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Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

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Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#211

Post by ETH_start »

munk-a wrote: post #133
ETH_start wrote: post #97

There is no good reason at all for society to accept and institutionalize the sense of entitlement that unionizing workers have. You don't get any moral right to extra-contractual benefits just because you agree to an employment contract. Almost all of the problems society has emanate from the ideological narratives of victimhood (e.g. the superficially plausible but fundamentally fallacious notion that parties with…

Along the same line of argument - why do employers feel entitled to continuously cut the effective wages of employees? The real wage in America has been on a steady decline while worker productivity has been increasing. Why do these employers get to play the victimhood card when denying employees fair benefits and wages? One of the benefits the unions is asking for is an extension of parental leave (maternity leave b…

>> why do employers feel entitled to continuously cut the effective wages of employees?

They are entitled to offer anything they want, as it's their own money they are offering. See this is the sense of entitlement I'm referring to, which is implicit in your question.

I spent years spreading the "gap between productivity and wages" graph on the internet. I later learned that this supposed gap was a distortion of reality, created by bad statistics:

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sources-of-real-wage-stag...

The reality is wage growth slowing since the 1970s due to slowing productivity growth. Where productivity growth is rapid, wage growth is rapid:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/743509/china-average-yea...

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#212

Post by whateveracct »

komali2 wrote: post #136
BobbyJo wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far easier to optimize for profit then theoretical ideals. The issue here isn't that they are optimizing for profit, the issue is that incentives have put that pursuit at odds with the university's core mission (education/community), as opposed to keeping it aligned with it. Pursuit of profit should keep you accountable for the services you provide, not detract from them.

So it's easier to optimize for profit, so what? How can your core mission be education but "you're optimizing for profit?" Either your core mission is education or it isn't. I feel like this is the kind of goal setting miss I see businesses make all the time. They'll be doing be doing some version of the ubiquitous value setting activity, and as ideas are pitched someone will be like "wait, isn't our most basic value…

You're talking to someone obsessed with money. Just how some people are.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#213

Post by jltsiren »

thwayunion wrote: post #189
jltsiren wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like "grad students" as a category. Master's students, or early stage PhD students, are typically continuing their undergraduate education. They should be considered students for all intents and purposes. People doing research for a PhD should be considered junior professionals rather than students and paid accordingly. When I was doing it, the pay was 2/3 of what you could reasonably expect in the industry.…

> When I was doing it, the pay was 2/3 of what you could reasonably expect in the industry You must be quite old or not in CS :) It was conservatively 1/5 when I was a PhD student (30K was a quite good stipend vs 150K was a kinda mid MS offer). It's as low as 1/10 now. If STEM PHD students at Temple are really making 19K then it's gotta be at most 1/10 and as low as 1/20 for the good ones. I do agree, though. We shou…

CS, in Finland, 10-15 years ago. I think the initial salary was something like €30k and it increased to €40k, which would be roughly $40k to $50k using the exchange rates at that time. Typical industry salaries for people who started their undergrads at the same time as me were ~50% higher.

The reason why PhD stipends are so low in the US is probably the same as the reason why industry salaries are so high: a culture that favors the top 20% at the expense of the bottom 50%.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#214

Post by alephaleph »

speakfreely wrote: post #166
pxc wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I really wish people would stop trying to redefine the word "violence" to mean anything they don't like. In almost every instance it's a strong signal that you're dealing with an emotional person who is incapable of having a rational conversation.

It seems pretty reasonable to call a punitive action that is intended to cause bodily harm violence.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#215

Post by labster »

juve1996 wrote: post #145
labster wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly a garbage administration. This is a huge signal to prospective graduate students not to apply to Temple University, a clear signal that they care more about money than your education. Grad students being at the bottom of the administrative priorities is nothing new, but threatening to prevent them from taking classes is a new low.

Higher education has grown disgustingly large. There is no reason grad students, which have driven a good portion of this growth, shouldn't be somewhat rewarded. Once again workers in this country are asking for the bare minimum as they continually get screwed over. Just another cartel taking away from people doing the actual work, with their endless army of bureaucrats.

The problem doesn’t stop at the university either. US federal student loans have higher interest rates and fewer forgiveness options than for undergraduates.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#216

Post by DiggyJohnson »

alephaleph wrote: post #214
speakfreely wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish people would stop trying to redefine the word "violence" to mean anything they don't like. In almost every instance it's a strong signal that you're dealing with an emotional person who is incapable of having a rational conversation.

It seems pretty reasonable to call a punitive action that is intended to cause bodily harm violence.

It really doesn’t, for me.

Violence usually implies direct physical force. I find this to be a core aspect of the word.

It’s punitive action, sure, but it isn’t violence because *nobody got hit/shoved/shot/etc. I don’t think any unfair, bad, or evil thing that indirectly affects another persons bodily health is violence. You’d start seeing violence everywhere, it seems.

Bit of a stagnant, but is a tax increase violence because it affects an individuals ability to afford medicine?

Just writing this comment makes me realize the main issue I have with this sort of reasoning is that it distracts from what’s actually happening. It’s playing games with semantics for pizazz, as opposed to critiquing with clarity.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#217

Post by grubbs »

klyrs wrote: post #209
charlieflowers wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. After all, where on Earth does all the tuition money actually go? The buildings are nice and there are way too many overpaid administrators, but even still that can't possibly account for all the $$$ flowing in.

The whole idea behind endowments used to be that they could maintain the institution through tough times. But nowadays, there's an expectation that endowments should continue to grow during a recession, even if that means cutting the institution to the bone. And administration hierarchies keep getting deeper; they're never on the chopping block.

Working at a pretty famous institution with a 6+ billion endowment...in June 2020 the president basically said "we're performing layoffs, stopping all retirement contributions, hiring freeze, and no raises for anyone."

Then gave some additional reasons as to why they couldn't dip into the endowment to save jobs/help those laid off.

So I guess it wasn't for tough times after all?

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#218

Post by fencepost »

munk-a wrote: post #50
fencepost wrote: post #8

Curious about what the university schedule is for withdrawing for the semester, and whether it's feasible for the students to take a semester off.

During COVID temple was gratuitously cruel in allowing students to cancel and forcing in-person teaching. I'd assume any cancellation window is as minimal as possible.

I was actually wondering if they'd specifically waited until after a key deadline to announce our implement this, just as a targeted "eff you" to the students.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#219

Post by janalsncm »

BobbyJo wrote: post #120
munk-a wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a business but arguably it should be more focused on education and community enrichment than pure profits. Not everything in life needs to be focused on profit.

It's far easier to optimize for profit then theoretical ideals. The issue here isn't that they are optimizing for profit, the issue is that incentives have put that pursuit at odds with the university's core mission (education/community), as opposed to keeping it aligned with it. Pursuit of profit should keep you accountable for the services you provide, not detract from them.

I don’t see how it’s relevant that profit is easier to optimize. So what? The purpose of a school is to educate.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#220

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

munk-a wrote: post #185
giantg2 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would COBRA come into play here?

They should all be eligible for COBRA, but COBRA is pretty insanely expensive (which is hard to pay for if you're striking and don't have a regular income - especially if you don't have much money in general like most grads). And people weren't actually informed their healthcare would be cut so they weren't aware they'd need to apply for bridging coverage.

I've been on COBRA a couple of times:

1. For young, single people, especially if they have the option of a high deductible plan, I wouldn't call it "insanely expensive" (now, family coverage I'd agree). In any case, what the sibling comment said is correct - it's just the full cost of the premiums since the employer isn't paying any.

2. Every time I went on COBRA I had a "grace period" of something like 4-8 weeks between when I left employment and when I had to make my first COBRA payment. Even if, for example, I got injured before I decided to officially sign up for COBRA, I still had the option of gaining coverage backdated to the date when I left my employer if it was before the end of the grace period.

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