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Comment by __xtrimsky | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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