There can no longer be any doubt in the minds of educators working in physical classrooms that the budget cuts to public education are resulting in fewer traditional faculty positions on college and university campuses. Of course, the secondary and elementary levels of the academy are being negatively affected by the same reductions in funds for teacher salaries and educators that work in these areas of public education should recognize that they are not any more secure in their academic employment than the adjunct college instructors often forced to teach for the few available community colleges, four-year state universities and technical schools within driving distance of their residences without being able to earn a viable living despite their heroic efforts. As a result of this set of circumstances it is time for academics to actively consider teaching online classes for a living.

The academic administrators forced to meet the academic needs of post-secondary student populations are fully aware of the cost efficiency of distance education technology when compared to maintaining physical college and university classrooms for the same educational purpose. Of course, as more online college courses become available each semester the college and university students themselves eagerly enroll in the growing number of online bachelor degree programs and online master degree programs because it makes more sense to earn an academic degree from a personal computer at home or at work than to drive a motor vehicle to a remote location at inconvenient hours of the day or evening for the purpose of earning a post-secondary education.

All of this means that it is now possible for an academic with an earned graduate degree, a master degree or doctorate, to earn an online adjunct income that can rival the traditional faculty salary earned on the physical campus. What is more, an aggressive online adjunct instructor coordinating an online teaching schedule containing six to ten online college classes and generate regular income from online college degree programs with community colleges, for-profit colleges and state universities throughout the entire calendar year. Additionally, the fact that there are over five thousand post-secondary academic institutions that offer some form of distance education to their enrolled college and university students means that an online college professor can scale an online teaching schedule up or down in terms of the number of online classes in at any given time. For example, if an online instructor wants to earn more money teaching online from a personal computer can easily do so by applying to additional online degree programs and the online teacher that wants to decrease the online teaching load can easily decline offered online courses and thereby reduce the online teaching obligations.

Ultimately, the transition out of the physical classroom and into an online teaching schedule will result from the educator’s desire to continue earning a living from the delivery of educational instruction and the increasing deep budget cuts to public education funds required to continue pay traditional faculty salaries.