The Affordable Care Act takes effect Jan. 1, 2014. Part of the law’s unintended consequences will be its effect on higher education in New Jersey. IRS regulations declare that, when computing status for health care coverage, any employee working 30 hours a week or more are considered full time. This has already caused a reduction in hours for restaurant staff and retail workers. The regulations actually mention adjunct faculty as a special category.
Adjuncts usually receive no health benefits, are given assignments weeks or days before the start of the semester, and receive less than a full-time faculty member for teaching the same course. Nationwide, more than 70 percent of all higher ed faculty are contingent, at-will employees.
Some of New Jersey’s county colleges already plan to cut the number of credits adjuncts are teaching so they don’t have to pay for health coverage. This would be a financial disaster for many adjuncts who rely only on teaching for survival.
The colleges are taking the easy way out and penalizing one of the groups of workers who were supposed to be helped by Obamacare.
William J. Lipkin, United Adjunct Faculty of New Jersey
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