[jccalhoun]

From my limited experience in small midwestern cities, I haven't seen too many people stay with pure adjuncting for long. I was an adjunct for one year and then got a one year contract that was up for annual renewal until the university got a new president and decided the university wouldn't have any 1 year contracts any more (now I'm full time at the community college which doesn't have tenure).

While I have a PhD, most of the people who adjuncted only had MAs and so weren't eligible for a tenure track job. From my phd program at an R1 school, I'm not aware of anyone who is adjuncting as their main source of income. Only handful of them are at R1s. Many either left academia or are in potions similar to mine which aren't research focused.

The reason people stay in adjuncting is because they hope for the full time contracts, the like teaching, and they like the flexibility of being able to pick which days they teach (I know this from experience because as a full time employee while I do have flexibility, there are times when no adjuncts will cover an 8am or night class and we have to do it and I have already been warned that in the Fall it looks like we won't have adjuncts to cover certain days because they don't want to work those days).

[BeetleB]

I know quite a few who've been adjunct for 8+ years. Math PhDs and non-engineering majors.