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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

#311

Post by geebee »

chrisseaton wrote: post #163
khawkins wrote: post #83

The fact that the article features an English professor is unsurprising. This is a supply-side problem--liberal arts degrees are in relatively low demand, but institutions continue to graduate students at unsustainable levels. No one is telling the students that they're spending 4-12 years getting an education which is worth less than what they're paying for it. For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English…

> For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English and other liberal-arts degrees are universities and schools This is such nonsense. Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree, and with an English degree you can apply for 90% of jobs. You could graduate and go on to be anything from an advertising executive, to a soldier. Most jobs don't care - it's technology that's unusual.

I don't think it's nonsense - I don't entirely agree, but I would agree with a milder version of the statement. I do know an English majors who is a director at at a top tech company, so I would agree that many companies will hire English majors.

However, that's different than saying you can get hired as an English major vs saying these companies hire for English majors.

Engineering and CS are majors that companies specifically target, in large numbers for hiring. "Related" majors like Math, Physics, other sciences, may also get recruited in the same batch.

Although English is sometimes specified as a specifically targeted major for a job, this is considerably less common.

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

#312

Post by Jach »

soVeryTired wrote: post #265
anonacct37 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true in software. Source: mid 6 figures principal engineer w/ high school diploma. Other jobs are pickier.

I'd say it used to be true in software. Try repeating that achievement starting out today. You'll be lucky to get any sort of tech job at all.

I think it's still largely true. In some sense it can be harder, especially if you don't plan to go through some form of web dev path or mobile development path, but on the other hand there are more opportunities now to quickly build up your knowledge and experience and showcase it. Open source projects don't care, and the coding bootcamp craze can be a substitute to a full degree while still offering pretty good odds at job placement. There are several contracting agencies out there as well that will help you out, if you're good those can lead to full time. Once you get your foot in the door and work in a tech role for over a year (or bootstrap your own tech startup for a year), or sometimes being an intern is enough), just about every place after that will look past not having a degree.

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

#313

Post by hyperbolerules »

sol_remmy wrote: post #148
vidarh wrote: post #113

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. According to this article [1] in Washington Post, the first occurrence of Texas as "crazy" in Norwegian dates to 1957. Makes me wonder if it's used this way in other European countries too, and whether or not the etymology is independent. It's worth noting that unlike the term "Amerikanske tils…

Actually Texas has cheap, well-funded state schools. It is financially a well-managed state. Maybe you should switch to saying "That's Illinois" or "That's Chicago", they're the dysfunctional state now.

you can’t argue logically with leftist insult attempts. norwegians very much believe themselves to be better than you and will sneer at you after affronting you with silly outdated stereotypes. it’s adorable

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

#314

Post by sjg007 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #262
intern4tional wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That explains some of the cost structure of an education institution, but: The real reason the adjunct-professor position pays so low is because that's the value applicants are willing to accept / that's the cake society assigns. If that class of employee demanded, or held more prestige, we would see efficiency gains elsewhere in the business.

This is why they want to unionize. Ironically, the tenure track and tenured professors are unionized as part of that institution's academic senate. Adjunct professorships probably arose out of the "postdoc" path, as well as being an academic association for industry collaborators. So temporary in nature. But the reality is different. Better off teaching K-12 at least they have a union.

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

#315

Post by jacquesm »

mattashii wrote: post #300
david927 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Eastbloc countries that was done as a form of punishment, often for not toeing the party line. It was true across disciplines: medicine, law, etc, when otherwise they would have "good" jobs. (I'm clarifying, not justifying.) I thought in The Netherlands that higher education was effectively free.

Higher education in NL is about 1800 euros/year for citizens (limiations apply in age, etc.). Living costs, study materials etc. are not included. You can loan ~1100/month max from the government, which currently is at 0% interest, but starting 2 years after finishing your studies you'll be required to pay it off in the next 30 years. (? unsure about this timespan) I hadn't heard about said hot topic, but one of the…

One example:

https://www.metronieuws.nl/nieuws/binnenland/2017/09/sugar-d...

They're all over the news, probably the best unpaid marketing campaign in a long time.

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

#316

Post by jimbokun »

empath75 wrote: post #35
qaq wrote: post #2

The explosion of administrative staff is crazy universities keep cutting teaching positions and increasing admin.

It seems like there should be a market for low overhead small schools with high paid teaching staff.

Please please please tell me where these schools are. I have two teenage sons on college tracks in high school, and absolutely terrified at the bankruptcy inducing sums bearing down on me like a freight train.

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

#317

Post by njarboe »

visarga wrote: post #229
adjkant wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many courses and students benefit from learning in person across many subjects, CS included. Sometimes it's the push they need, sometimes it's the value their classmates bring, sometimes it's the value the professor brings. Online courses are great, but they don't replace everything. I don't think the future of universities is bleak. The explanations above considering that we have a surplus of Ph.D.'s seems to be a l…

> Online courses are great, but they don't replace everything. The MOOCs don't work well because they are 100% virtual. What they need is a bit of in-person, human touch. I'd like to see a system where online courses are being supervised by "educational coaches" who are not necessarily experts in the field, but experts in motivation and maximizing results. Imagine a remote location, where there are no universities. A…

I imagine the MOOCs could replace intro courses where classes are currently over 100 students. For smaller specialized classes at the upper undergraduate levels (and K-12 with its lower class size) a good teach modifies how they teach depending on specific students and the class over all. We have had a mass system of learning without a teacher for 500 years. The printed book.

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

#318

Post by sjg007 »

Balgair wrote: post #301
intern4tional wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At the Univ. of California system, the number of 'student-facing' employees (from grad-students to professors to janitors and groundskeepers, basically anyone that could maybe have their face shown to a student) is 1:2 versus the rest of the staff. Guess who screams louder about HR, benefits, and other stuff? (Sorry, I can't find the source for this though, quick googling came up with nothing) EDIT: Another unrelated…

Grants are the most significant revenue source for a department. These are research institutions, teaching is a side effect and the thinking is that "the students are lucky for the opportunity" :)

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

#319

Post by jldugger »

dvvc wrote: post #252
khawkins wrote: post #83

The fact that the article features an English professor is unsurprising. This is a supply-side problem--liberal arts degrees are in relatively low demand, but institutions continue to graduate students at unsustainable levels. No one is telling the students that they're spending 4-12 years getting an education which is worth less than what they're paying for it. For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English…

This is not about the teaching discipline. I am a Computer Science adjunct, and the salary I get from teaching is equivalent to what the article mentions. I only do this because I like teaching, so this is not my main source of income. I am not in the verge of homelessness because I do programming for a living. But the problem is still the same: Universities are charging astronomical tuitions and then paying a laugha…

> I only do this because I like teaching, so this is not my main source of income.

IMO, this is what adjuncting excels at: supplementing your full time instructors with professionals spending most of their time in the workforce. This more or less happens in CS, but service departments like Math or English end up replacing the majority of their instructors with adjuncts working at 2-3 colleges.

Sadly, this trend does make sense and is easy to diagnose. Instructor salaries have stagnated despite increased student tuition because states have, for the past few decades consistently cut higher education funding. I was laid off from a self-funded university unit amid a very real concern that the state's failure to raise taxes to pay for pensions would ultimately impact the university's funding, and while this was not the immediate cause for the unit's layoffs, it was absolutely a factor in whether to cover the unit's budget shortfall.

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

#320

Post by ianai »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #262
intern4tional wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That explains some of the cost structure of an education institution, but: The real reason the adjunct-professor position pays so low is because that's the value applicants are willing to accept / that's the cake society assigns. If that class of employee demanded, or held more prestige, we would see efficiency gains elsewhere in the business.

Not quite. The real question is why are these adjuncts being paid so little? It could be that for many adjuncts the desire to be there forces them to accept whatever pay. It could be a desire to teach for the sake of it or it could be a lack of options. But also, why do colleges pay their student facing employees so little? They probably don’t have incentive to increase pay and they deginitely want to cut costs.
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