Academics are turning to sex work and sleeping in cars due to poverty

An adjunct instructor who asked to hide her identity stated that she loves teaching and helping young students to become great thinkers. However, her job as a university lecturer cannot supplement her financial needs and so she does sex work.

Many adjuncts are doing sex work to survive, and they got Medicaid. It’s hard not earning enough to have a decent home or a meal, and so they turn to the only thing that can help them financially survive.

An adjuncts’ cookbook is even available, it teaches how to turn scraps of meat, bones of chicken and even orange peel into a full meal.

According to a 2014 survey, the yearly income of adjuncts is only $22,041, and the full-time faculty is $47,500 a year.

Adjuncts are suffering from poverty. Because of their dedication to their job, they allow themselves to be paid very cheaply without health benefits.

An American Sociological Association taskforce mentioned that academic faculty teaching is not a stable job anymore.

Caprice Lawless, a 65-year old teacher needed to mortgage her house over and over and received three housemates in order to survive, and she is still buried in debt,  The Guardian reports.

61-year old lecturer Mindy Percival with a doctorate degree from Columbia lives in a mobile home shack and is always on the brink of homelessness.

Teacher Ellen Tara James-Penney and her husband Jim are homeless.

American Association of University Professors Executive Director Julie Schmid said that adjuncts are joining a union and some got 5-20% increase.

Adjuncts Mary-Faith Cerasoli, 56, and Rebecca Snow, 51, quit teaching and felt free.

Adjunct life is a choice for many, and it is also a choice to break free from the chains. For some, teaching is a dream and homelessness and poverty are the reality.