Does Cheaper Mean Better? The Impact of Using Adjunct Instructors on Student Outcomes

Eric Bettinger; Bridget Terry Long

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00014

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Does Cheaper Mean Better? The Impact of Using Adjunct Instructors on Student Outcomes

Eric Bettinger¹; Bridget Terry Long²

¹ Stanford University · ² Harvard Graduate School of Education and NBER

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2010

Higher education has increasingly relied on part-time, adjunct instructors. Critics argue that adjuncts reduce educational quality because they often have less education than full-time professors. On the other hand, by specializing in teaching or being concurrently employed, adjuncts could enhance learning experiences. This paper quantifies how adjuncts affect subsequent student interest and course performance relative to full-time faculty using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits variation in the composition of a department's faculty over time. The results suggest that adjuncts often have a small, positive effect on enrollment patterns, especially in fields related to particular occupations.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00014
Volume: 92 (3)
Pages: 598-613
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: openalex crossref