A successful academic faces lifelong debt
chronicle.com
A successful academic faces lifelong debt
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Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#2Maybe being an assistant professor of Native American studies is a lifestyle choice to be indulged in by people who are either married to or descended from people who did commercially valuable work? The engineering department has spots available for us kids who have to work for a living.
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#3If she is current on other financial obligations, should't she be able to finance that $30K at much less than 10%? So, the interest portion would be $3K/year. Is that a significant portion of a Dartmouth Assistant Professor's income?
I live in the MidWest, and cleaning "ladies" want $20-$25/hour under-the-table. Perhaps she should take on such work on Saturdays to reduce her debt load.
[As an aside, I can't understand how bad America can be if one can make this much cleaning houses. Some of these people aren't even all that good at it!]
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#4Maybe being an assistant professor of Native American studies is a lifestyle choice to be indulged in by people who are either married to or descended from people who did commercially valuable work? The engineering department has spots available for us kids who have to work for a living.
I agree with the sentiment - anyone expecting to make a ton of money off of a career in Native American studies is naive at best.
That said, the author did manage to be hired in multiple tenure-track positions, and made it to an Ivy League school. One would hope - expect, really - that with that level of career success she should be able to at least pay off their college debts, especially if she was as frugal as she claimed to be in her essay.
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#5The comments on the site are ... pleasant. I don't think I've ever seen a blog post where the author admits to having some personal flaw where the first 10 comments aren't "HAH UR DUM". Looks like the Chronicle attracts slightly more intelligent readers than the average blog.
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#6If she is current on other financial obligations, should't she be able to finance that $30K at much less than 10%? So, the interest portion would be $3K/year. Is that a significant portion of a Dartmouth Assistant Professor's income? I live in the MidWest, and cleaning "ladies" want $20-$25/hour under-the-table. Perhaps she should take on such work on Saturdays to reduce her debt load. [As an aside, I can't understan…
That's what I'd like to know - how LITTLE does an assistant professor make that 60,000 dollars of debt will take a lifetime to pay off, even in the absence of a mortgage (and presumably a car) payment?
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#7Maybe being an assistant professor of Native American studies is a lifestyle choice to be indulged in by people who are either married to or descended from people who did commercially valuable work? The engineering department has spots available for us kids who have to work for a living.
Agreed, doing what you love should be a privilege reserved for the affluent! She was a fool to dream beyond her class; thankfully, she's paying for it now. I hope it stands as a lesson to others.
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#8If she is current on other financial obligations, should't she be able to finance that $30K at much less than 10%? So, the interest portion would be $3K/year. Is that a significant portion of a Dartmouth Assistant Professor's income? I live in the MidWest, and cleaning "ladies" want $20-$25/hour under-the-table. Perhaps she should take on such work on Saturdays to reduce her debt load. [As an aside, I can't understan…
That's what I'd like to know - how LITTLE does an assistant professor make that 60,000 dollars of debt will take a lifetime to pay off, even in the absence of a mortgage (and presumably a car) payment?
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/14/aaup might be a good starting point ... looks like the average for an assistant professor is around 60k, but Dartmouth is likely to be above that.
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#9Maybe being an assistant professor of Native American studies is a lifestyle choice to be indulged in by people who are either married to or descended from people who did commercially valuable work? The engineering department has spots available for us kids who have to work for a living.
Agreed, doing what you love should be a privilege reserved for the affluent! She was a fool to dream beyond her class; thankfully, she's paying for it now. I hope it stands as a lesson to others.
I know you were being sarcastic, but this is 100% true. Doing what you love, instead of what is useful, is a privilege, not a right.
Re: A successful academic faces lifelong debt
#10I'm a college professor myself. It is a thankless job. You spend more than 20 years in school, washing dishes, working at a dead end job waiting for that moment when you finally get to teach.
My teaching job pays about $30.00/Hr. However I only get to work about 25 hours a week or so. It's not much money to live on.
Also realize the pressures of college teaching:
Society needs you to teach skills to the students that they will need to excel. The students have been given a free ride all the way though High School.
How do you teach C programming to students that cannot do any algebra and have no understanding of logic?
If you make the class hard enough for them to excel in the global marketplace, all of the students drop out.
It you make it easy enough for everyone to pass, you have scarcely covered the first one or two chapters of the book.