California’s community colleges have a staffing loophole, and some instructors are using it to earn six-figure — even seven-figure — paychecks while juggling dozens of classes across multiple campuses at once, raising questions for students and faculty advocates across the Inland Empire and the rest of the state.
As online learning has expanded throughout California’s higher education system, some part-time instructors have found a way to multiply their course loads dramatically, packaging similar classes for hundreds of students simultaneously and teaching more than a dozen sections in a single semester.
One instructor, Thien-Huong Ninh Villarreal, holds at least two full-time tenured positions at community colleges while also picking up recurring part-time teaching assignments over the past year at UC Berkeley, Sacramento State and seven additional community colleges. This fall alone, she is teaching 30 sections of sociology, ethnic studies and business courses to roughly 1,100 students combined.
In 2024, with a nearly identical workload, she earned close to $800,000, according to public payroll records. CalMatters reached out to her three separate times seeking comment, but she never responded.
Community college instructors are generally expected to track student progress and provide direct academic support without teaching assistants — a near-impossible task at that scale, according to Sarah Thompson, president of the California Community College Faculty Association. “Obviously nobody has enough hours in a week to teach 30 classes and do it well, so this is very troubling,” she said.
Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor for the office that oversees California’s community colleges, said holding multiple teaching jobs isn’t by itself evidence of poor instruction. In a written statement to CalMatters, Ferguson, who oversees the office’s finances and strategic initiatives, said the practice becomes a problem only when an instructor’s workload prevents the level of student interaction, feedback, evaluation or support required by law. In those cases, he said, it falls to the local community college district — not the statewide system — to address it.
CalMatters examined public payroll data from the nonprofit Transparent California and cross-referenced it against course catalogs systemwide. The review found at least 70 adjunct, or part-time, instructors who received paychecks from five or more community college districts, Cal State campuses or UC campuses in the same year — many of them teaching more than 10 courses per semester.
Some of these instructors ranked among the highest-paid employees across California’s 116 community colleges. Ninh Villarreal out-earned every community college administrator in the state in 2024, including Sonya Christian, chancellor of the California Community Colleges system, according to CalMatters’ analysis.
Most of the more than 70 instructors identified did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A handful asked CalMatters not to publish publicly available data, citing fears about how it might affect their jobs.
None of these instructors are breaking any rules. In fact, no state regulation bars part-time community college faculty from teaching across multiple districts simultaneously.
Andrew Vanden Heuvel, an adjunct astronomy instructor, told CalMatters he teaches roughly 50 online classes and lab sections from an office above his garage in a small town along the shore of Lake Michigan.
Nearly all of his courses are prerecorded, allowing students to work through the material whenever they choose — a format known as asynchronous instruction. Across the UC system, Cal State and especially California’s community colleges, this style of online course has become increasingly common, a shift accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vanden Heuvel said he has taught as many as 1,000 students per semester across the country, including at Santa Monica College and schools in Salinas, San Jose and Visalia, as well as institutions in New Mexico, Michigan, Washington and Florida. His courses use variations of the same introductory material covering stars, galaxies and the solar system. Students read online content, work through astronomy simulations, watch videos or submit lab assignments.
“In its current form, I don’t grade anything by hand,” Vanden Heuvel said. All quizzes are multiple choice and machine-graded — a common feature in many online classes, not just his. Some students also submit written assignments, which he typically grades using an algorithm that simply checks whether the work was turned in, rather than evaluating its content.
He estimated that about 20% of his courses are taught through California institutions. “In California, I can make up to eight times what I’d make in Florida.” In 2024, California colleges paid him roughly $320,000 combined, according to CalMatters’ review. Nationally, he said, he earned considerably more. “Looking back at my records, I can tell you 2024 was my highest-earning year.” He said his total income that year was $758,485.12.
Full-time professors cashing in
By law, adjunct instructors generally can teach no more than three courses per semester within a single community college district, and each district sets its own policies. Most part-time teaching positions come without health coverage, job security or guaranteed rehiring, and colleges can pull adjunct instructors’ classes — and their paychecks — with little notice.
For union leaders and faculty advocates who have long argued that adjunct instructors are underpaid and overworked, the workloads carried by instructors like Ninh Villarreal and Vanden Heuvel are striking. “I don’t know how they can make that much money, how they can have that many assignments. It’s crazy,” said Jim Mahler, president of the community college council for the California Federation of Teachers. He said he suspects some instructors are simply recording lectures once and replaying them indefinitely.
According to payroll records, many of California’s highest-paid adjunct instructors — those earning more than $400,000 — also held full-time tenured or tenure-track positions elsewhere. Among them:
Bobby Seals, an ethnic studies instructor, holds a full-time position at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose while teaching 14 additional courses across four other community college districts plus San Jose State University — reaching roughly 930 students this semester.
Faramarz Mortezaie chairs the computer information technology department at Mission College in Santa Clara while also teaching 11 part-time courses at other campuses, including San Jose State University.
Nicholas Nardi, a full-time psychology instructor at Santa Ana College, teaches an additional 11 courses across six other institutions, including Cal State Los Angeles.
Timothy Durfield, a full-time business instructor at Citrus College, teaches 10 more courses across four community college districts.
Walter Meyer, a tenured art history instructor at Santa Monica College, teaches an additional 10 online courses reaching students in Los Angeles and Kern counties.
None of these instructors responded to requests for comment.
Ninh Villarreal, the highest earner identified, has frequently held at least two full-time positions at once, according to college officials and public records. She has been a tenured faculty member at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento since 2016. In 2023, she took a second full-time position at Reedley College near Fresno, though she returned to part-time status there less than a year later. In 2025, she earned tenure at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, and that same year, university documents show she became the first tenure-track faculty member in the ethnic studies department at West Valley College in Saratoga, near San Jose. Cade Story-Yetto, a spokesperson for the district overseeing West Valley College, said Ninh Villarreal no longer works there and declined to answer further questions.
CalMatters contacted nearly all 73 community college districts statewide to review its methodology before publication. Transparent California, an independent nonprofit that advocates for limited government, obtained payroll information directly from the districts. CalMatters then cross-referenced that data to build a list of instructors who taught at five or more community college districts, Cal State campuses or UC campuses in 2024, the most recent year available. The findings were verified against course catalogs, faculty directories and hiring records.
While some instructors taught a handful of in-person courses — typically at Cal State or UC campuses — CalMatters’ analysis found that most of those teaching across five or more institutions relied heavily on online and asynchronous instruction.
No one is tracking it
Colleges generally treat online courses the same as in-person classes: Students earn identical credit, and instructors are typically paid the same regardless of format. As online courses have become more widespread, the UC, Cal State and community college systems have poured millions of state dollars into ensuring those courses meet the same academic standards as traditional classroom instruction.
Community colleges evaluate the quality of individual courses, but they have no mechanism for tracking an instructor’s total workload across institutions. California’s 73 community college districts operate independently, and no statewide system monitors who is teaching where — or how many total courses any one instructor carries.
The UC and Cal State systems, which are smaller and more centralized than the community college network, track employment and cap how many courses an instructor can teach. But if that same instructor also teaches at a community college, the university system may have no way of knowing.
Vanden Heuvel, the astronomy instructor, said he believes his students receive a strong education. “I teach at multiple schools because that arrangement gives me the stability I need as an adjunct to survive and thrive,” he said, pointing to his three children, his wife, who teaches elementary school, and his desire to be present with his family rather than commuting between campuses each day. “Now, have I gone beyond what some people would consider morally acceptable? I don’t think so.”
Researchers say it remains unclear whether online courses produce worse outcomes than traditional in-person instruction. Students — particularly the working adults who make up a large share of community college enrollment — often praise online courses for their flexibility, but there are documented drawbacks. Asynchronous classes in particular have historically offered students less direct interaction with instructors, which research suggests can hurt student success.
How to teach 50 classes in one semester
Vanden Heuvel posts much of his course material on YouTube, where his channels have accumulated nearly 5 million views across more than 300 videos. On camera, he comes across as approachable and engaging, filming lessons from his car and even posting videos while vacationing at Disney World. He said his location has never been a secret — he has always been upfront with both the California colleges that employ him and his students about where he lives and works.
In fact, the first lesson in one of his courses is a video in which he introduces himself and takes students to his favorite spot along Lake Michigan, where he says his passion for astronomy began.
State and federal regulations require that instructors maintain regular interaction with students, particularly in asynchronous online courses. That can include encouraging class participation or monitoring academic performance, Ferguson wrote in his email statement. “These requirements apply to all courses, regardless of how many institutions or districts employ the instructor.” The federal government has tightened its own oversight of online coursework in recent years.
Vanden Heuvel said he gives all of his students his personal cellphone number and receives up to 30 emails a day, mostly requests for assignment extensions. He said he responds to every one.
He acknowledged it would be fairly easy for students to cheat using artificial intelligence, particularly since quizzes are multiple choice and many written assignments are graded simply for completion. “The logic is equivalent to a Scantron machine in a giant lecture hall. It’s a defensible teaching practice to assess that way. That’s how a lot of standardized testing works, whether it’s the GRE or the LSAT. I’m not losing sleep over it.”
The promise of online education, he said, is reaching large numbers of students while lowering the cost per student — which is exactly what he’s doing by teaching 50 online classes and labs to as many as 1,000 students nationwide each semester. At some schools, particularly in rural areas, he said he is the only astronomy instructor available.
He described his large-scale teaching model as his “most successful” experiment, while acknowledging that many fellow educators would likely view it unfavorably.
‘I’m not that kind of education factory’
In every one of California’s 73 community college districts, part-time faculty — who cost less to employ — outnumber tenured professors, in some cases by more than 5 to 1. A similar imbalance exists across many Cal State campuses, though part-time instructors there, known as lecturers, can work full time and receive benefits. The research-focused UC system has its own faculty categories that don’t map cleanly onto either system, making direct comparisons difficult.
It’s widely acknowledged that adjunct instructors often teach across multiple districts, and unions typically argue that they do so out of financial necessity. Tina Leonard, an American Sign Language instructor, fits that description. In 2024, she earned just over $84,000 teaching across five community college districts.
“I’m deaf,” she wrote in an email, “and it’s very difficult and competitive for a deaf educator to land a full-time tenured position in ASL.” She said she took on additional teaching assignments in 2024 to cover her tax bill. “Each college withholds as if it’s your only job, so when you add them all together, you can end up owing money.”
K. Frindell, president of the California Community College Independents faculty union federation, said she wasn’t surprised to see so many instructors teaching across multiple districts, including some earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. “A loophole has been created,” she said, one that allows districts to cut costs by relying on part-time faculty while also allowing those same instructors to stitch together teaching loads across multiple employers.
In fact, no one knows the true total number of adjunct instructors across California’s community colleges, since statewide counts don’t capture faculty teaching across multiple districts, Ferguson said. The Cal State system faces the same data gap.
Adjunct faculty are typically hired for the academic year and then rehired each fall. Numerous legislative proposals have tried, without success, to offer them higher pay, benefits or full-time employment opportunities. In 2022, lawmakers attempted to expand benefits for part-time community college faculty, setting aside $200 million for districts to reimburse health insurance costs for part-time instructors. During the 2024-25 academic year, nearly 7,000 adjunct instructors used the program, though very few of them taught across multiple districts. Many districts chose not to participate, and most of the funding remains unspent.
Noah Thomas, an art instructor at a community college, said he looked into the new health benefits but found them inadequate. “It’s a really complicated system, and the subsidies are pretty low,” he said. “The coverage only applies to me, not my dependents, and it only lasts 10 months out of the year because my contract is only for 10 months.”
Thomas earned just over $100,000 in 2024 commuting daily between five community college districts across Orange and Los Angeles counties, where he teaches hands-on studio art classes in person. Sometimes the commutes are so long and the days so packed that he eats lunch in his car, he said. “Financially, I would love to teach as many classes as I could. $800,000 sounds incredible. But I’m not that kind of education factory. I really love teaching students one-on-one and showing them how to cut a piece of cardboard and use a band saw.”
The moral dilemma
Frindell, the faculty union representative, said the solution isn’t to focus scrutiny on instructors teaching multiple online courses for six-figure salaries. Her priority, she said, is addressing the low pay, job insecurity and restrictive rules that push adjunct instructors to patch together work across several districts in the first place.
CalMatters asked higher education leaders in the state Assembly and Senate about adjunct instructors teaching across multiple institutions. Assemblymember Mike Fong, D-Alhambra; Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego; and state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, did not respond to requests for comment.
Because of state and federal rules requiring instructor-student interaction, Vanden Heuvel said he has redesigned some of his courses, adding new types of assignments. At times, he said, the regulations feel almost “designed to stop people from doing what I do,” though he added that in practice they often fall short of that goal. “In practice, it can feel like an administrative box-checking exercise that doesn’t really connect to a meaningful student experience.”
Still, he said he has sought reassurance from fellow educators about the ethics of teaching so many students across so many subjects, even if he’s operating within legal limits. “What people tell me, whether out of kindness or not, is that higher education systematically exploits adjunct faculty, and if you’ve built a system that lets you thrive while still delivering a quality education, good for you.”
At the end of each semester, Vanden Heuvel said he surveys his students, and the results consistently show they rate the course’s quality and their own learning well above average, with difficulty rated about average. “There’s always that nagging question: Is what I’m doing okay? Am I pushing this too far?”
He self-published a 600-page book compiling student reflections, most of them about how the course changed their relationship with the planets, stars and galaxies. He said the book sits in his office, right next to his desk.
Original source: CalMatters
