The shift toward contingent faculty in the academic workforce is well documented; what’s less clear is the concentration of contingent faculty at different types of institutions, the nature of contingent faculty contracts, and the effect on student outcomes.

While reliance on part-time contingent faculty has helped constrain faculty compensation costs, it hasn’t produced the same level of savings in total compensation costs for all employees.

While they enjoy the work itself, adjunct faculty have concerns about salary, job security and retirement readiness.

The evolution of the faculty workforce model has far-reaching implications for colleges and universities, students and other stakeholders. Today, approximately 30% of faculty are tenure track.

The use of non-tenure-track and part-time faculty in U.S. colleges and universities is on the rise, altering the composition of the academic workforce in fundamental ways.

The faculty labor force in U.S. colleges and universities is increasingly off the tenure track and, often, working at less than full time. Aggregated data on this phenomenon mask significant differences in institutional commitments to these contingent forms of faculty employment.