I&#x27;m faculty at a regional university in the U.S. Our enrollment is dropping by 5% a year, and short term positions are becoming the norm. Tenure track positions are risky in that once you&#x27;ve got somebody with tenure, it&#x27;s difficult to get rid of them (intentionally). Short term positions give universities flexibility. We are not a Harvard or Yale with billions of dollars in endowments. Tuition is 80% of revenue, and our existence in 20 years is in no way guaranteed.<p>I don&#x27;t know how many universities are flush with cash and are just being stingy by using adjuncts, but where I work (small regional university), we have intense budget pressure. We&#x27;d have to raise tuition a lot to cover the cost of converting adjust to tenure-track positions.<p>I don&#x27;t like how adjuncts are treated, but seeing the problem from our administration&#x27;s point of view, I know why we have so many adjuncts.