Post-Secondary Education Job Career Opportunities

Post-secondary jobs can include teaching positions at community colleges, four year universities and other institutions offering undergraduate and postgraduate educations. If you are looking for a post-secondary teaching position, you could be employed as a:
  • college instructor
  • community college teacher
  • university professor.
All educational jobs with a post-secondary education degree offer promising advancement opportunities and a positive job market outlook. In the next decade, there will be thousands of post secondary teaching opportunities in the United States.

Education Requirements for Post-Secondary Teaching Positions

Post-secondary jobs require a Master’s degree at minimum for community college teaching jobs, and a Doctorate degree for most university teaching jobs. A successful academic record is always preferred.

Tenure

You may have heard of the term “tenure” when referring to college professor or post-secondary teaching jobs. Tenure is an earned contractual right for college professors, ensuring job security. A college professor that has been granted tenure cannot be fired or terminated without reasonable cause.
 
A professor who has been granted tenure has a job for the rest of his life, or until he chooses to leave the university or retire. Tenure must be earned through the completion of various requirements over a certain period of time, for example 5-7 years.
 
Tenure requirements vary from institution to institution, but will generally include:
  • research
  • teaching
  • writing and publishing requirements.
A college teaching job that has the opportunity for an instructor to be granted tenure is called a “tenure-track” position.

College Professor Jobs

At four year colleges and other institutions granting Bachelor’s degrees or post graduate degrees, there are many types of post-secondary education teaching jobs:
  • Assistant Professor: An assistant professor is a graduate of a Doctoral program, and is usually not tenured. However, most assistant professor positions are “tenure-track,” with a probationary period of a certain number of years before receiving tenure. About 23 percent of college and university educators are assistant professors.

  • Associate Professor: An assistant professor typically becomes an associate professor upon receiving tenure. To become an associate professor, assistant professors must usually complete a scholarly accomplishment, which could be a research project, receiving a grant, or successfully teaching for the department. The requirements for becoming an associate professor vary widely between academic institutions and departments.

  • Full Professor: A full professor, or simply a professor, is almost always tenured. A professor holds the highest academic teaching rank. Advancement possibilities for a professor could be a department chair or dean. Very few professors receive this title before the age of 40.

  • Lecturer: A lecturer is a full-time teacher at a university, usually only responsible for teaching undergraduate coursework. This is a non-tenure track position, and does not typically have a research requirement.

Community College Teacher Jobs

In some areas of the United States, community colleges are called city colleges (because they are municipally funded) or junior colleges. Community colleges have substantially lower fees and an open enrollment policy, allowing those with mediocre academic history the opportunity to enroll and begin a higher education.
 
Community colleges allow students to earn an Associate’s degree. They can also transfer completed credits to a university to work towards a Bachelor’s degree. Community college teaching jobs are solely devoted to teaching, unlike college professor jobs at four year universities where research and writing are often also required.
 
Getting a community college teaching job requires less education and experience than a job at a four-year college or university. A Master’s degree is usually required for community college teaching jobs, although some community college instructors have Doctoral degrees.
 
 
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