Blogs:

There is a significant drop in the number of tenured professors teaching at the American universities. During the 1970s, the tenured professors teaching 250,000 students numbered 11,300. Today, 226,000 students are taught by just 6,800 professors according to a CUNY Adjunct project report. There is a rise in the number of adjunct professors teaching at most of the city and state universities. 

This is because adjuncts are paid much lesser than tenured professors. As most of them are teaching to make a living, they usually do not have the motivation or energy or even money to demand better conditions. Unless explained to them, not many students and parents are aware of the pitiable conditions faced by most of their faculty.

Most of the adjuncts do not have complete access to computers in universities. They do not even have a personal telephone line and usually have to share an office if they are lucky. While tenured professors are provided with a gigabye email, adjuncts have to be satisfied with just 100 MB.
There is a pronounced national movement by adjuncts demanding equality of late. A lot of full time professors are of the view that without tenured professors, the quality of education is bound to suffer in the long run. The last three decades, according to professor Peter D.G. Brown teaching at the SUNY New Paltz since the year 1971 has seen the strength of full time professors falling from 30% to 10%.

One of the predominant reasons for this situation is the global economic condition which has forced many universities to cut down on their budget. Though adjuncts make about one third of what is paid to tenured professors, the flexibility they offer is preferred by the universities.
Adjuncts are at a great disadvantage in many ways. They are required to work for one complete year before they are given health insurance and that too only if they take two subjects per semester.  If they add up the extra hours put in to grade exams, correct homework and prepare lessons, what they earn is much lesser than even the minimum wage per hour. They are also not allowed to teach more than two subjects per semester.

This has forced many of them to opt for multiple colleges and you can find a lot of adjuncts shuttling between a couple or more universities in their area to make ends meet. There is a strong likelihood that there will be a great increase in the number of adjuncts as they are flexible and affordable for the universities.

However, when it comes to cutting down on courses due to budget constraints, the universities cut down on the courses taken by adjuncts and this makes their job very unstable. There is a distinct movement focussing on all these issues and to strengthen adjunct status in the educational system. Hopefully this will bring about an increased awareness and force universities to improve and equal their status to that of tenured professors. This has to be done on top priority as high quality education is the need of the hour.