These part-time professors make big money teaching dozens of classes online. Are students learning?

As online classes proliferate, community college professors have found a hack — repackaging similar courses for hundreds of students at a time and teaching more than a dozen classes in a single semester.

Professor Thien-Huong Ninh Villarreal has at least two tenured, full-time community college jobs, plus recurring part-time gigs over the past 12 months at UC Berkeley, Cal State Sacramento and seven other community colleges. This fall, she’s teaching 30 sociology, ethnic studies and business classes to about 1,100 students.

In 2024, with roughly the same courseload, she made nearly $800,000, according to public payroll records. CalMatters reached out to her three times for comment, but she never responded.

Community college professors are expected to evaluate student progress and provide direct support without the help of teaching assistants, though that’s nearly impossible at such a scale, said Sarah Thompson, president of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. “Obviously no one has enough time in a week to teach 30 classes and do a good job, so that’s very problematic.”

However Chris Ferguson, an executive vice chancellor at the office overseeing California’s community colleges, said having multiple teaching jobs is not, by itself, evidence of poor instruction. In an emailed statement to CalMatters, Ferguson, who leads finance and strategic initiatives for the office, said multiple jobs would be a problem if the “faculty member’s workload is preventing the required level of engagement, feedback, assessment, or student support.” In that case, he said the college district — not the statewide college system — should be accountable.

CalMatters analyzed public payroll records from the non-profit Transparent California and corroborated those records with college course data. The analysis found at least 70 adjuncts, or part-time professors, who were paid by five or more community college districts, California State University or University of California campuses in the same year, including many who taught more than 10 classes in a semester.

Some of these professors were among the highest paid employees across California’s 116 community colleges. Ninh Villarreal made more than every community college administrator in 2024, even more than Sonya Christian, the chancellor of the state’s community college system, according to CalMatters’ analysis.

Most of the 70-plus professors did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Others asked CalMatters not to publish the data, which is publicly available, for fear of how it might affect their employment.

These professors aren’t breaking any rules. In fact, there are no rules that prevent community college adjuncts from teaching at more than one district.

Andrew Vanden Heuvel, an adjunct astronomy professor, told CalMatters he teaches roughly 50 online classes and labs from the office above his garage in a small town on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Almost all of his lectures are pre-recorded, and students can listen at any time. It’s called asynchronous instruction. At the UC, Cal State and especially at the state’s community colleges, these kinds of online classes are popular and widespread, a major shift since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vanden Heuvel said he has taught as many as 1,000 students a semester across the country, including in Santa Monica, Salinas, San Jose and Visalia, plus schools in New Mexico, Michigan, Washington and Florida. He said the classes use different iterations of the same, largely introductory content about stars, galaxies and the solar system. Students read information online, interact with online astronomical simulations, watch videos or submit labs.

“In its current form, I am not grading anything (by hand),” said Vanden Heuvel. All quizzes are multiple choice and computer-graded — a common feature among many online classes, not just Vanden Heuvel’s. Some students also submit written assignments, which he said he usually grades using an algorithm that only checks whether the work was submitted or not.

About 20% of his course load is in California, he said. “In California, I can get paid as much as eight times as much as I can in Florida.” In 2024, California schools paid him a total of about $320,000, according to the CalMatters analysis. Nationally, he made much more, he said. “Looking over my records, I can tell you that 2024 was the high water mark.” He said he made $758,485.12 that year.

Full-time professors cash in 

By law, adjunct faculty are generally limited to teaching three classes per semester at a single community college district, with each district setting its own rules. Most part-time jobs are precarious, with no healthcare, no guarantee of employment and all work assigned on a contract basis. Colleges can strip adjuncts of their classes — and their wages — with little notice.

For union and faculty leaders, who have long said adjuncts are underpaid and overworked, the workload of professors like Ninh Villarreal and Vanden Heuvel comes as a shock. “I don’t know how you can earn that much money, how you can have that many assignments. I mean that’s pretty wild,” said Jim Mahler, the president of the community college council for the California Federation of Teachers. He said he suspects some professors are simply recording their lectures and “just hitting play.”

To make more than $400,000, many of California’s highest earning adjuncts had full-time tenure or tenure-track positions too, the records show. For example:

• Bobby Seals, an ethnic studies professor, has a full-time position at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose. He also teaches 14 more courses across four other community college districts, plus San Jose State — a total of about 930 students this semester. 
• Faramarz Mortezaie is the chair of the computer science department at Mission College in Santa Clara. Part time, he also teaches 11 classes at other campuses, including San Jose State. 
• Nicholas Nardi, a full-time psychology professor at Santa Ana College, is teaching 11 more classes at six other schools, including Cal State Los Angeles.
• Timothy Durfield, a full-time business professor at Citrus College, teaches an additional 10 classes at four other community college districts. 
• Walter Meyer, a full-time art history professor at Santa Monica College, teaches 10 additional online classes to students in Los Angeles and Kern counties.

None of these professors responded to requests for comment.

Ninh Villarreal, the top earner, has often had at least two full-time jobs, according to college officials and public records. She’s been a tenured professor at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento since 2016. In 2023, she got a second full-time job at Reedley College near Fresno, though she returned to part-time status less than a year later. In 2025, she got tenure at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, and the same year, official college documents show she was the inaugural tenure-track faculty in the ethnic studies department at West Valley College in Saratoga near San Jose. Cade Story-Yetto, a spokesperson for the district encompassing West Valley College, said Ninh Villarreal is no longer employed there and refused to answer other questions.

CalMatters reached out to nearly every one of the state’s 73 community college districts, seeking feedback on our methodology before publication. Transparent California, part of a nonpartisan think tank advocating for limited government, obtained payroll information directly from the college districts. CalMatters then used that data to compile a list of professors who taught at five or more community college districts, Cal State or UC campuses in 2024, which is the most recent data. The data was corroborated using course catalogs, faculty directories and college hiring documents.

While some of the professors taught a few in-person classes, usually at Cal State or UC campuses, CalMatters’ analysis found that many of those who taught at five or more college districts relied heavily on online, asynchronous instruction.

No one is tracking it 

Universities treat online courses the same as in-person classes: students get the same amount of credit, and teachers are generally paid the same amount. As online courses have become more common, the UC, Cal State and community college systems have spent millions in state funding to ensure they have the same rigor as in-person courses.

Community colleges evaluate the quality of all courses, but they have no way of knowing what a professor’s workload really is. California’s community college districts are independently governed, and no one tracks who teaches across districts or how many classes they teach.

The Cal State and UC systems, which are smaller and more centralized than the community colleges, track employment and limit the number of courses each professor can teach. If the instructor is also teaching at a community college, however, they may have no way of knowing.

Vanden Heuvel, the astronomy professor, said he believes his students are getting an excellent education. “I teach at a certain number of schools because that portfolio gives me the stability I need as an adjunct to survive and thrive,” he said, pointing to his three kids, his wife, who is an elementary school teacher, and the need to be present with his family instead of driving from campus to campus each day. “Now, did I push it further than some people think is morally conscionable? I don't think so.”

Researchers say it’s not clear whether online courses are worse, or better, than traditional in-person education. Students, especially working adults who predominate the community college system, praise online courses for their convenience, but there are known drawbacks. Asynchronous classes in particular have historically offered students less interaction with their professors, which research has found is detrimental to student success.

How to teach 50 classes in a semester

Vanden Heuvel posts much of his course material on YouTube, where his channels collectively have nearly 5 million views, spread out over more than 300 videos. In his videos, he’s charismatic and personable, taking students into his car, even posting videos while on vacation at Disney World. His location isn’t a secret, he said — he has always been open about where he lives, both with California’s colleges and his students.

In fact, the first lesson in one of his classes is a video in which he introduces himself and takes students to his favorite place, Lake Michigan, where he first developed a love of astronomy.

State and federal laws require professors to interact with their students, especially in asynchronous online courses. Interaction could include fostering engagement in the classroom or monitoring students’ academic performance, wrote Ferguson, the finance vice chancellor, in his emailed statement. “These requirements apply to every course, regardless of how many colleges or districts employ the instructor.” The federal government has strengthened its own rules for online classes over the past few years.

Vanden Heuvel said he gives out his personal cell phone to all students and gets as many as 30 emails a day from them, mostly asking to extend assignment deadlines. He said he answers every email.

It would be very easy for students to cheat using AI, he said, especially because quizzes are multiple choice and most written assignments are graded only on completion. “The logic is the equivalent of the Scantron (a multiple-choice grading machine) at the large lecture hall. It’s a defensible instructional practice to assess that way. It’s how lots of assessments are run, be that the GRE or LSAT. I don’t love it.”

The promise of online education is to reach students at scale and lower the cost-per-student of education, he said — and that’s exactly what he’s doing by teaching 50 online classes and labs to as many as 1,000 students across the country. In some schools, especially in rural areas, Vanden Heuvel is the only astronomy professor.

He said his large-scale teaching practices represent his “most successful” experiment, though he acknowledged that many faculty won’t look so favorably upon it.

‘I’m not a factory of education like that’ 

Part-time faculty, who are cheaper to employ, outnumber tenure-track professors at every one of California’s 73 community college districts, in some cases by more than 5-1. The same imbalance is evident at many Cal State campuses, though their adjuncts, known as lecturers, can work full time and receive benefits. The UC, with a focus on research, has faculty categories that don’t exist at the Cal State or community college system, making comparisons tricky.

It’s well-known that adjuncts teach at multiple districts, but unions often say that they do it out of necessity. Tina Leonard, who teaches American Sign Language, is a perfect example. In 2024, she made just over $84,000 teaching at five community college districts.

“I am Deaf,” she wrote in an email, “and it is very difficult and competitive for a Deaf educator to get a full-time tenure-track position in ASL.” She said she took additional teaching jobs in 2024 to cover the cost of her taxes. “Each college withholds as if it is your only job, so when you add them all together, you can end up owing.”

K. Frindell, the president of a federation of faculty unions, the California Community College Independents, said she wasn’t surprised to see many faculty teaching in multiple districts, even some who are earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. “A loophole has been created,” she said — one that allows districts to cut costs by hiring adjuncts and allows adjuncts to teach at multiple districts.

In fact, the total number of community college adjuncts in California is unknown because statewide tallies do not account for professors who teach at multiple districts, said Ferguson. The Cal State system has the same data problem.

Adjuncts are often hired for the academic year and then rehired each fall. Numerous legislative proposals have tried but failed to give adjuncts opportunities for additional pay, benefits or full-time employment. In 2022, legislators tried to increase benefits for community college adjuncts, sending $200 million to districts that would then reimburse part-time faculty for health insurance. In the 2024-25 academic year, nearly 7,000 adjuncts used the program, very few of whom were teaching at multiple districts. Many districts chose not to participate, and most of the money remains unspent.

Noah Thomas, a community college art professor, said he looked into the new healthcare benefits but found them lacking. “It’s such a convoluted system and the subsidies are kind of pretty low,” he said. “The coverage only applies to me and not to any of my dependents and it’s only for 10 months out of the year because my contract is only 10 months.”

Thomas made just over $100,000 in 2024 by commuting among five community college districts in Orange and Los Angeles counties, where he taught in-person studio arts classes. Sometimes, the drives are so long, and the days so jam-packed that he eats lunch in his car, he said. “Financially I’d love to teach as many classes as I could. $800,000 sounds amazing. But I’m not a factory of education like that. I really love teaching students one-on-one and showing them how to actually cut out a piece of cardboard and use a band saw.”

The moral dilemma 

Frindell, who represents the independent community college unions, said the solution is not to focus on the professors who teach multiple online classes and earn high six-figure salaries. She wants to see an end to the low pay, precarious employment, and restrictive laws that force adjuncts to teach at multiple districts in the first place.

CalMatters asked higher education leaders in the state Assembly and Senate about adjuncts who are teaching at multiple schools. Alhambra Democratic Assemblymember Mike Fong, San Diego Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio and Riverside Democratic Sen. Sabrina Cervantes did not respond.

Because of state and federal rules that require professors to engage with their students, Vanden Heuvel redesigned some of his courses, adding new types of assignments. At times, he said the rules seem like they were “invented to prevent people from doing what I’m doing,” though he added that they are often ineffective if so. “What it feels like in practice is an administrative checked box that is not really connected to meaningful student experience.”

Still, he said he has sought reassurance from other educators about the moral implications of teaching so many students in so many classes, even if legally he is within bounds. “What they say to me, whether they're just being nice or not, is this sense that adjunct faculty are systematically taken advantage of by higher education, and if you have built a system that allows you to thrive while still providing excellent education, then more power to you.”

At the end of each semester, Vanden Heuvel said he asks his students to evaluate the course and that they consistently say it’s far above average in quality and knowledge gained and about average in difficulty. “There's always the sense of like, ‘Is what I'm doing OK or not OK? Am I pushing it a little too far or not?’”

He self-published a 600-page book that collects student reflections, mostly about how their relationship with planets, stars and galaxies changed because of his class. He said the book sits in his office, right near his desk.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.