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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

#151

Post by throwaway2016a »

aswanson wrote: post #82
throwaway2016a wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This varies hugely by school. A lot of state run Universities have very competitive salaries because their reputation depends on retaining rock star professors. Adjuncts are a different story. I taught as an adjunct part time at a state school where professor made $150k. I made $5000 per course. I did it more of less for fun because I like teaching. Which is not bad for extra pay on the side but terrible if it is you…

Are compsci phds in high demand in academia, or do they suffer the same oversupply condition as the general professorial market?

The irony is I don't have a Phd or Masters for that matter (I do have a BS). The universities much like industry would rather have someone with huge relevant industry experience than someone who has a Phd. It looks better on their marketing to say "We have the person who invented X, used by millions of websites" or "We have this best selling author" (in the English world) than "We have a person who got their Phd"

That's for adjuncts though. I think for full-time professors they have PhD requirements per the accreditation boards that they need to maintain. But once the quota is met they can hire anyone.

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

#152

Post by throwaway613834 »

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…

We don't even know if "don't go to college" is good advice for the long term (15+ years) in software engineering, let alone the fact that you're completely forgetting about other fields. Seems incredibly short-sighted to me.

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

#153

Post by valuearb »

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…

I went to 4 years of university. I do not have a degree. I have help write over 100 shipping applications, and led teams as large as 45 people. Everything I've learned and use in my daily work has been self taught. University computer science taught me very little, I have spent my own time reading and learning continuously since then.

The truth is, the brilliant professors are surrounded by mediocre professors, who in turn are dwarfed by the numbers of administrators and staff. At the vast majority of universities you are unlikely to get taught by anyone especially brilliant.

A university education was a bit of an expensive luxury in the past, now with the internet it's far more true.

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

#154

Post by cortesoft »

gerbilly wrote: post #114
xythian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you're downvoted. This is a real problem that is palpable for anyone that has worked in higher ed since the 1980s as most universities have moved to act more and more like for-profit entities. The reasons for this move are complex, and one result is a rise in well-paid administrators and low-paid adjuncts with a decline in tenured faculty. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/mar/30/academic-b.…

> most universities have moved to act more and more like for-profit entities. I think this reflects a larger trend. Most institutions are taking on the rituals of the dominant organizing principle in society: the corporation. I believe this is why church groups are having "annual general meetings" and that formerly not for profit institutions are mimicking the organizational structure of corporations: meetings, hiera…

Isn't that just how large organizations are run? How else would you run a large organization except with layers of hierarchy and meetings?

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

#156

Post by gbacon »

Chriky wrote: post #126
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…

This explanation makes no sense, what you are describing is MORE money entering the system.

Money is not neutral. That is, increases in the supply of money and credit do not produce uniform increases in all prices. Otherwise counterfeiting would be a mere nuisance.

More money entering an economy will certainly allow buyers to bid up prices (as with houses and college tuition). The question is which other prices are being bid up even more rapidly and which are remaining flat or declining on a relative basis.

These sorts of problems are why both illicit and legalized counterfeiting are so pernicious.

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

#158

Post by throwaway613834 »

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…

> 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?

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

#159

Post by sndean »

samfriedman wrote: post #105
xythian wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience (former PhD student and instructor and my spouse is a full-time faculty and program director), if you're a tenured faculty member at a R1 university, then grant writing is your job. You're expected to be self-funding and the only way to do this is to grind out grants and pass the work onto graduate students and staff. And, you pay a ~50% tax on your grant award as 'overhead' to the university, so you…

I'm surprised more high-tier universities don't supply tenured PIs with dedicated grant writers, or at least easy access to them. Many of my social circle work as grad students at a private R1 institution, and I've seen a vast difference in the experience of students with a PI who self-funds and writes grants all day - less interaction, most of the teaching and mentoring is done by postdocs - and a PI that has an alt…

> I'm surprised more high-tier universities don't supply tenured PIs with dedicated grant writers, or at least easy access to them.

At least at my university, there were a few technical writers that would help out writing grants and papers. AFAIK they were underutilized. It may vary by field and from PI to PI, but, in general, PIs wouldn't accept anyone else's writing. Everything that was penned by a technical writer was rewritten.

> most of the teaching and mentoring is done by postdocs

Or (best of all, in my experience) some older tenured full professors that don't care about getting funding anymore (or funding is thrown at them because they're famous). A few professors in their late 70's would spend entire afternoons helping me get something to work.

That may be further evidence that the real drain on mentoring is the constant need to write grants. Sad that some really enjoyed mentoring younger people but they couldn't until they were about to retire.

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

#160

Post by aaron-lebo »

newacct8086 wrote: post #136
aaron-lebo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the adjuncts, it is graduate students, too. I've got friends who are working on their PhDs while teaching 4-5 classes (at other locations). I considered being a TA a few years ago, but you couldn't have a second job. The stipend as a TA was $1300 a month + tuition for 40 hour weeks (may have actually been "20" hour weeks, not certain). Yeah, right. It's pretty screwed up. It's a privilege to be in highe…

I thought a TA appointment was 20 hours per week?

It actually may have been, don't mean to exaggerate. It's been awhile, can't recall and Googling isn't pulling up anything.

That being said, with the nature of being a graduate student and being on campus always, if it was "20 hours" a week it was really 30+. I do have a separate university related job now and the hours are anything but consistent. But you may be correct.

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