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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

#351

Post by jogjayr »

dragonwriter wrote: post #219
vijayr wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "Don't go to college" is the best advice today. That only works in industries like software etc. If one wants to be a lawyer, doctor etc they have no choice but to go to college, right? Some American students are going abroad (Germany etc), that could be a short term option.

> That only works in industries like software etc. If one wants to be a lawyer, doctor etc they have no choice but to go to college, right? For lawyers in some US jurisdictions, including California, no; California, for instance, requires general education of two years of college or “demonstrated equivalent intellectual achievement” prior to study of law, and several options for the study of law, including what amoun…

Except that all the top law firms hire exclusively from top law schools. And the legal field is generally oversupplied with lawyers so if you don't work at a top law firm you won't be making a great living for a long time.

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

#352

Post by kxyvr »

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…

Student debt is half of the problem. Really, the problem is that the primary source of funding for a university is the state. Over time, states have reduced the amount of money they give to schools because they can increase tuition to make of the difference. Since students are forced to then take student loans from the federal government, it in affect becomes a scheme for the states to milk money from the fed, but saddle the debt on students. So, yes, student loans are a problem, but the larger problem is that the states have proportionally removed money from the universities.

As to how to fix it, it's complicated. If the fed wants to continue to pump money into universities, they could federalize them, but it would be a huge transfer of power to transfer control of universities from the state to the fed. There's accreditation, the board of regents, and a variety of other organizations that would then be federally controlled. On top of this, since a university is such a large piece of a local community and requires infrastructure to support it, it makes sense to manage it locally. Further, the state would probably just play the same game if a university was federally controlled and still milk money. Really, the states need to realign their priorities and increase funding for the university system if they want stuff like this to stop. Removing federal student loans would help alleviate some of this pressure, but there's still pressure on universities to move to adjunct faculty to reduce costs as well, which is what the article was about.

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

#353

Post by bitcrusher »

nsxwolf wrote: post #263
chrisseaton wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why do employers keep putting so much value on something so worthless? There must be cheaper ways to demonstrate to employers you have something equivalent to whatever it is they think they're getting from any old 4 year degree.

I think in part, it's because "they" have a degree. There can be quite a bit of condescension from people who have degrees towards those who don't.. "I got a degree to get this job, you should have one too".

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

#354

Post by poopchute »

jdavis703 wrote: post #288
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…

> Add in the racket that is software + books and things add up quickly. Don't students have to pay for software and books? Where I went to school the library didn't stock any textbooks, and there was an extra per-credit hour "technology fee" slapped on to the regular tuition? You'd think the "technology fee" would cover all required software, but it only really paid for things like Microsoft Office, Peoplesoft, etc.…

What ticks me off at my University is the $100 per semester athletic fee, but that doesn't include use of any athletic things. Still costs $85 per month to use the weight room

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

#355

Post by arkades »

_rpd wrote: post #244
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…

> 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. I think that some fault lies with unrealistic expectations. Every liberal arts graduate student knows that there are only enough positions for 1 in 10 of their cohort, but each firmly believes that they will be in that 10%. Worse, many who are talented enough to actually be in th…

The schools exacerbate this because the professors themselves have such survivorship bias.

I once had a professor try to convince me to go for a bio phd. I objected that there's only one TT position for every 20 graduates. His response was that it's just about hard work - look at him, for example!

He didn't get my point; I didn't get the phd.

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

Top19 wrote: post #242
rayiner wrote: post #202

If someone had written an article about struggling actors turning to sex work and sleeping in cars, nobody would blink an eye. Acting pays little for the same reason being an academic pays little. Lots of people want to do it, but there is limited demand, hence only the really exceptional folks make any money doing it. Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. It's n…

I want to comment that academics provide such an incredible amount to the world we live in. In a time of bullshit thought leaders and companies like Equifax who will tell you obvious lies, the academic discipline with its rigor, criticalness, and policing against self-promotion is a kind of last-bastion for intellect in the West. And even that is sort of cracking. BTW one country has already tried the “you can only g…

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by losteric »

cortesoft wrote: post #211
losteric wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competent self-managing sub-organizations. Big corporations do require bureaucracy, but smaller entities use bureaucracy as a substitute for competency and autonomy.

A 'sub-organization' is just an alternative description of a heirarchy. Those sub-organizations will have to come together to make macro decisions, like which departments need more funding, how to handle building expansion and shared facility use, etc.

In my experience, smaller flatter organizations rarely require a synchronous large meeting for those issues.

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

#358

Post by trentmb »

tpeo wrote: post #257
chrisseaton wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You know, that's a problem too. I mean, I take that 90% of jobs aren't specialized positions. Once you need a college degree for a position that only requires general skills, or in which the employee can do just fine on-the-job training and experience, then what are those years in college for exactly? As far as I know, people could get by with a high school degree in the 1970s: there was no significant wage differenc…

> then what are those years in college for exactly?

A proxy for an IQ test?

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

#359

Post by metaphorm »

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.

its not non-sense but it might be underspecified. the only jobs that care that you have, specifically, an English degree are jobs in academia. Corporate jobs will gladly hire an English major just because it's a degree they don't care that it's an English degree though.

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

#360

Post by ken47 »

adjkant wrote: post #49
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #14

With companies no longer requesting university degrees, online learning (like watching Harvard courses) becoming more popular and in some countries university being outragous expensive, the future of universities is bleak because people will stop going there. And that of acadamics teaching is even worse. The internet will cut all middleman, and teachers being the middleman between you and knowledge, or gatekeepers to…

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…

The future of lower-tier universities is bleak. Once MOOCs have been refined, top-ranked schools will dominate market share, and if they play it right, will make a lot of money. Who would rather take classes at a run-of-the-mill state school vs. an Ivy League university online?

And when that happens, it will open questions about the antiquated college admissions processes of said universities, which evolved from the physical limitations of campuses. Who is the more ideal job candidate between person A who was admitted to an Ivy League because he/she had the know-how and resources to play the college admissions game vs. person B who didn't, if person B is able to get higher grades on said Ivy League coursework? This will no longer be a hypothetical question when MOOCs have matured. This effect will put downward pressure on tuitions, which will be a good thing for students, while at the same time enriching the handful of colleges and universities with enough of a brand name to make it in the MOOC world.

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