Pay. Pay. Pay. Pay. VERY low pay for a full-time faculty position with very little to no chances of increasing your income or ever getting a raise. Usually, the only way to increase your salary as a full-time faculty member is to promote from Instructor to Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to Full Professor...which takes over a decade to reach the top if you start at the Instructor level. The pay increases with each title step up are not substantial in the least and require YEARS of documentation to show that you're "worthy." Once you hit the full Professor level there is no were to go...and no more pay raises unless EVERYONE gets a raise...which is extremely rare!
Just a few years back the pay for someone starting at the Instructor level started at a whopping $32k a year...for a job that requires a Masters! I believe it's now mid-40s. A lot of this is due to lack of a union. Faculty have no real clout or power in dealing with management. The only other way to increase your salary is to teach an overload as an adjunct at a mere $2,150 a semester per 3-unit class.
New Orleans used to be a fairly cheap city to live in, but housing costs have EXPLODED due to the state's housing insurance crisis which makes living off a Delgado salary that much harder.
If I had kids, I bet we would possibly qualify for some kind of assistance. I can barely live on my salary as a single person. It's not uncommon for my students to make more than me working jobs in the hospitality industry, for example.
It all makes me feel very sad because I really, really love the people and students there, but I'm constantly stressed about money. As a result, I've started applying elsewhere and considering leaving New Orleans entirely within the next year contributing to Louisiana's ongoing "brain drain."
The very low adjunct pay also results in management having to hire many less than stellar candidates just to get a warm body in the room which leads to student complaints about lack of a quality education. A bad reputation because of this is inevitable. An adjunct teaching the allowed maximum load at 12 credit hours a semester (just 3 hours less than full-time faculty!) is looking at around $17k a year! How many people can afford...or want...to take that kind of low paying work?
