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

#261

Post by JustAnotherPat » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

_rpd wrote: post #244

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…

> 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. I think that some fault lies with unrealistic expectations. Every liberal arts graduate student knows that there are only enough positions for 1 in 10 of their cohort, but each firmly believes that they will be in that 10%. Worse, many who are talented enough to actually be in th…

It's a risk worth taking if you think you're too good to work in private industry. Almost all liberal arts phds i know couldn't stomach working for the man.

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

#262

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

intern4tional wrote: post #86

3pt14159 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In parts of Europe there the expression: "That's Texas." It roughly means "That's crazy." but with a 'Murica flavor to it. Lately, I've been finding myself frequently thinking: "That's Texas." Let me get this straight. Take a course load of 4 double semester courses per year with 200 hours of class time total in the given year. Let's double it to 400 hours just to be safe to include exam marking and office hours. A s…

I work part time as an adjunct at a local 4 year college in WA state and am paid a flat fee of $150 a student per class. For one of my higher level (400 level) courses, I have 4-5 students usually and prep work to keep the course current still requires at least 2-3 hours a week in addition to teaching class. At the end of the day, I make less than minimum wage teaching these students. I'm lucky that I have another jo…

That explains some of the cost structure of an education institution, but:

The real reason the adjunct-professor position pays so low is because that's the value applicants are willing to accept / that's the cake society assigns.

If that class of employee demanded, or held more prestige, we would see efficiency gains elsewhere in the business.

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

#263

Post by nsxwolf » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:45 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.

Why do employers keep putting so much value on something so worthless? There must be cheaper ways to demonstrate to employers you have something equivalent to whatever it is they think they're getting from any old 4 year degree.

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

#264

Post by Danihan » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

tpeo wrote: post #257

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.

You know, that's a problem too. I mean, I take that 90% of jobs aren't specialized positions. Once you need a college degree for a position that only requires general skills, or in which the employee can do just fine on-the-job training and experience, then what are those years in college for exactly? As far as I know, people could get by with a high school degree in the 1970s: there was no significant wage differenc…

Exactly. If no domain specific skills are needed and a general education is good enough, then a high school diploma should have sufficed anyway.

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

#265

Post by soVeryTired » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

anonacct37 wrote: post #205

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.

That's true in software. Source: mid 6 figures principal engineer w/ high school diploma. Other jobs are pickier.

I'd say it used to be true in software. Try repeating that achievement starting out today. You'll be lucky to get any sort of tech job at all.

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

#266

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:47 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?

> What specific skills will a degreed applicant have that a high school grad won't?

Just as requiring a high-school diploma is a filter for the general education requirements that apply to a diploma, requiring a bachelor's degree in any field is a filter for the level of general education that comes with that, not the domain-specific skills of a degree.

And it's an imperfect filter, but its job isn't to be perfect, it's too reduce the absolute quantity of bad applications that need to be reviewed.

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

#267

Post by klibertp » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #125

dave_sullivan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is the market so broken? Student debt. Look at the housing market: in the 70s you could buy a house for much less because houses cost less because people didn't have more money to overpay. With a thirty year explosion of the mortgage industry and the idea that anyone should qualify to own a home, suddenly consumers had extra money to outbid people on buying houses. This broadly increased property prices with no…

What a programmer centric view. 99+% of people are not programmers. You want to be in any other STEM job you need a university degree(s). Almost any reasonable paying job other than programmer require actual training and education.

> Almost any reasonable paying job other than programmer require actual training and education.

Are you implying that you don't need skill and knowledge to program?

Or that it's impossible to get skill and knowledge needed in "other reasonable paying jobs" mostly outside of formal education industry?

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

#268

Post by nsxwolf » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #245

glonq wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

If you have a pool of applicants for a job, all with no relevant experience, it's an easy filter. You filter out all the people who haven't proven they can do something they agreed to do for 3/4 years.

If that's all it is, there's got to be a way to come up with something that lets someone prove they are willing to do something for 4 years, but only costs maybe $250 a year.

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

#269

Post by pgeorgi » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:49 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?

To add to what the others mentioned: critical thinking skills, and the ability to write themselves and their reader out of a paper bag.

Skills which, as an aside, don't always have as high a priority with the "more practical" degrees whose use for a certain job is more obvious.

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

#270

Post by phkahler » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #260

phkahler wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

It works. Why wouldn't it? In the US, we spend roughly 4-10k* per capita in welfare, housing and transfer payments. That means we already spend enough to instead give 4-10k/person/year in BI. In NY, homeless people cost the city over $40,000 per person! And there isn't even much to show for it! Wars on and Poverty and Drugs have spent billions, also without improving living conditions of the most vulnerable economic…

BI is generally talked about as giving money to everyone, not just those in need. You're talking about something different that has not actually been tried anywhere. A lot of things would change if you gave BI to everyone. A lot of things.