Better Information Retention

 

 Teaching Contracts

Teaching contracts are worth a lot of money. They're an investment in the future, and it's important to get the most out of them as possible. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to know what they're getting into from day one. That's why this post exists — to help you avoid some pitfalls and succeed in your teaching career.

We'll talk about how contracts work, how much you can expect to make, how tenure works at different kinds of schools, when student loans kick in, and so on. [Let's get started!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WUjKfv5L1b5DbkHwgY8Er3EqSbGZCCl_ZuD-8a4X9Q4/edit)

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**Part 1: What is a teaching contract?**

A teaching contract is exactly what it sounds like. It's a formal agreement between the university and you, which sets out what the school will pay you, how much notice they'll require if they want to fire you, and all kinds of other things. Most of those things aren't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It's standard stuff. For example, you'll generally have your first year unpaid, and year two will be about half-paid (or at least that's the case at my school). You get "tenure" on your third year. All kinds of fun stuff.

The real meat of a contract is in the details. It lets you know how much they'll pay you per credit hour (which varies wildly depending on discipline), what your rate of pay is for additional teaching hours & students, how it works when students drop, when they have to add students, if they can make changes to your pay rate after the fact, and so on. Only a handful of schools have a full write up of everything. You can expect most contracts to have few, if any, surprises.

The pay rates themselves also vary greatly (up to 1.5-2x your average salary). In some disciplines you'll be making close to the average, in others you'll be making significantly less than that. So it's important to know where you'd rank in your discipline and what the going rate is for that rank before deciding how much money you want to make.

Additionally, they'll want a certain minimum number of credits you'll have to teach in order to be considered "productive." This is usually around half the total credits you'd get at the school for your contract term. This makes it easier for them to justify firing you, since if you're not teaching a lot, but just one or two classes, they can often justify getting rid of you without a problem.

Finally, notice period is generally another one or two years after the end of your first year (full time). So if you sign a contract for three years, expect notice after about four years. That's it. It's not a huge deal, but it's something you should know in advance.

**Part 2: Why are contracts so expensive?**

This is something that a lot of people don't get at first. But if you don't understand this part, nothing else will make any sense to you. Here it is: teaching contracts are most expensive for the university, so they're designed to be beneficial to the school more than they are to the professor. This is where a lot of people get screwed — they think they know how much money they want and how much their contract is worth and try to negotiate from there based on what schools want/need/are offering. This is a major problem, and one that can destroy your entire career if you don't know what's going on.

The main reason teaching contracts are expensive is because the student pays the school basically nothing for the teacher. All of your salary comes from the university. So if they have to pay you more than $1000/credit hour, they're basically gaining nothing in return and we're just talking about pure overhead expenses — things like office supplies, computers, phone bills, utilities, etc. But this doesn't include overhead expenses like pension contributions or health insurance premiums or benefits rates at the end of your contract period (which are all very variable).

So basically, you have to understand that the school is going to make money no matter what. If they need to pay you more than a few hundred dollars/credit hour, they're not making any money on your contract — it's money out of their pocket for them. So most schools will be hesitant to do this unless it's something that is absolutely essential for the program or almost guaranteed to make them a profit (like high enrollment or something).

They also have very little incentive to break even on your contract, let alone give you a raise from year to year. This means that it's much more likely they'll give you a small raise that maximizes their profits than it would be for them to go past that and make money on your contract.

So what does this mean for you? Well, it means that most of the negotiations about how much you're going to make are not going to be with the university. You need to negotiate how much you're going to make with yourself — set a maximum amount of money you can afford and a minimum amount of income that would still allow you to live comfortably (with the assumption being that your salary from adjuncting will never increase along with your experience). Then, try and get as close as possible to those numbers without breaking them.

This is where the incentive to be an adjunct comes in. An adjunct is someone who isn't tenured, but they make much more than you'd expect to make in an entry level position. How do they do it? They're in a position where they have control over their work load. They have student loans, and/or a mortgage, a family to support and/or something similar on the line. They are essentially independent contractors who are trying their best to not overextend themselves. Because of the high return on investment for the school, there's no reason for them not to want to help you out if you make it clear that your situation means that you can't work for less than x dollars per credit hour.

The majority of these people will tell you they make more per hour than they would without an adjunct job. I've heard numbers as high as $60/hr. My current contract is $40/hr, and I personally make over $100/hr. And that amount is not guaranteed. It's my understanding that contracts can be renegotiated after one year (unless they're in a very specific profession like law), so at any point if your contract is making less money than you'd like it could go down to something much lower.

Conclusion

This is the basic information you need to know about teaching contracts. They won't tell you this on the job fair, they won't tell you this in orientation, they won't tell you this in your interview when they're trying to get you to sign the contract. It's vital that you understand it before getting into any situation, and absolutely essential if you're planning on doing this for any extended amount of time. Hopefully, that's what I've written above — a clear explanation of why teaching contracts are priced as they are and a better idea of how to negotiate yours effectively so that both yourself and your employer can benefit from it.