The idea of giving up teaching, though, is agonizing.

"Adjuncts are generally hired on semester-to-semester contracts, given no health insurance or retirement benefits, no office, no professional development, and few university resources. Compensation per course—including not just classroom hours but grading, reading, responding to student e-mails, and office hours—varies, but the median pay, according to a recent report, is twenty-seven hundred dollars. Many adjuncts teach at multiple universities, commuting between two or three schools in order to make ends meet, and are often unable to pursue their own academic or artistic work because of their schedules. [...] I also have no kids to feed or mortgage to pay—not yet, anyway. Working for so little is frustrating, but not fatal. Someday, though, I want to save money, have children, and buy a house, and it would be impossible to do this on an adjunct’s pay. The idea of giving up teaching, though, is agonizing."

Source:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/o-adjunct-my-adjunct