It’s hardly news that the use of contingent faculty—those working off the tenure track, full-time, part-time or as graduate assistants—is on the rise. Ronald Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institution (CHERI) quantifies that trend in a new report, linking it to changes in the ethnicity and gender of modern faculty, among other things.

In 1975, nearly 57 percent of American faculty were full-time, tenure-track; by 2003, that number fell to 35 percent. Ehrenberg attributes the shift away from tenure to administrators influenced by financial pressures and attracted to the flexible contracts of less expensive contingents. He shows, however, that an increase in nontenure-track faculty can correspond to a decline in the quality of education, evident in decreased graduation rates associated with increased reliance on contingents.

As these faculty members are typically focused on teaching rather than research, their students may miss out on the proximity to newly developed ideas and theories in their field. This, along with the knowledge that there will be few tenure-track jobs available upon graduation, may keep them from academic careers, says Ehrenberg.

With fewer American students entering Ph.D. programs, then, international students are becoming the norm. In 2003, 26 percent of all U.S. Ph.D. degrees granted went to temporary U.S. residents, up from just 10 percent in 1973, and they earned 55 percent of engineering Ph.D.s.

The gender balance also has shifted—but only at one end of the pipeline. While more women now earn Ph.D.s, few find tenured positions. One reason may be family: Ehrenberg shows that men who have children within five years of earning their Ph.D.s are 38 percent more likely to get tenure than women in the same situation. Women with tenure are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to be single.

Ehrenberg does point out some fixes for this trend, outlined by policies at the University of California and including flexible part-time options, quality child care and overlooking family-related resume gaps during the hiring process.

Other challenges to the faculty work force include compensation differentials: In a world where the average business professor earns 213.5 percent more than an English professor, as Ehrenberg shows, gaps between the humanities and more lucrative subjects like science and business are widening.

In subject areas popular in the marketplace, new hires earn significantly more than their seniors, creating a different kind of salary gap. At the same time, faculty are trending older: People may be postponing retiring because retirement benefits are not as attractive.

Ehrenberg mentions collective bargaining as one response to these challenges, but suggests it could constrain administrators who might prefer to operate unencumbered by faculty input. From a union perspective, however, faculty are the heart of the institutional mission—teaching and learning—and will remain integral players in puzzling out solutions to the challenges of higher education.

States face an urgent workforce challenge

A workforce supply deficit now brewing could spell an economic downturn for the nation if states don’t act, says the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (NCPPHE).

Using U.S. Census and National Center for Education Statistics data (and summarizing a report from the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems), the center
projects demographic shifts until 2020. By then, baby boomers—the most highly educated workforce in American history—will have left the workforce. Right now, the greatest increase in U.S. population growth is occurring among those racial/ethnic groups struggling the most with high school and college completion. If those rates don’t improve, the average personal income of Americans could decline, leading to less revenue to address the problems causing the decline.

Here’s what the statistics show:

■ From 1980 to 2020, the white working-age population is projected to decline from 82 percent to 63 percent.

■ During the same period, the minority portion of the workforce is projected to double from 18 percent to 37 percent—and within that group, Hispanics/Latinos will triple their proportion of the population, growing from 6 percent to 17 percent.

■ Meanwhile, in 2001, the portion of African-Americans completing high school was 49 percent and of Latinos was 53 percent. For whites, the high school completion rate was 75 percent. If these gaps remain, a greater proportion of the workforce will lack degrees at every postsecondary level.

The report finds that nearly every state’s workforce would be affected by the drop in average educational levels, but the states facing the most severe impacts are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and Texas.

As the American economy continues to become more knowledge-based, the global marketplace will provide more highly educated workers outside the United States. Canada, for example, currently leads the world in the percentage of its young working-age population (ages 25-35) with an associate’s degree or higher.

The NCPPHE points out that Americans are generally aware of the educational disparities between ethnic groups in our nation, but probably are not aware of the consequences of allowing trends to continue.

In fact, if current trends continue, the report shows, personal income per capita in the United States is projected to decline from $21,591 in 2000 to $21,196 in 2020—a drop of $395 or 2 percent in real terms. In contrast, personal income per capita grew 41 percent over the past 20 years.

“The high school diploma is no longer enough for people seeking good jobs, or for communities, states and the country to protect our standard of living,” says Patrick M. Callan,
NCPPHE president. Significant interventions at the state level will be required to keep the United States competitive and economically healthy.

You can download the policy alert at the NCPPHE Web site,
www.highereducation.org.