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All prospective online adjunct instructors need to understand that traditional academic institutions at the post-secondary level, community colleges, state colleges and four-year universities, are migrating to online college classes as a financial necessity. The costs associated with expanding and maintain a large physical plant such as a university campus is forcing the adoption of distance education technology at a very fast pace. The implementation of online bachelor degree programs and online master’s degree programs, both of which are populated with a host of online college classes needing academically and technically qualified online adjunct instructors to teach them, is literally changing the nature of the academic labor force. The future of academic instruction will be found on the Internet in the form of online college degree programs, and this transition will enable the college and university administrators to finance the traditional campuses. However, this different delivery system, one in the physical classroom versus one in an online college course, is creating many job openings for online instructors that simply did not exist before now.

Since practically every academic discipline is represented by online college degree programs, the opportunities for any person with a moderate mastery of computer skills and an earned graduate degree, a master’s degree or Ph.D., that wants to teaching at the post-secondary level to do so without having to physically arrive on a physical university or college campus. It is now possible for an adjunct college instructor to teach completely online from almost any place on the globe that offers access to the Internet. This means it is possible to teach students enrolled in online nursing schools, online nursing masters programs or in one of the many online degree programs leading to an online masters degree in education from any town, city or country. It is now possible to apply to teach online college courses in a college or community college thousands of miles away from the location of the online adjunct instructor.

However, the competition for these online adjunct faculty positions is increasing as a result of the downward economic pressure on all educators today. Plus, many secondary level educators have graduate degrees now because earning a degree beyond the bachelor level has been seen as a way to advance a traditional academic career. However, the immediate economic landscape leaves little room or opportunity to advance on the physical university campus or in the traditional secondary institution, so many educators will seek to teaching online in order to supplement their declining incomes from the regular employment or to completely replace their teaching income in the case of mass layoffs.

Despite the competition, the good news is that college and university students are quite happy to earn a library science degree online, an online business management degree or an online business administration degree from their computers at home or at work. Thus, the popularity of distance education in the form of online college degree programs will provide many job openings for online instructors as the years go by and academic acceptance of an online education becomes more widespread.