21–30 of 121 posts
Higher education doesn’t want to shed its clergy status. It’s like they can’t figure out if education is truly a pure pursuit or just this crazy godly thing that is priceless but somehow has this exorbitant real world price that the clergy seems to value … They sell indulgences at this point, and I don’t think it’s a false analogy. Holier than thou institution where everyone must pay the price for their product or be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Academia can be criticized as unsustainable as the OP does because the number of graduate students exceeds the number of secure employment positions available after one defends one’s dissertation or does a postdoc. However, the American model of PhD students being impoverished while studying isn’t the only one. In several European countries, the norm is for PhD students to be university employees under contract that…
Dude, I went through the European PhD system and it's not as glamorous as you depict it. First of all, you forgot to mention that the norm is to give contracts of 50% to 75% FTE. Secondly the hours worked and the vacation time is a complete forgery that you are basically forced to sign. Although the contract is nice on paper, in practice the norms and expectations are different. Thirdly, unlike in the US, in Europe y…
All UK universities do this. Not necessarily a bad thing unlike how the article portrays it. PhD students (and depending on the institution, postdocs) in the UK get a stipend that has no mandated teaching hours. Teaching allows PhD students to earn some extra income within the university. We certainly still have a compensation problem in academia. Bright STEM PhD grads don't want to earn £30-40k as a postdoc when ear…
This is the foundation of all academia currently. It’s a nice pyramid scheme while you’ve got it, I just finished witnessing my youngest brother go through it in grad school and his defense is on Tuesday.
> It’s a nice pyramid scheme... Before I became aware of criticisms likening universities to pyramid schemes, I recall hearing a Stanford professor managing a large research team say something like: "For this project, we have around 150 PhD students exploring it further in many directions". I was astonished by the sheer scale of their capabilities, especially because I liked the subject and had hoped to explore it as…
All UK universities do this. Not necessarily a bad thing unlike how the article portrays it. PhD students (and depending on the institution, postdocs) in the UK get a stipend that has no mandated teaching hours. Teaching allows PhD students to earn some extra income within the university. We certainly still have a compensation problem in academia. Bright STEM PhD grads don't want to earn £30-40k as a postdoc when ear…
When I was a postdoc in Cambridge, the problem was that there were too many PhD students and postdocs who wanted to teach. Not because of the compensation but for the experience. A lot of people wanted to try a career in the academia, and they needed teaching experience for that. But there were not enough undergraduates for them all to teach.
Summary: colleges are way too selective today at the high end.
Boomers got into elite schools far more easily, although there were less schools.
It's a bit of a disingenuous argument however, because the huge increase of schools down the long long LONG pecking order of school "eliteness".
But the boomer thing is spot on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep! Ask any PhD candidate in America how they love those poverty level wages!
Academia can be criticized as unsustainable as the OP does because the number of graduate students exceeds the number of secure employment positions available after one defends one’s dissertation or does a postdoc. However, the American model of PhD students being impoverished while studying isn’t the only one. In several European countries, the norm is for PhD students to be university employees under contract that…
This might be true in some cases, but I suspect that ultimately it's only the wealthy who can pursue these higher degrees. Yes, the pay might be low but that doesn't mean they are overall impoverished.
Put another way, the cost of education is one thing, but being able to afford the process might be a higher bar, for some, or more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stanford has a business school, doesn't it?
Schwab. I worked across from it in the reclaimed basement of Toyon like some sort of hidden Brazil ductwork steampunk menagerie for workers. Their IT department was well-regarded because each department did their own thing, which was inherently efficient in flexibility, control, and service but not in cost of delivery. I was an obsessive control freak, wannabe computer science researcher, and LTT-like PC putter-toget…
As a huge fan of William Gibson, that's some lovely writing, my fellow greybeard.
>> I was an obsessive control freak
There are 'control freaks' and there are the rest of the sea of humanity. Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Einstein, Feynman, ... I like my place in the set of the control freaks of the world. The key is to not ever try to control other people, only our own circumstances, including our own selves.
Higher education doesn’t want to shed its clergy status. It’s like they can’t figure out if education is truly a pure pursuit or just this crazy godly thing that is priceless but somehow has this exorbitant real world price that the clergy seems to value … They sell indulgences at this point, and I don’t think it’s a false analogy. Holier than thou institution where everyone must pay the price for their product or be…
One cannot place all of the blame at the foot of the university. Employers also play a role, when they demand accreditation. Students are also to blame, when they fail to do research on what type of training they need to enter a field.
As for the clergy comparison, let's just say that a multitude of people work within universities and those people have very different motivations from one another. Heck, they have very different motivations from one another even if they have the same job title. Painting them with one brush is excessive.
Higher education doesn’t want to shed its clergy status. It’s like they can’t figure out if education is truly a pure pursuit or just this crazy godly thing that is priceless but somehow has this exorbitant real world price that the clergy seems to value … They sell indulgences at this point, and I don’t think it’s a false analogy. Holier than thou institution where everyone must pay the price for their product or be…
> Holier than thou institution where everyone must pay the price for their product or be doomed as a person. One cannot place all of the blame at the foot of the university. Employers also play a role, when they demand accreditation. Students are also to blame, when they fail to do research on what type of training they need to enter a field. As for the clergy comparison, let's just say that a multitude of people wor…
Behold the romanticization of the diamond ring.
You just, I don’t know, you convince people in their vulnerability, in love, hey, this is what love really is, an expensive ring, venue, etc
Higher education at this point preys on the dreams of the parent/child via a financial vector.
It’s highly pathetic that such a highly regarded element of society has the same business model as a movie theater, which is roughly “now that we found the people that want the real movie experience, we get to charge them $10 for popcorn and $7 for a soda”.
Then the family walks out of the movie theater “hey we’re broke, but you really showed us the value of a real movie going experience, we’ll cherish forever”. I guess? What is this nonsense?
Part of any good experience involves not getting ripped off, on any level.