These California part-time profs found a way to make $400K

We have a can’t miss story for you today revealing how a handful of enterprising college professors are pulling in very high incomes through online education, including one who made $750,000 in one year. 

Read on for more on that story, as well as a look at the debate over why homelessness is decreasing across the country and a piece on a conflict over the placement of former sex offenders in San Diego County. 

Thirty classes. Over 1,100 students. 

That’s the current workload of ethnic studies professor Thien Huong Ninh Villarreal, who holds full-time teaching jobs at both San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton and Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. She also teaches part-time at seven other community colleges and Cal State Sacramento. In past years, she’s taught at UC Berkeley too. 

A CalMatters investigation found over 70 professors who, like Ninh Villarreal, are teaching at five or more community college districts, Cal State or UC campuses. Most of these professors teach online courses where the material is pre-recorded and students can watch lectures whenever they want. 

It can be a lucrative business. With a similar courseload, Ninh Villarreal made nearly $800,000 in 2024 — more than any other community college administrator earned that year. Numerous other professors who taught at multiple schools in 2024 made well over $340,000, which is roughly the median pay for a community college president or chancellor. Many of these top earners had two full-time, tenure or tenure-track positions. 

Part-time professors, or adjuncts, can earn a lot too. Astronomy professor Andrew Vanden Heuvel told CalMatters that he made more than $750,000 in 2024 by teaching about 50 online classes and labs to students across the country, including at many California community colleges. 

Union or faculty leaders said they were not surprised community college professors, especially adjuncts, teach at multiple schools. Part-time professors in the community college system receive no benefits and sometimes, little pay. Community colleges rely heavily on adjuncts to help cut costs. 

But the notion that professors were teaching 30 or more classes came as a shock to some. 

• Jim Mahler, president of the community college council for the California Federation of Teachers: “I don’t know how you can earn that much money, how you can have that many assignments. I mean that’s pretty wild.”

Mahler added that he suspects some professors are simply recording their lectures and “just hitting play.”

Read more from CalMatters’ Adam Echelman and Mohamed Al Elew.