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Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

theguardian.com

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Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#31

Post by Afforess »

This is the result of entirely understandable forces, with no solution in sight. High school students (and their parents) select Universities based on status first (or second), and education quality nearly last. Worse, this is entirely sensible. There is an implicit understanding better ranked Universities are a prerequisite for higher-status jobs, moving up in the economy. Employers making the decision to favour high-status graduates is also rational: with a glut of credentialed applicants, _why_ would you choose a lower-status candidate when an equally good high-status one was available? That's leaving money on the table.

Every part of this slow-motion disaster is explainable. Every individual actor is making the best choice available to themselves. And yet, Moloch wins.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#32

Post by sixQuarks »

ceejayoz wrote: post #20
akeck wrote: post #3

So, where's the $150K per student in tuition going?

Fancy dorms, athletic facilities, big houses for the university president, endowments...

true, the highest paid employee at most large universities are the sports coaches.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#33

Post by tptacek »

Analog24 wrote: post #28
KirinDave wrote: post #9

For those who have university degrees, this should be a difficult read. Next time you say to yourself, "Sure, I went to college. I know that's a privilege, but I worked hard there and made it because of my hard work and nothing else!" Remember this article. This isn't a new phenomenon, but it's a phenomenon that's becoming more acute. Even if we ignore the adjuncts, the brilliant folks who taught us all what we know…

University of California salaries are shared publicly. I haven't actually crunched the numbers but it seems like an average salary is around 150k for professors in research based fields. That's well over half of the median salary in almost any profession.

Those are full professors, not adjuncts.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#34

Post by SubiculumCode »

vkou wrote: post #18
Overtonwindow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reform the tenure system and place caps on university administrators pay.

Tenure's not the problem, the problem is that in their academic career, a PHD will produce X new PHDs. Where X is substantially greater than 1. Until this is fixed, it doesn't matter if academic jobs are for life, or are contracts that get renewed (or not) every 8 hours. This pyramid scheme was fine while demand for PHDs was increasing (By industry, and growth of academia), but now its really not (Industry doesn't wa…

I will say that those who can do research probably dont become adjuncts, but continue as a researcher on soft money or go in industry. The more liberal arts, philosophy, turn to adjunct positions.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#36

Post by showmetherec »

pwaivers wrote: post #12

There is only one academic who turned to sex work in this article right? Unless I missed some one else the article mentioned. This is a very specific example and paints with a broad paintbrush.

Are you arguing life for adjuncts is improving?

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#37

Post by paapi__gudiya »

What is the inherent value that lecturers offer anyways? All the material they teach in classes has been available online for the last 20 years. It makes sense (going by market needs) that they have been driven to such levels of poverty.

The only value universities offer is that one can meet other like-minded and driven people at universities. If some other social structures can offer the same, i.e. a place where one can meet such people, universities will be obsolete too. The only question is when? And are there any organizations out there that already offer such services?

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#38

Post by aaron-lebo »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #14

With companies no longer requesting university degrees, online learning (like watching Harvard courses) becoming more popular and in some countries university being outragous expensive, the future of universities is bleak because people will stop going there. And that of acadamics teaching is even worse. The internet will cut all middleman, and teachers being the middleman between you and knowledge, or gatekeepers to…

I very strongly doubt that. The market for a piece of paper is way too strong. That's why this stuff is expensive. Everyone can do this stuff, so the surest (and most advertised) way to get a leg up in the economy is by getting a piece of paper.

That effect only seems to be growing. That said, certainly do agree with you in principle.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#39

Post by throwaway2016a »

Analog24 wrote: post #28
KirinDave wrote: post #9

For those who have university degrees, this should be a difficult read. Next time you say to yourself, "Sure, I went to college. I know that's a privilege, but I worked hard there and made it because of my hard work and nothing else!" Remember this article. This isn't a new phenomenon, but it's a phenomenon that's becoming more acute. Even if we ignore the adjuncts, the brilliant folks who taught us all what we know…

University of California salaries are shared publicly. I haven't actually crunched the numbers but it seems like an average salary is around 150k for professors in research based fields. That's well over half of the median salary in almost any profession.

This varies hugely by school. A lot of state run Universities have very competitive salaries because their reputation depends on retaining rock star professors.

Adjuncts are a different story.

I taught as an adjunct part time at a state school where professor made $150k. I made $5000 per course. I did it more of less for fun because I like teaching. Which is not bad for extra pay on the side but terrible if it is your only pay.

Edit: as a side note, the department head told me she fought to have adjunct Comp Sci professors make more because the field is in such high demand. I am sure English adjunts at the same school make far less.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#40

Post by vkou »

thearn4 wrote: post #23
vkou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenure's not the problem, the problem is that in their academic career, a PHD will produce X new PHDs. Where X is substantially greater than 1. Until this is fixed, it doesn't matter if academic jobs are for life, or are contracts that get renewed (or not) every 8 hours. This pyramid scheme was fine while demand for PHDs was increasing (By industry, and growth of academia), but now its really not (Industry doesn't wa…

As a PhD who never went into academia, I can easily take the pledge not to have any (academic) children.

Alas, while that saves us having X^2 PHDs for each PHD position, it doesn't stop us from having X PHDs for each position.

You aren't training new PHDs - your teachers were, and still are.

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