Also likely delivering a much higher-quality work. But this kind of better-work-lower-pay situation is not something you can plan for or base your business around. I can see this messing things up in interesting ways.

Mixed thoughts on this. On one hand I can see "higher quality work", but on the other I can see plenty of situations where the moonlighting adjunct prof with a full time gig won't be 'higher quality'. They'll likely have much more limited time to help students, grade papers, etc. They don't really have an incentive to actually try to get better at the teaching part.

And they don't do it semester after semester, which of course can be a bad thing or a good thing, but if anything surely hones an instructor's understanding of the student body.

right - that's sort of the point I was getting at, but not very well. There's a certain nuance to successful teaching that takes time to master, regardless of the subject material. Not everyone gets it, of course, but most of the instructors I've had who were really good at it were, in fact, older and more practiced instructors (across all disciplines). Using adjuncts to supplement gaps now and then is OK, but when a large portion of your staff is temp adjuncts, the quality of instruction has to be lower.

> Also likely delivering a much higher-quality work.

Unless something more important steps in. If someone is only being paid $3,500 for 14 weeks of work, if a $10,000 in a week contract pops up, they're going to blow off the class, I assure you.