251–260 of 445 posts
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Great, that's as it should be. At your university, are graduate students able to afford such a living situation on their stipends?
I can’t speak to GP’s situation, but TFA makes clear that the university grad student housing available at UCSC in this specific real-world case is in fact not sufficient for the graduate students to afford such a living situation on their stipends.
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> when she apparently has some already? Where are you seeing that she has roommates? It's not mentioned in the article I read, and I don't see any evidence that the units are shared at https://housing.ucsc.edu/family/ . In fact, it says the rent for a 2br is $1700 a month, the same as what she says she's paying. In any case, the mistake seems to be earlier in the decision-making process, when she decided to become a…
Ok, so now we have a complaint that she shouldn’t have tried to join the program with a child? I think we’re done here.
If for, an admittedly highly contrived, example if this individual had the option of making $50K/yr in a low cost of living area OR the graduate program that would result in subsistence wages in a high COL area, why would we not insist that it is at least in part their own doing? Why would we not consider this to be both a bad decision to opt for subsistence wages as well potentially morally reprehensible for the lifestyle she willingly imposes upon her child?
In an alternate question, what if a similar individual with a child making $50K/yr had the option to purchase a reliable car for $700/mo but instead purchased a luxury vehicle for $2K/mo, forcing her into a situation where she was living on subsistence wages with her child? Would we not criticize the choice?
It seems that today it is becoming a popular opinion that any choice for any additional education (unless its from outside traditional academia and then it's bad) should be viewed as ultimately holy and that criticizing those choices is beyond the pale. I suggest that this may come from the Gen Xers and Millenials of the world who were essentially dictated to that they _had to go to college_ to live a good life. The net result of this has been people attending college and then ending up so-called "underemployed" by the masses. However, perhaps many of these people never should have attended college. Perhaps we sold them a raw deal that we have glorified and encoded in bull shit credentialism that requires college degrees for jobs that I could have easily done as a graduated high school student. For many, especially our youth, this alternative view seems verboten and we are now insisting on making college EVEN MORE prevalent by making it free for all. However, the deal will still be a bad deal. We will then be sending even more individuals into a system that will give them no advantage, take 4yrs of their lives and spit them out just as useful to society as they were going in at great cost.
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Nobody forced her to make these living arrangements that consume such a large percentage of her monthly salary. While it is regrettable, it's not the responsibility of the university to make sure that its students make good life choices.
Do some spot pricing of apartments on the Southern California coast and get back to us, m'kay?
There are about 1800 UCSC graduate students [1]. From this 2014-15 UCSC budget report [2] there is a very near 2:1 masters:phd graduation ratio. Assuming there are 2 years of masters students and 6 of PhD at any one time, that makes PhD students 60% of “graduate students”. Let’s make this easy by saying 1000 PhD students (if anything I imagine it’s way less than this — as I understand, monetizing masters students has…
1 person who you give a good deal to might, just might, keep their mouths shut. A whole segment? No way.
Hopefully this wakes people up to the fact that not only are universities not the hotbeds of leftism that they are made out to be, but they are in fact run by the same kinds of right wing plutocrats that run everything else.
I'm pretty sure many University employees vote democrat and oppose grad student salary increments.
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And again, this is brought upon by the university and their adherence to policies designed to strike the biggest wedge between the student body. I've had classes at my university where if you miss one exam your grade is averaged from all the rest. If the building that housed the exams was engulfed in flames and all the exams were lost, this is probably what the university would do in response. The university is free…
What is the college doing with regards to the withheld grades? Even if they did average all my other work, I'd be pissed I put all that effort into something that has zero impact on my grade. You're acting like the grad students have clean hands here which is clearly not true. They joined the union with the intent they would negotiate on their behalf. The union did so and promised to stop any wildcat strike. The stud…
They didn't have a choice. The union then negotiated against their interests.
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They're not workers in the traditional sense. What are other workers get degrees for their work?
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then for all intents and purposes, it is a duck. As a grad student, I taught 2 undergraduate courses a semester as the professor, the same load as a full faculty member—very much ‘workers in the traditional sense.’ Moreover, grad students are also writing a dissertation and doing research for their advisors and taking a full course load, and apparently in CA, also worki…
[1] There are two exceptions to the rule that interns don't get paid much: professional services and engineering. Both fields use internships almost exclusively as a recruiting tool and don't claim to provide any educational value.
Just because you exist does not mean you deserve success. This strain of leftism is essentially just jealousy and entitlement. I learned life isn't fair as a child it really isn't that hard of concept to grasp. That gave me the motivation to think about what I wanted out of life and to work towards that goal. I didn't get a loan from parents (they barely made ends meet growing up). I didn't go to college or a code ca…
Not available to so many of the international grad students.
You cancelled slavery but you do need your subset of oppressed workers.
Just finished my PhD and I advise everyone to stay away from this hellhole. I should have dropped out 3 years ago though. Terrible life choice.
Read the article because I was curious what major the grad students had, but was disappointed in the journalist not detailing this fact. In my mind it does make a difference. I doubt the students were in math for example.
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All the TAs at that school voted against the deal the union made.
that little detail, everyone seems to miss...
The union did so, and they are held to that contract.