On #PSLF: Public Statement to US #DoE on 30 hour rule

…guest post by Meg Feeley, originally posted to the adj-l listserv, Contingent Academics Mailing List, October 23, 2014

Please consider clicking through to the comments page for the U.S. Department of Education. Tell them you reject their '30 hour' rule for academics as outside the industry norm, and support a 'one class' rule: anyone who teaches one class (and is not employed full-time elsewhere) should be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. You may submit comments anonymously.

Spread the word! You have until Nov 4th to submit comments here (click the "comment now" button):

Here is the public comment I submitted which has not yet been published.

DOL Doesn’t have a Clue: Handbook Description of Higher Ed Teaching a Work of Fiction

Accordingly, Matt Williams writes,  

I have created a petition addressed to U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis requesting that the DOL revise and update their characterization of the profession. Please take a moment to add your name to the petition.

Setting background for his petition, Matt explains, reposting from his akronadjunct blog,

How can our own government get it so incredibly wrong? The U.S. Department of Labor publishes occupational outlook data in its Occupational Outlook Handbook. This publication (available online at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/) reports median and average salaries for various occupations along with details about types and amount of education typically required to enter professions, typical working conditions, total number of jobs, growth or contraction outlook, etc.


The DOL OOH (pronounced “doooh!”…the L is silent) identifies the median salary for college professors (i.e., postsecondary teachers) to be $62,050. The median wage is the wage at which half of the workers in the occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. Median wage data are from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics survey.