It's all about margins. They want to squeeze teachers and get minimum-wage adjuncts to teach 1st years. At the same time, they want future rich people to be students, so they will donate back.

Harvard, MIT, and Oxford have no problem finding future rich people. Random schools can't compete for smart people, so it makes sense for them to try to find prospects based on alternative criteria.

far from a shortage, there’s a surplus of phds in almost every discipline. despite charging the highest tuition ever and sitting on massive endowments, the mbas in university administration don’t want to have to pay for them

Why would they even need phds at all. Teaching first year student should be more of a side job thing.

I think you're misunderstanding the challenge. Teaching first year students doesn't require Ph.D.-level knowledge, but it requires more teaching experience and skills than teaching later levels: The classes are larger; the students are less experienced at learning on their own; the students are new to the environment and less familiar with how to navigate it.

Large classes of novices are particularly sensitive to logistical and teaching errors. You make a question on a homework or exam a bit confusing, you have 400 students utterly perplexed who may not have the domain expertise to know it's the question that's broken.

At Carnegie Mellon, our teaching-track faculty generally own the large intro classes for this reason. They're the best we have at the process of teaching & education. It's the exact opposite of a side job. You want people who are deeply expert and passionate about teaching so that you don't completely botch the job, because the opportunities to botch it are huge.

It also takes a lot of expertise to understand why certain subjects are introduced in intro courses, and to frame those ideas in a way that will help those students learn more advanced topics.

It doesn't require Ph.D. level knowledge, but it helps a lot, especially when you're talking to one of those few students with more and deeper questions about the subject.

If you’re representing the college, how do you know the individual you’re about to hire has sufficient knowledge to both teach the material and cover any questions on the material students may raise.

Just like any other skilled job, there is an interview process.

The local community college will have openings for adjuncts. You go first and teach a semester, then you'll have a better understanding of the problem field.

> I find it hard to believe there's a shortage of people capable of teaching 1st year students, so this seems like a problem of artificial scarcity. reply

The supply is short because at least in the US, entry pay is low in higher ed.

- $25/hour w/ benefits for semi-skilled labor - $42k/year no benefits for adjunct

Sounds more like the supply is overflowing that they can charge factory rated for it. Same reason flight instructors are so cheap.

Nope. They are having problems filling positions because the market has given people a better, higher paying option.