[barry-cotter]

Supply, meet demand. There are lots of people who want to teach part time for the title and even more who desperately cling to the hope they’ll be able to get a tenure track job after being told they won’t, for many years.

[nicoburns]

I don't think that's the whole story here. It's also that universities don't tend to value teaching, and won't pay good teachers the same that they pay good researchers. That's not market dynamics, that's a cultural decision around where to allocate resources.

[sgillen]

It is also a financial decision, good researchers can pull in large grants, providing the school lots of money.

[urthor]

It's absolutely market forces.

Research output determines rankings. Teaching quality doesn't.

[WalterBright]

It absolutely is market dynamics, i.e. supply & demand.

[cycomachead]

It's definitely not just supply-demand. The application pool for lecturers are places like Berkeley is much smaller than you think, when you start filtering for qualified folks.

Now, at least some of this is academia having too strong of a filter, but the year I joined Berkeley - I was 1 of 4 to accept the offer.