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[taxprofmom]

I'm currently an adjunct at a major university, and I make $4200/semester undergrad, and $5000/semester grad.  I only teach one grad class per year, and two undergrad classes during the academic year, plus two in the summer.  Pretax, that's $21,800 per year part-time, particularly since I have two masters degrees.

I've been teaching at SNHU online, and I get $2000 per 8 week course.  If I teach 3-4 times a year, that gets me closer to $30,000 a year, still not much for where I live.  Plus teaching at SNHU is quite a grind, very time consuming, and I can't get them to assign me the courses that I teach live, so I'm teaching five courses a year which is brutal for what I make.

I'm wondering what other online schools pay, and if they provide more content (less course creation) or are easier to teach at.  Do you teach online, and if so, how does it work?  SNHU requires faculty-generated content (a pain for the courses I teach) and loads of online database set up and maintenance, on top of discussion facilitation and grading.  Like I said, a grind!

Thanks!

[horter]

This is actually not bad for an online course. Rasmussen college is one of the lowest paying, less well known online proprietary colleges that pays $1500 per 11 week course regardless of instructor education or experience. The course is set up but there is multiple "busywork" assignments for the students each week that requires hours and hours of grading and extensive feedback required from the instructors, plus weekly office hours and required online lectures that students rarely attend. Very difficult to have meaningful interaction with students. They also overload class cap of 25 students up to 28/29 frequently. Because they are financially driven they will pressure instructors to grade work from students that are essentially absent from a class for most of course and grade almost 11 weeks worth of material in 2-3 weeks.
How much faculty input is required for a course at SNHU?

[dalila]

Is this really what online professors make? It would seem to me that they would make a lot more than that. I actually am a online student, so I know first hand how hard these professors work. Maybe the school I attend is one of the higher paid ones. It is actually a very reputable school, with very challenging courses, but maybe my experience is different than others.

[voxprincipalis]

Is this really what online professors make? It would seem to me that they would make a lot more than that. I actually am a online student, so I know first hand how hard these professors work. Maybe the school I attend is one of the higher paid ones. It is actually a very reputable school, with very challenging courses, but maybe my experience is different than others.

Adjunct professors, whether online or in brick-and-mortar institutions, rarely make more than $2-5K per course. This is why adjuncting for a living (long-term) is a bad idea.

Full-time, tenure-track professors (or full-time term/visiting professors) make an actual salary with benefits. These tend to be field dependent in terms of amount, but no one is raking in the dough, trust us.

VP

[queenofstarwars]

Those numbers don't sound bad at all (for adjuncting).

While I teach full-time, I have taught adjunct (online) for three different schools.  The MOST I've made is $3,600 per 8-wk course and the least I've made is $2,000 per 16-wk course.

[reener06]

Yes, to me those numbers sound good. I make 3250/course at one university (R1), regardless of grad or undergrad, or even size. This semester I have a 150-person intro lecture, but the bonus is I get 2 TAs; usually I get a 60-person class with no TAs. The grad class has 9 persons in it.

At the CC, it is 2100/course, and 2 of these are online, one F2F; they have, on average, 30 students in them. I can teach 4 courses maximum here; at the R1, I am allowed to teach 2 courses maximum--more than that, and they would have to give me benefits. I usually teach 3-4 courses across the 2 campuses each semester, and sometimes a winter intersession and a summer course; sometimes an accelerated (8-week) course. So, I taught 9 courses from Aug. 2010-Aug 2011. Right now I am doing 5, but do to baby coming, can't afford daytime daycare and online courses at the CC are only offered in the fall for some reason, so I am down to 1 night class. Although money will be tight, it'll probably be for the best.

So, OP, 4200 or 5000 sounds like a dream to me. I'd pick up more there.

[yemaya]

Is this really what online professors make? It would seem to me that they would make a lot more than that. I actually am a online student, so I know first hand how hard these professors work. Maybe the school I attend is one of the higher paid ones. It is actually a very reputable school, with very challenging courses, but maybe my experience is different than others.

I make $2200 per 8-week course teaching online undergrad courses at a reputable private LAC and $1900 for a brick-and-mortar state college.  The pay sucks, but I like my students and in this academic job climate, I'm lucky to have it.

[profonline]

Hello all,

I have been teaching as an online adjunct "full-time" (ie 6-7 classes per term) for a few years now, and I agree with many of the sentiments expressed in this forum. I want to add my experience with a few schools into the discussion.

I agree with the post regarding Rasmussen College. I also work with them, and they pay less than the going rate (1,500 per 11 week course, regardless of the amount of students). However, I will say that they are pleasant to work with, which does count for something with me. Grading load is decent, but this may also vary on the course that you happen to teach with them.

I work for University of Phoenix, and although they are a good deal for me now there was a "start-up cost" with them, mainly that I had to prepare a lot of materials, so much so that they started me one month ahead of time just so I had time to create all the curriculum I needed to create. I have no idea why they do this, when this should be designed by developers like every other school. However, once I created that curriculum they have been a decent deal, they are a bit over 1,000 dollars per 5 week class, however there are no "audio lectures" or other additional synchronous components. Grading is reasonable per week.

I work for Kaplan University, and they require one synchronous audio lecture per week per 10 week course (pay is 2,000 per course, can increase if the student load increases). I have enjoyed working with Kaplan, they provide a friendly work environment. However, I do wish they didn't have a synchronous component. They seem to have proportional grading and discussion requirements, so writing our own lectures for the audio component seems like "extra" time spent with them. However, once you have created the audio lectures it is very efficient to keep teaching the same class.

I consider those schools above "the good ones." Now for the bad and ugly:

Colorado Technical University Online (CTU) is ran by a bunch of incompetent businessmen. They require constant extra, worthless meetings to increase "knowledge about their institution" without pay (yet will threaten to fire you if you do not attend), change the rules on their adjunct faculty each term, and their course designers refuse to edit courses that have glaring problems with alignment (such as assignments do not match the topics covered in the course!). Also, they require TWO audio lectures per week, on two different days. One must be within a certain time frame (evening hours). You create these audio lectures yourself, and you are often not offered the same class twice so you are constantly prepping in this area. As if this wasn't bad enough, they also will overload your class without additional compensation, and you may have between 35 and 40 students per class. They pay 1,250 per 5 week class, but the extra hassle is nowhere near worth the pay. The unfortunate situation I have seen with them is that it was such a large "start-up" cost, where I went through a month of training and significant paperwork to even start work with them, and then I'd like to be compensated for all of this.

South University Online was the worst school I have ever worked with in my seven years of teaching. The training was specific to "learning about the institution" rather than skills that I needed to teach there. My first manager didn't tell me what I needed to set up my course by the deadline, and when I received a new manager she scrutinized my grading feedback (which has received rave reviews and recognition at other online schools) to the point where I literally felt sick to my stomach whenever I received an email from her. Not to mention, they have terrible technical support which does not know how to solve the many technical issues that the students have with their courses. I no longer work for them, but I would like to warn anyone thinking of going into online teaching that South University Online is by far the most disorganized and unpleasant environment I have ever seen online. I would tell anyone to run fast away from any job they are offering, many people before you have quit quickly so they are constantly needing to re-hire for positions.

I hope that my experiences can be your gain! I think there are many great opportunities online, and it would be nice to have more forums such as this one where instructors can tell the truth about the schools they work with. This would likely encourage these "bad apple" schools to shape up when no one will work for them any longer, and also reward the good apples in the bunch.

I wish you all well in your online teaching endeavors!

[hipgeek]

Has anyone taught at Strayer? I'm considering applying to adjunct there.

[infopri]

At my (bricks and mortar) university here in MyCity, online teaching pays exactly the same as face-to-face teaching.  I teach online as an adjunct, and I'm paid what all adjuncts in my school are paid, including those who teach face-to-face courses.  (Note, however, that there is some variation across the university at large.  My school pays better than other schools within the university.)  Full-tie faculty who teach online courses get to count those courses as part of their load, and are treated like any other course with the same number of credits.

[ckrahenbill]

I had exactly the same experience working online for CTU. So far they have been the worst to work for but I just signed on with Southern and I'm wondering if I made another mistake. I'll have to wait and see. I have warned others about CTU and how they handle online learning. Without exaggeration, they are the worst I've encountered in online learning and I've been doing this for 4 years. I'm amazed the Department of Education has not investigated this college and shut them down.

I also teach for some great online institutions including UMUC, ECPI and University of Phoenix. For 2012, I've taken on Southern and Columbia Southern University. The work load hardly phases me but the constant nick picking at my feedback and additional leg work does. So far none of these have given me any grief but I've yet to teach for Southern and CSU.

I've also just agreed to rebuild a number of technology courses for CareerTech out of Ontario Canada. This will be a new area for me and I look forward to seeing if I can broaden my skill set with course design which as it turns out is something I enjoy doing.

I got some good information on whom to watch out for from this thread and it just so happens I've either worked for or applied to work for every one of them.

[yemaya]

The work load hardly phases me but the constant nick picking at my feedback and additional leg work does.

The constant nitpicking and micromanagement of faculty definitely gets annoying.  I have two gigs.  My state school is great.  They treat faculty like professionals and basically leave us alone unless there are complaints.  My private school breathes down their faculty's neck at every waking moment.

[infopri]

I have two gigs.  My state school is great.  They treat faculty like professionals and basically leave us alone unless there are complaints.  My private school breathes down their faculty's neck at every waking moment.

I have two gigs as well, with exactly the opposite experience: The private school barely pays attention to what I do, while the state school (in a different state) has pretty much scheduled even my bathroom breaks, or so it seems.  And the state school isn't even an online gig,  but a face-to-face one--but the delivery method doesn't seem to matter, actually.  I'd have the same micromanagement at the state school even if it were an online gig, and the private school also barely pays attention when I teach on campus.  FWIW, though, when I taught (face to face) at a state school in MyCity's state, I had a lot more autonomy than I do here at the state school in Somewhere Warm--so maybe it depends on which state system you're in.

[yemaya]

I have two gigs.  My state school is great.  They treat faculty like professionals and basically leave us alone unless there are complaints.  My private school breathes down their faculty's neck at every waking moment.

I have two gigs as well, with exactly the opposite experience: The private school barely pays attention to what I do, while the state school (in a different state) has pretty much scheduled even my bathroom breaks, or so it seems.  And the state school isn't even an online gig,  but a face-to-face one--but the delivery method doesn't seem to matter, actually.  I'd have the same micromanagement at the state school even if it were an online gig, and the private school also barely pays attention when I teach on campus.  FWIW, though, when I taught (face to face) at a state school in MyCity's state, I had a lot more autonomy than I do here at the state school in Somewhere Warm--so maybe it depends on which state system you're in.

It could be.  My state school gives us a general outline of what they'd like covered in the course, but we have otherwise full autonomy as far as picking books, syllabus, etc.  (I teach both online and face-to-face there).  My private school gives us no autonomy and micromanages absolutely everything.  The worst offenders have absolutely no classroom experience, of course.  Unfortunately, this school is tending more toward the diploma mill model.

[infopri]

I have two gigs.  My state school is great.  They treat faculty like professionals and basically leave us alone unless there are complaints.  My private school breathes down their faculty's neck at every waking moment.

I have two gigs as well, with exactly the opposite experience: The private school barely pays attention to what I do, while the state school (in a different state) has pretty much scheduled even my bathroom breaks, or so it seems.  And the state school isn't even an online gig,  but a face-to-face one--but the delivery method doesn't seem to matter, actually.  I'd have the same micromanagement at the state school even if it were an online gig, and the private school also barely pays attention when I teach on campus.  FWIW, though, when I taught (face to face) at a state school in MyCity's state, I had a lot more autonomy than I do here at the state school in Somewhere Warm--so maybe it depends on which state system you're in.

It could be.  My state school gives us a general outline of what they'd like covered in the course, but we have otherwise full autonomy as far as picking books, syllabus, etc.  (I teach both online and face-to-face there).  My private school gives us no autonomy and micromanages absolutely everything.  The worst offenders have absolutely no classroom experience, of course.  Unfortunately, this school is tending more toward the diploma mill model.

My current state school dictates 12 pages worth of syllabus boilerplate (in other words, I have to follow their format and just fill in the predetermined blanks, determines where the cut-offs are between A, B, C, D, and F grades, requires a certain number and schedule of assignments, and on and on and on.  After seeing their application process (don't even ask me about that!), I shouldn't be surprised.

The private school, on the other hand, requires only that I turn in a syllabus a week before classes start, that I have the required number of contact hours, and that I get my grades turned in on time.  That's about it.