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Comment by ryen | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a source for these numbers? $100/hr is highly suspect for "students that graduated last year and were helping out as teachers".

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Define "hour". Hour in the classroom? Possibly. Assume a 12 week semester and 6 hours per week. Last time I taught a semester, I got about $5,000, so that is nominally $70 per hour.

However, that doesn't count time answering student questions. That doesn't count office hours. That doesn't count making up homework or tests and grading them.

For me, each class I teach is about 40 hours of work per week. If that is your number, then I got paid about $10 per hour. And I would have been better off at McDonalds as I would have gotten benefits for being full-time.

For those of us who like to teach, this is a Catch-22. It is good for students to have teachers who have been in industry--however, the pay is lousy relative to that same industry. At the same time, I would also be providing cheap labor to the university who should be paying someone a reasonable amount of money.

In my case it was hour in the classroom.

It did not account for answering questions by email, it did not account for grading them.

As I wrote below, if a teacher taught 8 hours of a class at 100$ / hr, he would be paid 800$, even if he has to spend 10 extra hours grading a student.

But to be honest they weren't giving that much homework, and only one test at the end of the class. I'd estimate for every 80 hours taught, there might have been only 10-15 extra hours. Which for 100$/hr or 300$/hr is worth it.

40 hours of work per week!? Eight hours a day, five days a week, for every class?

Yes.

I have to prep 2 3 hour lectures per week. Each lecture easily takes 8 hours to prep. 6 assignments--have to make them up, set up automated tests, get things set up in source code control, and help students when things come back wrong if they can't figure it out. A midterm and a final--have to make it up and correct it. Add in office hours as well as replying to students via email and I'm easily at 40 hours per week.

This is why so many teachers just prep once and regurgitate each class (including assignments and tests). It's just sooooo much less time consuming.

Don't feel bad. My poor TA (who was a student in a previous class I taught) was stunned too--"It takes this much time?!?!?! And you did this by yourself for our class?"

I had a family member working at the school. She knew all the salaries. I was often asking, and getting heart attacks when crappy teachers were getting paid 300$ /hr.

I've never heard of university teachers being paid per hour, rather than per-class (adjunct) or salaried. How do they account for time spent in course preparation, grading, and communicating with students out of classes?

I am also not familiar with for-profit universities though, which it sounds like maybe yours was?

I am still sort of thinking that something got misunderstood on the way from the family member sneaking peaks at salaries in the office, to you, to us.

The teachers are being paid by the hour, but it does not account for grading or anything done out of the class. This might be one of the reasons it is so expensive. If a teacher has one class that lasts 8 hours, and is paid 100$ /hr, he will end up with 800$, even if he has to spend 10 extra hours grading everyone.

My university was for profit, as I said it's a french based university. The director owns multiple Lamborghinis (not sure although if it is related to being for profit).

My family member was not sneaking peaks at salaries, she was the one hiring the teachers, signing contracts with the teachers, etc...

It seems very misleading to say that they are being paid $X/hour if the denominator is supposed to represent the number of class hours rather than the number of hours worked actually spent working. Everyone will assume the latter, so you should be explicit about that.

As everyone who has done any teaching knows, the time spent standing in front of a class is just a small part of the total required time.

Yes I do understand it, but it's the way they were giving out contracts at the school. I've seen one of them. It just says something like. You will be paid xxx$/h. Your course A has 40 hours. Your course B has 60 hours.

I mean it's fine for the contracts to be worded like that, it's spelled out and both parties understand it. It's confusing for you to come here and say that teachers make $100/hour, because people will assume that you mean for each hour worked. You should try to convert your numbers into the units that everyone else is using.

So at one of the numbers cited in the OP, $3000 per 3 credit course. That's generally 3 hours a week for a 16-week semester. Which would be $62.50 per hour of class time. While 40% less than your $100/hour figures--it puts it in perspective, $100/course hour isn't actually an enormous figure. I guarantee those teachers making "$100/hour" aren't driving lamborghinis.

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