Contracts are making academics ‘intellectually homeless’

A few years ago, a professor teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – one of the most prestigious public universities in the United States – revealed that he was homeless.

Despite holding a doctoral degree and teaching at an institution associated with academic excellence and social mobility, he could not afford housing in the city where he worked. Media reports described how he slept in his car, showered at a gym and continued teaching classes while navigating the realities of homelessness.

The story attracted widespread attention because it challenged one of society’s enduring assumptions about higher education: that university professors enjoy stable, secure, middle-class lives. Yet the case was not an isolated anomaly.

Surveys by the American Federation of Teachers have documented food insecurity, housing insecurity and financial hardship among contingent faculty across the United States.

Many adjunct instructors piece together livelihoods by teaching at multiple institutions, taking second jobs or relying on family support. The homeless professor represents more than an individual tragedy. He symbolises a profound transformation underway within universities around the world. Institutions once organised around stable communities of scholars increasingly depend upon temporary, part-time and contract-based academic labour.

The traditional professor, protected by tenure and integrated into the intellectual life of the university, is gradually being replaced by a workforce whose employment conditions increasingly resemble those of the gig economy.

This phenomenon – commonly known as adjunctification or the casualisation of academic labour – has become one of the defining features of contemporary higher education. While terminology differs across countries, the trend is remarkably similar.

Across continents, universities are witnessing the emergence of a new academic precariat. UNESCO sees adjunctification as a systemic, global problem that undermines job security, academic freedom and career attractiveness.

From scholar to gig worker

The modern university was built upon a simple but powerful principle: scholars require a degree of security to pursue truth. The institution of tenure emerged not as a professional privilege but as a safeguard for academic freedom. Universities recognised that scholars must be able to challenge prevailing assumptions, investigate controversial questions and pursue long-term intellectual projects without fear of losing their livelihoods.

The tenure system developed during the early 20th century in response to concerns about political interference, religious pressure and donor influence. Universities increasingly accepted that scholarship could flourish only when intellectual inquiry was protected from external coercion. Over time, tenure became a defining feature of academic employment and gradually influenced the organisation of university systems internationally.

The decades following the Second World War represented the high point of this model.

Expanding public investment, growing enrolments and sustained economic growth enabled universities to create large numbers of permanent academic positions. Faculty members were expected not merely to teach but also to conduct research, mentor students, participate in governance and contribute to public life. Universities increasingly saw themselves as communities of scholars rather than educational service providers.

Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, however, this settlement came under pressure.

Governments faced fiscal constraints, public funding failed to keep pace with enrolment growth and universities encountered increasing demands for accountability, efficiency and measurable outcomes. What emerged was a new model of higher education governance in which flexibility and cost control often displaced security and collegiality as organising principles.

Universities increasingly rely on contingent faculty – adjunct instructors, lecturers, sessional academics, teaching fellows and fixed-term researchers. What began as a mechanism for addressing temporary instructional needs gradually evolved into a permanent workforce strategy.

The shift is particularly visible in the United States. According to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), approximately 68% of faculty appointments now fall outside the tenure system, leaving only about one-third of faculty in tenured or tenure-track positions.

In 1987, by contrast, roughly 53% of faculty were in tenured or tenure-track roles, showing a long-term shift from a predominantly tenure-line workforce to a predominantly contingent one.

Similar patterns, though varying in form and intensity, can be observed throughout the English-speaking world and increasingly across Europe and other regions.

The result has been the emergence of what many observers describe as the academic precariat: highly educated professionals performing essential academic work under conditions of chronic insecurity.

Where flexibility breeds insecurity

The rise of contingent academic labour did not occur by accident. It emerged from broader changes in the financing and governance of higher education.

Since the late 20th century, universities in many countries have been increasingly influenced by market-orientated reforms emphasising competition, efficiency, accountability and reduced public expenditure. As governments limited or reduced public funding, institutions sought alternative revenue streams through tuition fees, international student recruitment, commercial partnerships and entrepreneurial activities.

Adjunctification is closely connected to the massification of higher education. During the second half of the 20th century, university participation expanded dramatically across much of the world. Institutions originally designed to educate social elites were transformed into mass systems serving increasingly diverse populations.

Expansion created new financial pressures. Governments often encouraged growth without providing proportional increases in public funding. Universities therefore sought ways to accommodate larger numbers of students while controlling costs.

Contingent labour offered an attractive solution. Adjunct faculty could be hired on demand, assigned large teaching loads and released when enrolment patterns shifted. Unlike permanent faculty, they generated few long-term financial obligations related to pensions, sabbaticals, promotion systems or research support.

At the same time, many universities experienced significant administrative growth. New offices emerged to manage compliance, marketing, student recruitment, rankings, strategic planning, quality assurance, fundraising and digital transformation. While some of these functions responded to genuine institutional needs, critics argue that administrative expansion often occurred alongside the contraction of permanent academic employment.

The result was a gradual reallocation of institutional resources. Universities increasingly invested in management systems, infrastructure, branding and market positioning while relying on contingent instructors to deliver a growing share of teaching.

The language used to justify these developments is revealing. Universities speak of agility, innovation, responsiveness and efficiency. Yet flexibility is not experienced equally. For institutions, flexibility means organisational adaptability. For contingent academics, it often means uncertain income, short-term contracts and interrupted careers. The university’s flexibility increasingly depends upon someone else’s insecurity.

Casualisation goes global

Although adjunctification is often discussed as an American problem, the casualisation of academic labour has become a global phenomenon.

In the United States, the scale of the transformation is especially striking. Community colleges and regional universities rely heavily on adjunct instructors (almost three-quarters), while even elite research institutions increasingly use non-tenure-track faculty for core teaching functions. Many adjuncts are paid by the course, receive few benefits and remain largely excluded from governance despite teaching substantial numbers of students.

The United Kingdom illustrates how market-orientated reforms can reshape academic labour. Following the introduction and subsequent expansion of tuition fees, universities increasingly operated within a competitive environment where student recruitment became closely linked to institutional revenue. Casualisation expanded accordingly.

Research-intensive universities often depend heavily on fixed-term researchers whose employment is tied to grant cycles, while hourly paid instructors shoulder substantial teaching responsibilities.

The University and College Union (UCU) has repeatedly placed casualisation at the centre of national industrial action, arguing that employment insecurity has become one of the defining characteristics of British higher education.

Australia’s higher education system has become one of the most heavily casualised in the world. Universities became increasingly dependent on international student revenue, particularly during the decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. This created incentives for staffing models capable of expanding and contracting rapidly in response to enrolment fluctuations.

Sessional academics became central to teaching operations. In 2023, casual staff made up 64.7% of the full-time equivalent workforce in teaching-focused roles according to 2024 Department of Education figures.

Although labour reforms and union campaigns have encouraged some institutions to convert long-serving casual staff into continuing positions, precarious employment remains deeply embedded within the sector.

Continental Europe presents a somewhat different picture. Germany’s challenge is less undergraduate adjunctification than postdoctoral precarity. Under the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (WissZeitVG), scholars often move through a succession of temporary appointments while competing for a limited number of permanent professorships.

Critics argue that the resulting bottleneck delays career stability and encourages the departure of talented researchers from academia.

Across France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, the post-war expansion of higher education, combined with fiscal constraints and massification from the 1980s onwards, produced a structural shift towards temporary, fixed-term and non-tenure-track contracts for early-career researchers. This pattern is widely recognised in European Commission reports and national higher education labour studies.

In Latin America, the rapid expansion of higher education has frequently outpaced investment in permanent staff, forcing many institutions to rely on hourly paid instructors who move between campuses throughout the day in search of a liveable income.

In countries such as Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, these educators are often referred to as ‘taxi professors’, capturing a structural condition where a professor must teach a morning class at one institution, travel across the city to another campus in the afternoon and conclude the day with evening lectures elsewhere.

Across many African countries, universities manage limited resources and rapid enrolment growth through temporary appointments, reinforcing a cycle of precarity that drives a continuous brain drain of highly qualified academics migrating abroad for stable employment.

In South Africa, for instance, data indicates that nearly two-thirds of the academic workforce occupy temporary positions, a vulnerability that disproportionately impacts close to 90% of scholars under the age of 30.

Similarly, in countries like Kenya, rapid institutional expansion has created a heavy reliance on underpaid, hourly adjuncts who frequently endure prolonged wage delays alongside overwhelming teaching loads. Denied the institutional stability, research support and benefits necessary to build sustainable local careers, a critical mass of highly qualified PhD holders and senior lecturers choose migration over stagnation.

In Nepal, the rapid expansion of higher education, private colleges and affiliated campuses has produced the figure of the ‘helmet professor’. The term refers to lecturers who spend their days rushing between campuses on motorcycles, arriving moments before class begins and departing immediately afterward to reach another teaching assignment elsewhere. Their helmets remain on until the last possible moment because every minute counts.

Because few institutions offer sufficient salaries or stable appointments, many academics must teach simultaneously at multiple colleges to assemble an income, turning academic labour into educational piecework where the scholar becomes a commuter between institutions rather than an active member of an academic community.

The structural mechanisms differ. Some systems are shaped by market competition, others by state regulation, funding constraints or post-doctoral bottlenecks. Yet the outcome is remarkably similar. Across continents, universities increasingly depend on workers who teach, mentor and sustain institutional life while lacking many of the protections traditionally associated with academic employment.

Left out of the academic community

Statistics reveal the scale of adjunctification, but numbers alone cannot capture what it feels like to inhabit the contemporary university as a contingent academic.

One of the most powerful attempts to describe this condition comes from adjunct scholar Ashraf Hazeyen, who uses the phrase “intellectual homelessness” to describe educators who teach within universities while remaining excluded from many of the structures that provide belonging, continuity and recognition.

His analysis highlights the human consequences of academic precarity beyond questions of salary or employment status. His insight points towards a broader condition that might be described as academic displacement.

The issue is not simply low pay, temporary contracts or the absence of benefits. It is the gradual separation of scholars from the places, communities, governance structures and long-term horizons that traditionally anchored academic life.

This displacement operates in several ways. First, there is displacement from place. Many contingent academics lack offices or permanent workspaces. They move between campuses and classrooms, meeting students in libraries, hallways or coffee shops. They work within the university but possess little physical claim upon it.

Second, there is displacement from time. Academic work depends upon continuity. Research agendas unfold over years, mentoring relationships develop gradually and intellectual projects require sustained commitment. Precarious employment fragments this temporal horizon. Contracts often last only a semester or a year, making long-term planning difficult.

Third, there is displacement from governance. Universities have historically distinguished themselves through traditions of shared governance, yet contingent faculty often remain excluded from the structures through which institutions make decisions. They teach large numbers of students while possessing little voice in determining institutional priorities.

Finally, there is displacement from the intellectual community itself. Universities are sustained not only by formal structures but by conversations, collaborations, seminars and mentoring relationships. Heavy teaching loads and movement between institutions often leave contingent academics with little time or opportunity to participate fully in these communities.

The losses are frequently invisible: books never written, projects abandoned, collaborations unrealised, promising scholars leaving academia altogether.

Academic displacement therefore represents more than employment insecurity. It reflects a deeper transformation in the relationship between scholars and the institutions they serve.

Gig labour approach impacts

The consequences of adjunctification extend far beyond employment conditions. Students are among the first to feel the effects. Contingent faculty are often dedicated and talented teachers, but heavy workloads and constant movement between institutions limit their capacity to provide mentorship, detailed feedback and sustained engagement. The issue is not commitment; it is time.

Academic freedom may also come under pressure. Tenure was designed to protect intellectual independence. Contingent instructors operating under the possibility of contract non-renewal may think carefully before challenging institutional policies, assigning controversial materials or engaging in unpopular public debates. The result is rarely overt censorship. More often, it is self-censorship.

Research suffers as well. Long-term scholarly projects require stability. Heavy teaching loads and temporary appointments make sustained inquiry increasingly difficult. The costs are measured not only in what scholars produce but also in what they are prevented from producing.

There are also broader implications for knowledge production itself. Universities serve as society’s principal institutions for preserving, transmitting and generating knowledge. Their effectiveness depends not only on infrastructure and technology but also on the stability of the communities that produce scholarship.

Research consistently shows that innovation flourishes in environments characterised by trust, collaboration, institutional support and long-term investment. When large segments of the academic workforce operate under conditions of uncertainty, universities risk undermining precisely those conditions that make scholarly creativity possible.

Institutions themselves lose continuity. Departments characterised by constant turnover struggle to maintain institutional memory, traditions and collective knowledge. Governance becomes increasingly detached from those performing much of the institution’s teaching mission.

More fundamentally, adjunctification alters the character of the university. Faculty increasingly become service providers rather than members of a scholarly community. Academic work becomes fragmented into discrete tasks and measurable outputs. The language of citizenship, stewardship and collegiality gives way to the language of contracts, performance indicators and efficiency.

The danger is not that universities will disappear. The danger is that they will survive while becoming something fundamentally different: less a community of scholars and more an educational corporation organised around the delivery of services.

Policy actions for employers

The UNESCO SDG Brief assigns complementary responsibilities to governments and higher education institutions in addressing precarity and improving academic working conditions.

Governments are expected to create the structural conditions for decent work by ensuring predictable and adequate public funding, regulating the use of temporary contracts and establishing clear rules on contract duration, renewal limits and pathways to permanent employment.

They are also responsible for setting national labour standards, updating salary scales for public sector academics, recognising foreign qualifications and simplifying administrative procedures for hiring migrant and refugee scholars. In addition, governments must guarantee the right to unionise and extend collective bargaining coverage to all categories of higher education workers.

Universities, as direct employers, are tasked with translating these frameworks into fair and transparent employment practices. The UNESCO brief emphasises that institutions should restrict temporary and part-time contracts to genuinely short-term needs, increase the share of permanent or tenure-track positions and ensure living wages and equitable career progression for interns, junior researchers and part-time lecturers.

Universities are also responsible for creating supportive working environments by balancing performance expectations across teaching, research and engagement; safeguarding work-life balance; and providing childcare and mental health support where possible.

As employers, they must enforce robust anti-discrimination and anti-harassment protocols, monitor working conditions for subcontracted staff and ensure that all workers – regardless of contract type – have access to representation and institutional voice.

Together, these actions outline a shared governance model in which governments provide the regulatory and financial foundations for decent work, while universities uphold these standards in their day-to-day employment practices.

Who belongs in the university?

The image of a professor sleeping in his car captures a contradiction at the heart of contemporary higher education. Universities have never possessed greater physical resources. They build innovation hubs, digital campuses, research centres and state-of-the-art facilities. Their strategic plans celebrate excellence, impact, competitiveness and transformation.

Yet amid these achievements, a simpler question demands attention: who belongs within the university? The rise of adjunctification suggests that an increasing number of educators occupy an ambiguous position. They teach within the university without being fully part of it.

They sustain its mission while remaining excluded from its security. They contribute to its success while bearing disproportionate risks.

A university may survive with a workforce dominated by temporary contracts. It may continue producing degrees, rankings and research outputs. But survival and flourishing are not the same thing.

The university’s greatest achievements have never been its buildings, budgets, technologies or rankings. They have been the communities of scholars who devoted their lives to enquiry, teaching, discovery and mentorship.

The homeless professor who opened this article is not simply an unfortunate exception. He is a warning. He reminds us that universities may continue to expand their campuses, climb global rankings and celebrate innovation, yet still fail at a more fundamental task: providing a durable intellectual home for those who create and transmit knowledge.

The future of higher education may ultimately depend on whether universities continue to treat academic labour as a disposable cost or once again recognise scholars as the foundation of the institution itself.

Min Bahadur Bista is a former professor of education at Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and a former education specialist with UNESCO, with experience across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. He currently works as an independent education consultant, specialising in education policy, governance and reform and writes on global education issues.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.