Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by msla » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:32 PM UTC

wfo wrote: post #91

Say it with me friends and colleagues, Union. This is the future for all of us, when programming becomes commoditized just as teaching has. When our salaries are pushed to the bottom. We are not owners, we are not capitalists, we are not bosses, we are people with a skill you can learn on the internet and a corresponding talent for it. Either a) this will happen to us as programmers, b) we have credentialing and gate…

Unions are great at establishing entrenched interests.

If you need to qualify to join a union, or to do a specific job in a union, the qualifications will be owned by the companies which are politically powerful.

Imagine being unable to qualify as a C++ programmer unless and until you've qualified on Microsoft Windows and Visual C++.

Imagine being unable to qualify as a Perl programmer at all, because Perl isn't one of the technologies owned by a major corporation.

And, of course, doing freelance work, or contributing to Open Source, makes you a scab, stealing work from Poor, Honest Union Workers.

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

#232

Post by mljoe » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:33 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #206

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a notion that much of the hierarchy that exists in the world is unnecessary, and perpetuated only because it’s the status quo. A university for example doesn’t strictly need to manage the professors - you could have a very large university where the professors primarily manage themselves, with only a small administrative group. An organization arranged in this way wouldn’t need many meetings.

How would you decide budgets for those professors? How would you determine which departments are growing and where you need more resources? How would you budget things like building expansion, maintenance, shared facilities?

A student and faculty congress. There is precedent for this, many such bodies already have authority over millions of dollars.

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

#233

Post by Moto7451 » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:33 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #163

khawkins wrote: post #83

The fact that the article features an English professor is unsurprising. This is a supply-side problem--liberal arts degrees are in relatively low demand, but institutions continue to graduate students at unsustainable levels. No one is telling the students that they're spending 4-12 years getting an education which is worth less than what they're paying for it. For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English…

> For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English and other liberal-arts degrees are universities and schools This is such nonsense. Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree, and with an English degree you can apply for 90% of jobs. You could graduate and go on to be anything from an advertising executive, to a soldier. Most jobs don't care - it's technology that's unusual.

This is true for occupations like sales where the litmus test is professionalism and the ability to stick to goals. However, you will lock yourself out of occupations with degree requirements for credentialing and those with domain knowledge you gain through school like Chemistry.

I live in LA and, surprise surprise, there are a lot of writers, artists, and other folks who want to work in Liberal Arts oriented industries. Most of my Liberal Arts degree equipped friends are in sales while dabbling in their art on the side. A few of them sell a book or script every 3-5 years. The rest of them went back to school for a Law Degree or an unrelated Masters degree.

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

#234

Post by slmyers » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:34 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #202

If someone had written an article about struggling actors turning to sex work and sleeping in cars, nobody would blink an eye. Acting pays little for the same reason being an academic pays little. Lots of people want to do it, but there is limited demand, hence only the really exceptional folks make any money doing it. Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. It's n…

Basic income without universal housing, healthcare and education is more-or-less a poverty sentence.

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

#235

Post by BeetleB » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:34 PM UTC

This may be unpopular, but:

1. She has more than $200K in student loan debt which is her doing. I've met many who do not want to take responsibility for their student loans - they'll prefer to go to schools whose tuition is over $40K/yr over schools that are under $10K/yr. And then they'll insist on going for several years to a grad school without funding (hence more loans). I always tell people: If you cannot get funding for grad school (or at least after the first year of grad school), then get out or change schools/departments.

2. When I was in grad school, no matter how much people gave advice, most grad students refuse to consider their ability to earn money based on the degree they are pursuing. The few wiser ones in liberal arts would work towards gaining marketing skills (often in software, but not necessarily) and did fine. Same goes even for tech fields - consider if what you're doing a PhD in will get you a job.

I do agree there is a problem with exploiting adjuncts, but adjuncts also need to own their station in life. Over 15 years ago, when I was in school, I knew adjuncts who were struggling as much as is shown in the article (having to travel to different towns to teach in multiple schools to eke by), so this has been a known issue.

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

#236

Post by aphextron » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:35 PM UTC

khawkins wrote: post #83

The fact that the article features an English professor is unsurprising. This is a supply-side problem--liberal arts degrees are in relatively low demand, but institutions continue to graduate students at unsustainable levels. No one is telling the students that they're spending 4-12 years getting an education which is worth less than what they're paying for it. For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English…

There's nothing wrong with getting an English degree. Practically any uneducated person would benefit greatly from four years of college level writing courses no matter the level of "usefulness". The problem is the overarching mentality of the culture which says "you have X degree, so you must now try to use it for X". If you judge English degrees on the same level of a job training course it doesn't make sense. They have different purposes entirely. The point of a liberal arts education is to sharpen the mind and create better decision makers and thinkers.

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

#237

Post by adamsea » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:35 PM UTC

glonq wrote: post #225

chrisseaton wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English and other liberal-arts degrees are universities and schools This is such nonsense. Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree, and with an English degree you can apply for 90% of jobs. You could graduate and go on to be anything from an advertising executive, to a soldier. Most jobs don't care - it's technology that's unusual.

> Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree Then why do they require a degree at all? What specific skills will a degreed applicant have that a high school grad won't?

Depends what classes they take, how good their teachers are, and how dedicated a student they are!

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

#238

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

glonq wrote: post #225

chrisseaton wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English and other liberal-arts degrees are universities and schools This is such nonsense. Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree, and with an English degree you can apply for 90% of jobs. You could graduate and go on to be anything from an advertising executive, to a soldier. Most jobs don't care - it's technology that's unusual.

> Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree Then why do they require a degree at all? What specific skills will a degreed applicant have that a high school grad won't?

I don't think they see it as about specific skills - rather about general skills and maturity. Also I think they value having a lot of people with deeper knowledge of a diverse range of subjects.

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

#239

Post by rayiner » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #213

rayiner wrote: post #202

If someone had written an article about struggling actors turning to sex work and sleeping in cars, nobody would blink an eye. Acting pays little for the same reason being an academic pays little. Lots of people want to do it, but there is limited demand, hence only the really exceptional folks make any money doing it. Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. It's n…

>> Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. Here we go again. Please show evidence that it works. Oh right, there isn't any. Please point to a reasonably complete economic model that shows it will work.

Substitute basic income with whatever form of safety net you prefer. My point is that the government shouldn't be intervening specially on behalf of adjunct professors, because we have an easier time relating to folks with college degrees than to ones working retail or food service.

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

#240

Post by asabjorn » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:37 PM UTC

qaq wrote: post #2

The explosion of administrative staff is crazy universities keep cutting teaching positions and increasing admin.

Universities are like dictatorships where only staff has a vote on if the top executives should stay in their job. Since professors are tenured and are therefore not beholden to anyone, the top executives are highly incentivised to increase the pool of voters that they have leverage over in order to create a stable coalition. This pool is administrative staff.

This problem is further aggravated by the fact that students often choose Universities based upon reputation and are therefore rather insensitive to price increases, so extra spend on administrative staff is easy to find. In addition to this the government gives away student loans that matches rising tuition costs and because you can't get rid of student loans in bankruptcy it is an attractive asset class even for private lenders.