The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission

Class ends. Students pack up and head back to their dorms. The professor, meanwhile, goes to her car . . . to catch a little sleep, and then eat a cheeseburger in her lap before driving across the city to a different university to teach another, wholly different class. All for a paycheck that, once prep and grading are factored in, barely reaches minimum wage.

Welcome to the life of the mind in the gig economy. Over the past few decades, the job of college professor has been utterly transf...