I have started to apply for jobs outside of academia. It’s a decision I haven’t come to lightly, but after over eight years of being an adjunct professor, I don’t think I can afford to stay in this position for much longer. The sad thing is that this isn’t due to my spending habits or being bad at my job, it’s because academia is being run like a business rather than a school.

If you aren’t in academia, let me give you a primer on the job market: it’s shit. In most areas, there are very few jobs and lots of people graduating from grad school who loved their experience and want to be that professor for future students, so they all take up adjunct positions, which are contract-based, part-time teaching positions. Usually, you don’t get any benefits, you are paid very poorly, and you can’t have more than two classes per semester per school. Often, adjuncts work at two or three schools and have other part-time jobs on the side in hopes that it’ll make up the difference. The adjuncts who aren’t doing all of that have family money or a spouse with a really good job. When a position in your field opens, thousands of people apply all at once, so your chances of even getting an interview are incredibly low just based on numbers. If a position at your current employer opens, there’s an even lower chance since most schools won’t hire one of their adjuncts for full-time work. Don’t ask me why. I don’t get it either.

What ends up happening is that professors of color, queer professors, working class professors, and those with other marginalized identities have to work their asses off extra hard to get noticed on top of working extra jobs. You can be a stand out or be supported and appreciated by your department, like I am, and still have no chance of becoming a full-time professor with a stable paycheck because the university isn’t hiring. Professors retire, and their jobs aren’t filled. Other professors in the department pick up the slack and the lower level classes go to adjuncts. Partly this is due to the devaluation of the humanities in my case, but it’s also due to the political climate as students don’t see college as a safe bet, just a mountain of debt.

For the past eight years, I have loved teaching. I love teaching writing, I love my students, I love my school (which is also my alma mater), and I love my department. The problem is that I’m being exploited by the system, not the people around me, which makes it very hard to pull away. Higher ed relies on adjuncts to stay afloat. They exploit that so many of us want to teach our subject and will ignore our needs to do it. They bank on the fact that we’ll have outside monetary support and if we don’t that we’ll rely on Medicaid, SNAP, or other supports that they don’t need to provide. The problem is that at some point, this becomes unsustainable.

By the end of this semester, I could feel my brain and body fraying. It feels impossible to keep up, and with the current administration threatening to rip these support systems out from us, I’m extra stressed and frayed. All I’ve wanted was to be a writer, teach writing, and have a modest life with my partner, and that middle class dream feels impossible. In a moment of fleeting panic, I applied to one writing job, and then, I saw another online that looked right up my alley. I’m not quitting teaching or applying to every job I come across. I don’t want to trade one mess for another, but I’m tired of being ground down by a system that pays teachers nothing and administrators six figures. Apparently, it would cost too much to pay me fairly for my time, so I am looking for someone who thinks my skills are worth the expense.

What irks me is that I am a good professor. I’m good at my job. I give my students so much of myself and my time. I accommodate my students without paperwork. I do my best to anticipate their needs and make sure my marginalized students are supported while giving my international students the confidence to write well and have the space to learn and become more comfortable writing in English. As far as I know, I’m one of the only out trans professors on campus (if not the only), and if I leave, I will leave a gap behind. I know I’m easily replaceable to the administrators, but I would like to think that with the students and my department, I would be missed. I managed to cling on for over eight years because I’m white and live at home. Those less privileged than me have come and gone far quicker, and it shouldn’t be like this. Higher education pushes about those most motivated to help marginalized students because they aren’t willing to pay for our talent. In this age of people yelling about DEI, I have to ask where? Is the DEI in the room with us? Because most of the adjuncts and professors who are able to stick it out long enough to get hired are either very privileged or have worked themselves into the ground to get there.

While I’m not leaving teaching yet and won’t until I have a position lined up, I am eyeing the exits and hating that I am.