The Human Cost of Higher Education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's also a fairly parasitical arrangement. A majority of adjuncts are married women who are told that they're trading flexibility for low wages. They can afford to take these jobs because they are married to someone whose job includes health insurance for the family. So essentially the other employer is subsidizing the university by providing health insurance for the university's underpaid employees who are not provided benefits.
Unpaid internships allow companies to get free labor, subsidized by mom and dad.
Abysmal walmart wages allow companies to get close to free labor, subsidized by yours and my tax dollars, which pay for the employee's medicaid, EBT, etc.
Corporations are getting wealthy off of American taxpayer's backs, and the only reason this is sustainable is because someone else is paying the bill.
The real cost of an adjunct is actually significantly higher than what the university pays this individual, particularly in high cost of living areas where the adjunct could not afford rent or a mortgage without the spouse's wages, and spouse's company's contribution to those living costs.
It's "funny money," and an illusion, but one which universities are very invested in maintaining.

Not just adjuncts. I worked for a university for @ a year after graduating from grad school. Most of the line staff were also graduates from my same program. Almost everyone was married; those that weren't were getting help from their parents. Our spouses / family members were providing their salaries and health insurance, indirectly subsidizing the university. We all realized it and discussed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am STUNNED that a black woman who went to Columbia and studied under Eric Foner wound up as an adjunct. She is not really a good example of the adjunct problem, because she went to a prestige institution and did, in fact, get a tenure track job after she got her PhD (after that, the fact is, she didn't play the game right). The "classic" adjunct did not go to an Ivy, did not get a tenure track job offer, and had to work as an adjunct before giving up on academia entirely.

+1. She is a really poor example of the real problem the article is supposed to highlight. She had a tenure track job, but left it in large part because of a bad commute. Plus, it was clear that she was only willing to look at jobs in or fairly near to NYC.

It also sounds like she essentially stopped publishing for reasons only partly related the difficulties of being an adjunct.

Even for highly qualified people, the academic market is tough. You usually can't be all that picky about location and voluntarily leaving a good job without having something lined up and for less than the most compelling reasons, is often going to leave you in a lurch.

I have a friend who got her PhD at an Ivy and is teaching at a university in Oklahoma. From time to time, she bemoans the stupidity of her students and the horrors of living in the sticks. I have another friend who decided she'd rather use her PhD to teach high school in the Bay Area than teach state university students in the sticks somewhere. Tough situation.

Academics like this do not belong in a teaching position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who got her PhD at an Ivy and is teaching at a university in Oklahoma. From time to time, she bemoans the stupidity of her students and the horrors of living in the sticks. I have another friend who decided she'd rather use her PhD to teach high school in the Bay Area than teach state university students in the sticks somewhere. Tough situation.

Academics like this do not belong in a teaching position.

The problem with admitting tens of thousands of dull, unmotivated students who really don't belong in college at all is that somebody has to teach them, and there's no way to make it fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who got her PhD at an Ivy and is teaching at a university in Oklahoma. From time to time, she bemoans the stupidity of her students and the horrors of living in the sticks. I have another friend who decided she'd rather use her PhD to teach high school in the Bay Area than teach state university students in the sticks somewhere. Tough situation.

Academics like this do not belong in a teaching position.

The problem with admitting tens of thousands of dull, unmotivated students who really don't belong in college at all is that somebody has to teach them, and there's no way to make it fun.

The problem with being one of the motivated few at such as school is a good percentage then keep on trucking to a PhD and one day realize they're in exactly this situation. Being a PhD from a top program guarantees nothing, but there are also gobs and gobs of mediocre PhDs, exactly analogous to the undergrad situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's also a fairly parasitical arrangement. A majority of adjuncts are married women who are told that they're trading flexibility for low wages. They can afford to take these jobs because they are married to someone whose job includes health insurance for the family. So essentially the other employer is subsidizing the university by providing health insurance for the university's underpaid employees who are not provided benefits.
Unpaid internships allow companies to get free labor, subsidized by mom and dad.
Abysmal walmart wages allow companies to get close to free labor, subsidized by yours and my tax dollars, which pay for the employee's medicaid, EBT, etc.
Corporations are getting wealthy off of American taxpayer's backs, and the only reason this is sustainable is because someone else is paying the bill.
The real cost of an adjunct is actually significantly higher than what the university pays this individual, particularly in high cost of living areas where the adjunct could not afford rent or a mortgage without the spouse's wages, and spouse's company's contribution to those living costs.
It's "funny money," and an illusion, but one which universities are very invested in maintaining.

This is true, but it's true for basically every part time job, especially in "passion" fields like the arts and museums. It's a real problem in terms of the kind of inequality that gets entrenched in these fields.

I am a fed who left academia because my Ivy League PhD holding husband and I couldn't both stay on the visiting/adjunct/postdoc wheel after we had a baby. I really miss the flexibility and autonomy but someone needed a consistent, increasing salary and health insurance. What people will sacrifice in terms of relationships, stability, and choice of location for the sake of the dream career truly amazes me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who got her PhD at an Ivy and is teaching at a university in Oklahoma. From time to time, she bemoans the stupidity of her students and the horrors of living in the sticks. I have another friend who decided she'd rather use her PhD to teach high school in the Bay Area than teach state university students in the sticks somewhere. Tough situation.

Academics like this do not belong in a teaching position.

The problem with admitting tens of thousands of dull, unmotivated students who really don't belong in college at all is that somebody has to teach them, and there's no way to make it fun.

Yes, and if that somebody bemoans them for being "stupid" and dull and unmotivated, he or she should NOT be in a classroom. There are so many candidates who would welcome the opportunity to work with students who come from lower socioeconomic/rural backgrounds and underrepresented groups in higher education (because really, that's what you're talking about) and inspire them to get the most out of their education that it's pretty gross for her to take such a position.

[Anonymous]

And I am quite amazed with popularity of https://www.topdissertations.org/bestdissertation-review/ and such. I mean, if you don't to that yourself, what's the point? I understand that some people don't want to bother and they want to save their time but anyway, I wouldn't use any of those I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who got her PhD at an Ivy and is teaching at a university in Oklahoma. From time to time, she bemoans the stupidity of her students and the horrors of living in the sticks. I have another friend who decided she'd rather use her PhD to teach high school in the Bay Area than teach state university students in the sticks somewhere. Tough situation.

Academics like this do not belong in a teaching position.

The problem with admitting tens of thousands of dull, unmotivated students who really don't belong in college at all is that somebody has to teach them, and there's no way to make it fun.

Yes, and if that somebody bemoans them for being "stupid" and dull and unmotivated, he or she should NOT be in a classroom. There are so many candidates who would welcome the opportunity to work with students who come from lower socioeconomic/rural backgrounds and underrepresented groups in higher education (because really, that's what you're talking about) and inspire them to get the most out of their education that it's pretty gross for her to take such a position.

And how is that the reality? The majority of unmotivated/uninspiring students are going to be from, wait for it, overrepresented groups, because that's the pool. Sure, it's more difficult for students from less advantaged backgrounds to make they're way in college, but that certainly does not mean that all bad students are less advantaged, or even imply that less advantaged students are more than a negligible percentage of mediocre college students. For all we know a classroom full of nothing but advantaged DCUM spawn, could be exactly what drove her from teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But putting aside whether these PhD holders are making poor decisions, and some of them are, the fact that universities can and do pay people so little is appalling.

The salary is not at all commensurate with experience or education.

And the reality is 90% of universities in this country simply could not function without them.

But isn’t it just a matter of supply & demand? Why pay people good wages when there are often 100 people applying for a job? I mean, besides the morality component? Because that’s how it works in the private sector, everyone I know thinks their underpaid. Companies (& universities) pay as little as they can get away with. And they had “experience or education” they could work somewhere else. That’s why it’s so hard for universities to hire computer science professors. If you’re good enough at CS to work at a university, you make much more in the private sector. What else are you going to do with a Philosophy PhD besides admin or being a barista?

That's really the bottom line. It doesn't matter that an employer has the money to pay more and it really really doesn't mater what pay a person "deserves." If I can fill the position with $20k, I will and be comforted by the idea (true or not) that the employee gets $+benefits from their spouse/partner/parents. It's tough out here in the real world.