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Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

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Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#71

Post by anonymousDan »

icelancer wrote: post #64
anonymousDan wrote: post #6

In the UK at least there is huge discontent about the recent pension cuts. The salaries already suck (especially in a technical field such as CS), but a 40% cut to pensions as a reward for the efforts put in to handle COVID is just too much.

> huge discontent about the recent pension cuts I get this, but these are almost all ponzi schemes when "guaranteed" by the government or some form of bureaucracy. We deal with it in the US. Chicago and Philadelphia public pensions are underwater with no way to solve the problem, so elected officials kick the can down the road until it blows up.

Wrong. In the UK the universities collectively are part of USS, the biggest private pension fund in the UK The annoying thing is that this was in rude health until the university management controlled board decided to take a pension valuation during the middle of COVID. The driving factor is that 10 years or so ago the university sector was deregulated such that universities are no longer capped in terms of the number of students they can take. This has lead to vicious competition between universities to hoover up as many students as possible. As a result they are no longer willing to cross-subsidize each others pension funds.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#72

Post by icelancer »

anonymousDan wrote: post #71
icelancer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> huge discontent about the recent pension cuts I get this, but these are almost all ponzi schemes when "guaranteed" by the government or some form of bureaucracy. We deal with it in the US. Chicago and Philadelphia public pensions are underwater with no way to solve the problem, so elected officials kick the can down the road until it blows up.

Wrong. In the UK the universities collectively are part of USS, the biggest private pension fund in the UK The annoying thing is that this was in rude health until the university management controlled board decided to take a pension valuation during the middle of COVID. The driving factor is that 10 years or so ago the university sector was deregulated such that universities are no longer capped in terms of the numbe…

>> As a result they are no longer willing to cross-subsidize each others pension funds.

>> universities are no longer capped in terms of the number of students they can take

>> Some form of bureaucracy

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#73

Post by qmmmur »

muaytimbo wrote: post #16

I'm surprised it took them so long to get fed up, reaching the mid-career level. I realized doing my PhD that all of academia is a toxic house of cards built on cheap grad student labor, foreign student tuition and grant beggary, and the false promise to students of at least an interesting (if not particularly well-paid) career. If it took you until mid-career to realize this . . . you weren't observant and I don't r…

Yep! I was warned almost immediately and had good supervisors. It doesn’t change the fact that academia is built on wage theft, precious contracts and volatile sources of income. Don’t even get me started on the middle manager bullshit.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#74

Post by qmmmur »

stanford_labrat wrote: post #31

Not sure I count as mid career yet(graduated 2018, starting PhD 2022) but I can certainly echo the sentiment. I work in life sciences academia and if it were not for me leaving for school I 100% would be swapping to industry. I’m even quitting a bit earlier than anticipated because I’m fed up. I’ve been getting a lot more recruitment outreach this spring, some good some bad. The biggest thing is that they’re offering…

I’m a post doc now and it’s as far as I’m tolerating to go. The system is and I personally can have a much better life just not being in it. M

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#75

Post by muaytimbo »

abcc8 wrote: post #62
muaytimbo wrote: post #16

I'm surprised it took them so long to get fed up, reaching the mid-career level. I realized doing my PhD that all of academia is a toxic house of cards built on cheap grad student labor, foreign student tuition and grant beggary, and the false promise to students of at least an interesting (if not particularly well-paid) career. If it took you until mid-career to realize this . . . you weren't observant and I don't r…

That, or you were fortunate enough to matriculate into a program at a world-class research university with adequate support and funding, where your peers have graduated and gotten their desired next positions, and where you felt you were learning and gaining valuable skills? Sure, not everything is great all of the time, but not all PhD experiences are like you describe either.

I went to a world class research University (an Ivy, top 15 in my field). The environment is still toxic, pay is low, and still very few got the professorships they sought.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#76

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

dominotw wrote: post #35
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #2

Can anyone show me statistical evidence that this "great resignation" is anything more than a story made up by the media?

great musical chairs

It's the result of moronic short-sighted managers and HR departments that would rather pay replacements 50% more than the existing employee than to give the existing employee the 25% pay bump necessary to keep them.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#77

Post by ghaff »

jldugger wrote: post #56
somenameforme wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graphs with zoomed in Y axes make eyeballing often misleading. Consider the data: 2000-2016: -4.3% LFPR 2016-2020: +1% LFPR Current: 0.2% below what we were in September 2015 (while currently in a sharply increasing trend) The graph is eye popping, but the numbers themselves don't seem particularly exceptional.

I mean, we celebrate when GDP growth rates hit 3 percent, and here we show a 4 percent decline in the workforce that generates that GDP so I don't think it's that misleading, perhaps as a lucky coincidence. Travelling 7 years in time is a rather huge deal. Really, where this chart is misleading is that there are likely different cohorts. If stratified by decade of birth I would expect boomers to be most of the differ…

>Boomers resigning, as long predicted.

Changes are probably at the margins but those can still be significant in the aggregate. There are obviously many people (of all generations) that can't afford to just pack it. But there are also a lot of Boomers, among others, who--thanks in part to a long bull market--don't have to keep working and there are a lot of reasons to imagine why now might be as good a time as any to wind down full-time employment.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#78

Post by actually_a_dog »

muaytimbo wrote: post #16

I'm surprised it took them so long to get fed up, reaching the mid-career level. I realized doing my PhD that all of academia is a toxic house of cards built on cheap grad student labor, foreign student tuition and grant beggary, and the false promise to students of at least an interesting (if not particularly well-paid) career. If it took you until mid-career to realize this . . . you weren't observant and I don't r…

Yeah, I realized before finishing my PhD that academia was a Ponzi scheme and I was one of the bag holders at the end. Tenure track positions haven’t been growing for many years now, yet degrees are being awarded at far higher than replacement rate. TBH, I should have realized it was a list cause when I found out doing 3 postdocs wasn’t an unusual situation.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#79

Post by blahblarblar »

muaytimbo wrote: post #16

I'm surprised it took them so long to get fed up, reaching the mid-career level. I realized doing my PhD that all of academia is a toxic house of cards built on cheap grad student labor, foreign student tuition and grant beggary, and the false promise to students of at least an interesting (if not particularly well-paid) career. If it took you until mid-career to realize this . . . you weren't observant and I don't r…

It’s not that they weren’t paying attention. It’s more that academics egos can’t handle the loss to their identity of not being an academic anymore.

Re: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

#80

Post by JaimeThompson »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #47
joshgroban wrote: post #21

This is actually really scary. As American universities become less powerful I shudder to think of what kind of radical politics and cultural narratives will sweep the nation.

Isn't this exactly the opposite of the current state? That the overwhelming power of Universities in the US is what spreads cultural and political movements? I think you could argue that the entire Woke enterprise is centered on Universities particularly elite ones.

> entire Woke enterprise

How are you defining "Work enterprise"?

Note: Work should be Woke. Error on my part.

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