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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

#301

Post by Balgair »

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…

At the Univ. of California system, the number of 'student-facing' employees (from grad-students to professors to janitors and groundskeepers, basically anyone that could maybe have their face shown to a student) is 1:2 versus the rest of the staff. Guess who screams louder about HR, benefits, and other stuff? (Sorry, I can't find the source for this though, quick googling came up with nothing)

EDIT: Another unrelated anecdote: I was recently talking to a PI at Rice's Engineering program who had just finished up his spring class. He got rave reviews of the class, all the undergrads really liked it. About a week after the class reports came out, his director came to him and told him that he was teaching too well and that he should be spending more time on writing grants. If his classes liked him that much again, he would be disciplined (I've no idea how, but he was nontenured, so it sacred him enough). He then taught a 'worse' class in the fall. Whatever those students are paying for, it sure is not the education.

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

#302

Post by pkaeding »

anonacct37 wrote: post #247
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…

> The problem is, for many, there is no alternative. "I'm the first one in my family to be able to go to college." "Not going to college makes it impossible to find a job." "I have to get an education." When "No thanks, that's crazy, I'll do something else" is not an option, prices are going to do crazy things. Perfect example being healthcare costs. That's not always true. Most people seem to think they "need" a car…

> That's not always true. Most people seem to think they "need" a car, yet the price of cars isn't astronomical.

Cars are not subsidized in the same way that healthcare or education are subsidized, though. There are fancy, expensive cars for people who want/can afford them, and there are more modest cars for the rest of us. There are lots of manufacturers of cars from around the world (and those cars from foreign manufacturers are available locally).

Of course, there are fancy expensive schools, and cheaper schools, but the subsidies (or maybe some other force I'm unaware of) seem to make the 'cheaper' schools still get more expensive every year.

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

#303

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #239
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.

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.

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by hyperbolerules »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #283
tpeo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 this. The problem here is wanting to be a tenured professor, not having an English degree.

it’s a good rule of thumb that punching up your argument with ridiculous emotionally resonant hyperbole makes your logic seem really, really strong.

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

#305

Post by dabockster »

_ptgt wrote: post #101
empath75 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there should be a market for low overhead small schools with high paid teaching staff.

Right? I've thought about this as well. My guess is that: 1) Nearly all university students are making their decision when they're 18, so a lot of them are mostly interested in non-academic aspects of their school 2) It seems really hard to actually start a new university. Anecdotally, every university I can think of is quite old. 3) This is probably related to (2). The benefits of universities aren't really dependen…

> filtering out "weak" students before they arrive

This has a huge effect on pushing schools to the top. You can take a public institution (eg University of Washington, since they're notorious for this), put an artificially high bar on entering a program (eg UW CSE since, again, notoriety), and take in all the public money you want while only admitting the top 10% of students. The school is happy for the brain blast, the state is happy to fund a "prestigious" university, and the people are happy to fund so many smart students attending their university instead of another. Everyone wins, right?

Wrong. One of the many problems with this technique is how a university quantifies what is considered a "weak student". Is it low test scores? Bad entrance essay? No planning on the part of the student? Whatever Pearson Hall or McGraw Hill will set on their outsourcing offerings? It's a giant can of worms in terms of what individual strengths and weaknesses are, and how they can either enhance or limit academic performance.

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

#306

Post by setr »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #158
intern4tional wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Add in the racket that is software + books and things add up quickly. Don't students pay for those separately? How does that add up for costs on the school's end?

Books held in the library, and computer/library labs with the paid software available, I'd imagine

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

#307

Post by njarboe »

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.

This attitude is part of the college problem. How is having a job not training and education? Some jobs you can learn in a week but others, like programming, have plenty to learn for a lifetime. College should not be "actual training" for a job. More like a way to learn to have a better life, if you make the most of it.

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

#308

Post by emodendroket »

_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…

No it won't, because the reason they ask for a degree has little to do with actual coursework.

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

#309

Post by wallace_f »

naravara wrote: post #279
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 - it's technology that's unusual. TBH I am far more likely to hire an English major with demonstrated technical skills than a technical person with a purely technical education. Learning the technical skills to live up to the expectations of an entry level software or coding job is just not that hard for a decently smart person. I want to see evidence that you can think more broadly too rather…

To be fair, I graduated from a good uni with honors, so not to say this out of spite, but in my experience this evidence you speak of--in non-technical courses--says more about whether the prof liked you and you stuck to affirming or regurgitating their ideas.

Additionally hearsay is one of the worst kinds of evidence, scientifically speaking.

I wish there was more development into standardized testing... People pretend profs are altruistic and stop acting like people when they become profs.

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

#310

Post by alexanderstears »

kbenson wrote: post #62
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…

Marketing. By marketing, I mean research grants, sports team equipment and training, and anything else that increases the prestige of the school (research sometimes leads to patents for the school, so there's additional benefit to that). You have to attract students willing to pay and good teachers and researchers to attract more students. The entire market is reputation based to the point where reputation is often (…

But there's a problem with how that stuff is bundled. I went to a school that lavished money on its sports programs (at least relative to the team's performance) and many of the sports programs were supported (in part) by mandatory student fees.

If I had the option to go to the school without paying for the team, I would have certainly done so. Though the school was still 'worth it' but dang it, I could have had more consumer surplus.

Another issue (probably not the first piece of fat I'd cut) is title 9 sports - schools have to make sports programs accessible to women and men and they most commonly do this by creating women's and men's teams. I don't have a good understanding of the law but there might be a better allocation of resources if they simply opened teams to both sexes rather than creating sexually differentiated teams.

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