But some adjuncts will get health insurance under Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act of 2011 requires employers with more than 50 full-time employees to provide health insurance if they work an average of 30 hours per week. The Obama administration says the mandate does cover adjuncts who spend that much time in their combined work in and outside the classroom.
The employer mandate to provide medical coverage was initially scheduled to go into effect next January. To avoid the added costs, at least two dozen colleges earlier this year cut the number of courses taught by adjuncts in order to keep them below the 30-hour threshold, according to media reports. Those schools, mostly public, are located in eight states. The course limits also reduced the already low incomes of part-time instructors.
“The idea of cutting back employees as a way to avoid a law clearly intended to extend health care coverage in itself is reprehensible,” says John Curtis, director of research and public policy at the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP.
Organizations representing colleges, however, contend the Affordable Care Act imposes a heavy financial burden on schools at a time when publicly funded ones, in particular, are coping with budget cuts.
“Things are very tight. Colleges’ budgets have been cut since the Great Recession started,” says David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges. “We’re seeing some real limitations.”
College organizations have also sought clarification from the Internal Revenue Service, which issued draft regulations in January on how to calculate the off-campus working hours of adjuncts. Colleges and the instructors themselves have not kept such timesheets. Unions that represent a small number of adjuncts and the AAUP have also asked the IRS to spell out timekeeping methods.
