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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

#321

Post by KirinDave »

3pt14159 wrote: post #42
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…

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…

Let's be really clear: this system is working as intended. America has always had a ruling wealth class. As time has gone on that class has changed who they try to yoke for wealth extraction & control.

It used to be that masses of factory workers were required, so those people were carefully set up for wealth extraction until they unionized and did an organized rebellion.

America's knowledge workers are where America's value is, so economic yokes have been installed at the most profitable point: where people receive higher education.

Honestly I'm not sure the EU is THAT different, I think you just do it at a different time.

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

#322

Post by gthtjtkt »

hyperbolerules wrote: post #304
gthtjtkt wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a good rule of thumb that comments necessitating a new throwaway account aren't worth making.

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

#323

Post by ianai »

sjg007 wrote: post #314
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is why they want to unionize. Ironically, the tenure track and tenured professors are unionized as part of that institution's academic senate. Adjunct professorships probably arose out of the "postdoc" path, as well as being an academic association for industry collaborators. So temporary in nature. But the reality is different. Better off teaching K-12 at least they have a union.

It could be that unionization keeping pay down or contributing to it. It makes the unionization more valuable for incombants and keeps out competition.

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

#324

Post by sjg007 »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #96
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…

> 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…

I don't think this is true. If you want to be a software engineer, take the courses, meet people (future founders), network, and freelance on the side. Also try to get scholarships.

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

#325

Post by Symmetry »

vijayr wrote: post #139
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…

I think "Don't go to college" is the best advice today. That only works in industries like software etc. If one wants to be a lawyer, doctor etc they have no choice but to go to college, right? Some American students are going abroad (Germany etc), that could be a short term option.

If you want to be a doctor you could always just go to medical school overseas without going to college first.

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

#326

Post by KirinDave »

uaydin wrote: post #77
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…

We have that saying in Turkey as well. The funny part is, I've been living in Texas in last 4-5 years and Texas is actually a great state, especially if you stick with metroplexes such as DFW or Austin.

Uh... it's a great state to be in ignoring the havok that it causes the rest of the US.

Why is the US science education so bad? Texas. Almost exclusively. Its primary opponent: California. Texas causes similar problems in many other fields, including patent law and taxes.

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

#327

Post by sjg007 »

danso wrote: post #137

It's fitting that the lengthiest non-anonymous example is the English teacher at San Jose state. Her salary might seem normal in other parts of the country, but it's very skimpy in San Jose/Silicon Valley/Peninsula http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=ellen+Pe... For comparison's sake, here are what physical education teachers in Palo Alto Unified make: http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/…

Dang, better money than the average software engineer.

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

#328

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

FrozenVoid wrote: post #254
_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…

The whole system reminds me of professional taxi drivers and Uber drivers. The established education system is based on legal proof and bureaucratic paper trails(analogous to taxi medallions), made to guarantee some level of competence(being a taxi driver vs Uber driver). The whole prestige of academia isn't access to information: internet has more academic content than any university(e.g. Sci-hub, Arxiv, book sites,…

> The whole prestige of academia isn't access to information: internet has more academic content than any university

This is not the case at all for many fields. In my branch of linguistics, for example, the majority of important literature is not available online. A person cannot teach themselves this field; you need access to the print resources in a large library at a handful of universities. Now, since the dawn of ebook sharing sites, my colleagues and I have been gradually scanning resources and uploading them to Libgen or the like, but progress is slow and we have barely scratched the surface.

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

#329

Post by omginternets »

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.

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

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

#330

Post by omginternets »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #322
hyperbolerules wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a good rule of thumb that comments necessitating a new throwaway account aren't worth making.

And yet, he's 100% right.
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