These part-time California profs found a way to make $400K
By Adam Echelman, CalMatters ·
We have a can’t miss story for you today revealing how a handful of enterprising college professors are pulling in very high incomes through online education, including one who made $750,000 in one year.
Read on for more on that story, as well as a look at the debate over why homelessness is decreasing across the country and a piece on a conflict over the placement of former sex offenders in San Diego County.
Thirty classes. Over 1,100 students.
That’s the current workload of ethnic studies professor Thien Huong Ninh Villarreal, who holds full-time teaching jobs at both San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton and Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. She also teaches part-time at seven other community colleges and Cal State Sacramento. In past years, she’s taught at UC Berkeley too.
A CalMatters investigation found over 70 professors who, like Ninh Villarreal, are teaching at five or more community college districts, Cal State or UC campuses. Most of these professors teach online courses where the material is pre-recorded and students can watch lectures whenever they want.
It can be a lucrative business. With a similar courseload, Ninh Villarreal made nearly $800,000 in 2024 — more than any other community college administrator earned that year. Numerous other professors who taught at multiple schools in 2024 made well over $340,000, which is roughly the median pay for a community college president or chancellor. Many of these top earners had two full-time, tenure or tenure-track positions.
Part-time professors, or adjuncts, can earn a lot too. Astronomy professor Andrew Vanden Heuvel told CalMatters that he made more than $750,000 in 2024 by teaching about 50 online classes and labs to students across the country, including at many California community colleges.
Union or faculty leaders said they were not surprised community college professors, especially adjuncts, teach at multiple schools. Part-time professors in the community college system receive no benefits and sometimes, little pay. Community colleges rely heavily on adjuncts to help cut costs.
But the notion that professors were teaching 30 or more classes came as a shock to some.
- Jim Mahler, president of the community college council for the California Federation of Teachers: “I don’t know how you can earn that much money, how you can have that many assignments. I mean that’s pretty wild.”
Mahler added that he suspects some professors are simply recording their lectures and “just hitting play.”
Read more from CalMatters’ Adam Echelman and Mohamed Al Elew.
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Other Stories You Should Know
Homelessness decreases across the U.S.
From CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall:
Homelessness dropped more than 6% nationwide in 2026, marking the biggest decrease in at least two decades.
Nearly 700,000 Americans were estimated to be homeless during this year’s January point-in-time count — almost 50,000 fewer than the year before, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Homelessness is down 3% in California.
Why? That depends on who you ask.
HUD credits the Trump administration’s efforts, which include prioritizing criminal enforcement and involuntary addiction and mental health treatment. The National Alliance to End Homelessness, which released its own analysis, says the opposite: The declines prove that the pre-Trump strategy of “housing first,” which moves people into long-term housing without requiring sobriety or other conditions, is working.
Homelessness also decreased in California and nationwide in January 2025, before President Donald Trump’s policies took effect.
Where to place ‘sexually violent predators’?
Half of California’s sexually violent predators are housed in San Diego County. But while the county court considers placing more offenders in residential neighborhoods, one local official is pushing for an alternative solution, reports CalMatters’ Deborah Brennan.
The state uses the term sexually violent predators, or SVPs, to describe sex offenders who have a high risk of reoffending. After completing their sentence in prison, they are often consigned to a state hospital for further mental health treatment. If things go smoothly, they can petition for conditional release and a judge considers proposed placement and reviews security measures, like GPS monitoring. Currently, 14 of them are on conditional release in counties across California, with seven residing in San Diego County.
San Diego County Supervisor Joel Anderson, however, has another idea. He wants the county to adopt a model used in Washington state, which houses sexually violent predators in secure group homes with round-the-clock supervision. Anderson aims to persuade the county court to pilot the group housing model.
- Anderson: “The community benefits. The cost of it decreases. And the quality of care for the SVPs increases. Statistically, the Washington model has been far more successful.”
California Voices
Lawmakers should force homeowners associations to disclose more information to their members, including the lawsuits they discuss, the contracts they enter into and their budgets, writes William Fulton, professor of practice at UC San Diego and a condo owner.
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This story was originally published by CalMatters and is republished under its terms.