A philosophy graduate student writes:
I'm thinking about leaving my philosophy Ph.D. program with just my M.A. I love teaching philosophy, but the demands of a TT professorship no longer appeal to me. What are the prospects for teaching at a community college with just an M.A.? Has the bad job market in recent years caused an upsurge in hires of Ph.D.s at community colleges? Or do community colleges seek to hire M.A.s because they don't have to pay them as much? A quick search of several community colleges in my area shows that most of their websites don't give information on faculty education, and some don't even give lists of philosophy faculty. So, I've had a tough time determining the average level of education for a philosophy teacher at a community college just by looking online--much less details on the education of recent hires in particular. Any anecdotal or harder evidence would be appreciated. I see that the Leiter Reports dealt with this question in 2008 (http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/thinking-about.html),
but since a pretty bad market has persisted past then, I thought I'd ask.
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