Saturday, October 27, 2007

working for "the man"

Working for the University of Phoenix has been a nice bonus but I'm starting to experience a few problems. First is the economics of higher education. I am hired as a private contractor, meaning they don't have to pay any benefits, plus I'm supposed to come up with all the materials and resources for my own classes. I get paid a little under $1,000 per class and each student pays a little over $1,000 per class. That's a comfortable profit margin.
Second, they have decided that I can teach everything so the past four classes assigned me, three were new. Two of them psychology classes which I'm not too strong in anyway.
Third, there was a scheduling mix-up so they tabbed me to pick up a geography class, a week before it started. Its one I've taught so I wasn't too concerned until I looked more closely at the schedule and realized they had scheduled me over another class. They told me they would get me a sub for that night, now what I'm waiting to see is if they dock me pay for having to get a sub even tho its their fault. Oh well, I've almost made enough off of them to pay off my student loan, which was the original intent.

3 comments:

Jan said...

Sounds like they are making TONS of money. Maybe you should start your own adult education university. You could be the teacher for all of the subjects and people could pay you instead. I'd be willing to teach classes on line. For $2000 per class.

Beetle said...

And I'll be your TA, but I cost $300 per student.

Aunt Soup said...

I think you should think of your teaching as a public service. You leave the students with an increased understanding of the world. They love your classes. Give everyone A's and it's a win-win.
By the way, I have tagged you. Go to my blog to find out what that means. ;)