costs by hiring adjuncts instead of tenured or tenure-track faculty. In 1975, adjuncts made up 43% of the faculty at U.S. colleges. By 2009, that number had climbed to nearly 70%."

The coup de grace.

That chart proves my earlier assertion.

The rise in adjuncts is linked to the degree-mills cranking at college grads with no jobs for them.

Originally Posted by helenejen

Being an adjunct is agreeing to exploitation at the hands of the university system.

No, there are several reasons why one would voluntarily choose to be an adjunct.

One reason is that one has a satisfying professional career, with no desire to be a tenured professor, but with the desire to maintain contact with colleagues and students in a university environment.

Originally Posted by Katiana

Good Lord! The anti-education bias of some RWs is something to behold!

Why don't you explain that pie chart to everyone?

Education is Europe is "free".........but how bizarre that less than 5% of Europeans have college degrees.

Education in America is "expensive".....yet 5x more Americans have degrees than people who get "free" education.

Originally Posted by EricGold

The AEI headline: "Confused professors shocked schools are cutting their hours to avoid Obamacare penalties

The WSJ headline: "Some Schools Cut Hours of Hard-Pressed Adjuncts to Avoid Rules on Insurance"

Both stated hrs will be cut due to Obamacare. The wording is different....

Yes. Fascinating.

Originally Posted by helenejen

JAdjuncts have absolutely no job security and never have.

That is by their own choice.

I tell you what......you tell me about the Money Fairy, and I'll tell you about the automobile and the plane, and how an adjunct can use an automobile or a plane to connect with a university to get a tenure track position.

Originally Posted by helenejen

The fact is is that you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to academia, and it shows.

Neither do you.

Originally Posted by Weichert

What would you suggest to replace it? The old (pre-Obamacare) way was at the stage of collapse.

Obamacrapâ„¢ will accelerate the collapse.

Originally Posted by EricGold

The way the liberals are reacting to this is to be expected. When told a business can't afford to pay for all of their pet programs their response is usually to mock and ridicule the business and to wish it too fail for "it doesn't deserve to exist".

Yes, they are pathetic, aren't they?

Educationally...

Mircea

[Katarina Witt]

Mircea-did I mention Europe in my post? Did I say we should adopt a European system? Why no, I did not.

[petch751]

Free is fun lol until you find out what's in it!

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by petch751

Free is fun lol until you find out what's in it!

Who is advocating for "free"?

[Weichert]

There are people who are adjuncts by choice. No question about that. I had one who taught a couple of advanced physics courses every year at the university that I graduated from. He had worked on the Manhattan project many years before and was well known in the field. He was also very wealthy. This was something that he wanted to do, everyone benefited. I took one of his courses, he was outstanding.

But the discussion isn't about people like him. Nor was the quoted article.

The poor chump in the article is not employed by the state. He teaches a couple of courses at the college (can't help but wonder who else he does this with). There is absolutely no job security, generally there are no benefits offered, no status or prestige (in fact, its a negative to adjunct in academia). Nothing. Just minimum pay for contracted labor. His existence at the college is very fragile at best. There is no obligation on the colleges part to have him teach at the college next term. None. He could just as easily make zero next year as make $40k. A professor he isn't.

Looking at the $40k per year. It seems that he makes $2k to teach one course. That means he is teaching say 20 courses a year in order to gross $40k. Officially the administration at the various colleges he was adjuncting at were unaware of his situation and the 7 courses a term that he teaches. They are aware now. I think he'd have been better off to keep his mouth shut. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see his future teaching load cut in half (or more).

In the academic world he is very much nothing. He should have got out of this trap long ago.

[helenejen]

Originally Posted by Mircea

So? Who cares? I'm guessing you don't understand "casual labor."

That's been my point all along. Adjuncts are not the professors that those on this thread imagine them to be. They are easily expendable, cheap labor.

Originally Posted by Mircea

He's employed by the State (of Ohio).
Suppose he teaches Condom Utilization 101 for 1 hour three times per week.

Originally Posted by Mircea

Under union contract rules with the State that govern/apply to adjuncts, that 3 hours is actually 12 hours (if I remember correctly). It's sort of like railroad employees where 4 hours is 12 hours (because working around steam engines is an health issue --- uh there haven't been steam engines for decades.....doesn't matter to unions).

Union rules apply to adjuncts in the same as railroad employees? Um no. Part-time faculty are not public employees in the State of Ohio or in most States.

And the most common way to translate an assigned course into workload is by the Carnegie Unit where a 3-credit course translates to 9 hours of work.

Originally Posted by Mircea

Um, one reason for using adjuncts is to manage class-loads.

To mangage class-loads CHEAPLY. To pay an adjunct $2000 to teach a class is much less expensive than to pay a tenured or tenure-track professor to do the same.

Originally Posted by Mircea

No, the rise of the adjunct goes hand-in-hand with the increase in government-backed student loans with interest rates artificially depressed below market rates, causing a rapidly expanding and ever fluctuating student-body, that strains the resources of the university.

So you think that opening up universities was a bad idea? Seriously? Wow.

Originally Posted by Mircea

The coup de grace.

That chart proves my earlier assertion.

The rise in adjuncts is linked to the degree-mills cranking at college grads with no jobs for them.

No it doesn't. That chart doesn't even break down tertiary education according to areas of specialization. For you to suggest that the problem in the U.S. is too much education is ludicrous:

"Both Japan and the United States, which, together, have nearly half of all tertiary-educated adults in the OECD area (47%), enjoyed high levels of tertiary attainment before most other countries had started to expand their higher-education systems. Having a more educated work force gave these countries a head-start in many high-skill areas. This advantage is likely to have been particularly important for innovation and the adoption of new technologies."
http://www.oecd.org/education/skills...l/48630299.pdf

As I stated earlier, the problem is that

Originally Posted by helenejen

Professional adjuncts often seek masters or Ph.D.'s in already glutted areas of study. Then because they can't get Ph.D.'s or a tenure-track position, they choose to become adjuncts because they want to stay in academia in some way and administrators are more than happy to use/exploit their cheap labor.

Got it now?

Originally Posted by Mircea

No, there are several reasons why one would voluntarily choose to be an adjunct.

One reason is that one has a satisfying professional career, with no desire to be a tenured professor, but with the desire to maintain contact with colleagues and students in a university environment.

This has been clarified over and over again in this thread. We aren't talking about professionals outside the university who might choose to teach the occasional class at a university. That isn't the kind of adjunct identified from the get-go in this thread. You really think an adjunct, for whom adjuncting is their career as is the case with the man in OP's story, can have a satisfying professional career when they never know how many classes they will get from one year to the next, are paid horribly for the classes that they do teach, and rarely, if ever, receive health or retirement benefits?

But as I said:

Originally Posted by helenejen

Why anyone would subject themselves to being an adjunct is beyond me. But I respect their right to choose to do so.

Originally Posted by Mircea

That is by their own choice.

You can obviously cut and past, but did you actually comprehend what was written in this thread?

Originally Posted by helenejen

You don't believe in personal responsibility?

I find it hard to believe that you are actually supporting people in this thread who are whining about a guy who put himself in what many would consider to be a bad job situation and then acts surprised to find that he has a bad job situation.

Originally Posted by Mircea

Neither do you.

Thanks for the laugh! Always appreciated!!

[GuyNTexas]

Originally Posted by KUchief25

Well these professors thought they were above all that obamacare stuff. They are also mostly liberals so have brain damage that causes them to think they are smarter than everybody else. What is happening is exactly what many have said would happen from the time this entire obamacare debate started and liberals are just shocked.

It was as easily predictable as a sunrise. And it was so obvious, it's incredible for anyone to be surprised. When presented with the options of paying for healthcare coverage, paying a fine for not providing it, or reducing the hours of workers so as to avoid the first two .... DUH

Planet STUPID is the new name for earth, where the dumbest of the dumb are considered the smartest. It's flipping insanity out of control. War = Peace ... raising taxes is a great thing ... destruction of individual rights is even better ... and a mafia government that openly declares war on the people is heralded as superstars? They want to disarm us ... steal our money ... feed us poison .... surveil us with drones and murder us with hollow point ammunition. Wow ... let's vote for em'. That's the broken, twisted logic of the left wing droolers.

[Wapasha]

Originally Posted by AeroGuyDC

LOL the irony is simply delicious!

Mr. Balla is a ****** idiot!

And the whole world laughs out loud!!!

That is what happens when a partisan congress works in secret behind closed doors with their cronies and prevents the public from being a part of something so monumental as deciding our own freaking health care laws. Liberal tyranny, nothing more, nothing less

[Weichert]

And so?

NO isn't a solution.

What do you propose other than NO?