Some California community college instructors are quietly earning six-figure — and in a few cases, nearly seven-figure — incomes by stacking teaching assignments across multiple campuses, according to a new CalMatters investigation that is raising eyebrows among faculty leaders statewide.
Take Thien Huong Ninh Villarreal, an ethnic studies instructor who holds full-time positions at both San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton and Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. On top of those two jobs, she also teaches part-time at seven additional community colleges and at Cal State Sacramento, and has taught at UC Berkeley in previous years. All told, her workload currently spans 30 classes and more than 1,100 students.
That kind of courseload paid off handsomely. In 2024, Ninh Villarreal earned nearly $800,000 — more than any community college administrator in the state that year, according to the CalMatters analysis.
She’s not alone. Reporters identified more than 70 instructors teaching simultaneously at five or more community college districts, Cal State campuses or University of California schools. Most rely heavily on pre-recorded online lectures, which let students watch coursework on their own schedule and allow instructors to juggle an extraordinary number of classes at once.
Several professors who taught at multiple institutions in 2024 brought home more than $340,000 — roughly what a typical community college president or chancellor earns. Many of these high earners held two separate full-time, tenure or tenure-track positions at once.
Part-time adjunct instructors can cash in too. Andrew Vanden Heuvel, who teaches astronomy, told CalMatters he made more than $750,000 in 2024 by teaching roughly 50 online courses and labs for students around the country, including several California community colleges.
Faculty union leaders say they aren’t surprised that adjunct instructors, who typically receive no benefits and often earn modest per-course pay, take on jobs at multiple institutions. Community colleges have long leaned on part-time faculty to control costs. But the scale of some instructors’ course loads — 30 or more classes at a time — stunned even veteran advocates.
“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, president of the community college council for the California Federation of Teachers. Mahler said he suspects some instructors are essentially running their courses on autopilot, pre-recording lectures once and then “just hitting play” for years afterward.
Homelessness counts show nationwide decline
Meanwhile, newly released federal data show homelessness fell more than 6% nationwide in 2026 — the sharpest year-over-year drop recorded in at least two decades.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual point-in-time count, conducted each January, found nearly 700,000 Americans were homeless this year, about 50,000 fewer than in 2025. California saw a smaller but still notable 3% decline.
The reasons behind the drop depend heavily on political perspective. HUD officials under the Trump administration credit the shift toward stricter criminal enforcement and expanded use of involuntary addiction and mental health treatment. But the National Alliance to End Homelessness points to a different explanation, arguing in its own analysis that the declines actually validate the “housing first” approach favored before Trump took office — a strategy that places people into permanent housing without requiring sobriety or treatment first.
Complicating both arguments: Homelessness also fell in California and across the country in January 2025, before any of the administration’s policies had taken effect.
Debate over housing sex offenders in San Diego County
In San Diego County, where half of California’s registered “sexually violent predators” currently reside, officials are weighing where — and how — to place offenders who are seeking release from state custody.
The state designates certain repeat sex offenders as sexually violent predators, or SVPs, due to their high risk of reoffending. After serving prison sentences, many are sent to state hospitals for continued treatment. Those who make sufficient progress can petition for conditional release, at which point a judge reviews proposed housing arrangements and security measures such as GPS monitoring. Currently, 14 SVPs statewide are living under conditional release, with seven of them in San Diego County.
As the county court considers placing additional offenders into residential neighborhoods, County Supervisor Joel Anderson is pushing a different approach. He wants San Diego County to adopt a model used in Washington state, which houses sexually violent predators together in secure group homes with 24-hour supervision rather than scattering them through residential communities.
“The community benefits. The cost of it decreases. And the quality of care for the SVPs increases,” Anderson said. “Statistically, the Washington model has been far more successful.” He’s now hoping to convince the county court system to pilot the group-housing concept locally.
Original source: CalMatters
