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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

#421

Post by tnecniv »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #183
gervase wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graduate stipends almost never include room and board, as far as I know. This may be different if you're in a high-rent area (UCLA, Stanford, NYU, etc), but in general, your rent comes out of that $1300. They do currently include decent health insurance, at least. No dental/vision, obviously.

> They do currently include decent health insurance, at least. No dental/vision, obviously. Probably school-dependent -- I'm aware of one that does have dental at least (I forget about vision but I think it has that too).

I can confirm dental and vision is offered to grad students at the school I went to. It wasn't included in the stipend but it is cheap.

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

#422

Post by jononor »

aphextron wrote: post #236
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…

There's nothing wrong with getting an English degree. Practically any uneducated person would benefit greatly from four years of college level writing courses no matter the level of "usefulness". The problem is the overarching mentality of the culture which says "you have X degree, so you must now try to use it for X". If you judge English degrees on the same level of a job training course it doesn't make sense. They…

All fine things, but probably not worth putting yourself into a lot of debt for.

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

#424

Post by kazinator »

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.

Because that would be like saying "hey, there is a big white elephant in the room!" to the room's occupants, when there is indeed precisely such a beast in that room.

Such as proclamation is rather more befitting of, say, the Economics faculty.

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

#425

Post by kazinator »

geebee wrote: post #311
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.

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 s…

If having that English degree makes the job more attainable than not having a degree, then in a way they do hire for English majors (even if not specifically, but by way of the class-instance relationship).

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

#426

Post by kazinator »

trentmb wrote: post #358
tpeo wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nope! They are an indicator to work at a fairly long-term goal fairly diligently, and jump through various hoops.

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

#427

Post by kazinator »

glonq wrote: post #225
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.

> Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree Then why do they require a degree at all? What specific skills will a degreed applicant have that a high school grad won't?

> What specific skills will a degreed applicant have that a high school grad won't?

For one thing, the "skill" of (probably) not being from that stratum of society that doesn't get their kids through university. Asking for degrees is a subtle way to perpetrate socio-economic discrimination. (In some cases, it has to be a degree from the right set of schools, not just anywhere.) It's so easy! You don't have to look at race, or what neighborhood someone grew up in. Just this: do they have a degree or not. Saves time and protects from litigation: it's brilliant!

Getting a degree demonstrates some measure of discipline and work, and the delaying of gratification for the sake of a longer term goal that is several years away, while completing various tasks, jumping through hoops and so on. It's like a job. You have to attend to certain things on time, like showing up for exams, and meet deadlines (term papers, etc).

If you have a degree, you probably pulled an "all nighter" or two to submit something on time or prepare for an exam, and that's just the sort of dedication that employers crave.

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

#428

Post by Top19 »

justabystander wrote: post #343
Top19 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> academics provide such an incredible amount to the world we live in. This is true, but it's not terribly efficient about doing so. Much of it provides little to no useful return, and some of it actively harms the world we live in. If we wish to talk about the value of academics, we must honestly look at the whole balance sheet. Value isn't just about revenue, but costs, as well. And with rising tuitions and falling…

@justabystander wow your reply was long and very detailed and you put a lot of effort into it.

Let me add one more point, and see if what I said merges with what you said. If not I'm completely wrong.

A lot of books, like The Idea Industry by Daniel Drezner and also Science-Mart by Philip Mirowski say that the cutting of university budgets since the late 60's has led to such an undermining of their stability that Academics have had to engage in a stupid, pointless, survival battle of numbers, conformity, and politics. I'm sure the politics was there beforehand, but they make a convincing case that critical thinking and independent research is much more possible when you're not afraid of losing your funding all the time / scared in general about your job.

An additional point to this is that a lot of individuals see the cutting in college funding as the GOP's revenge for the 1960's, because a lot of the behavior of that era was seen as coming from college campuses. UCLA was actually free up until 1967 when Governor Ronald Reagan began the process of charging tuition.

So in conclusion, academia does have a lot of terrible things about it, but I think say 60% of it is fixable simply with a better relationship and funding style between universities and the government.

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

#429

Post by forapurpose »

jononor wrote: post #420
forapurpose wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineering and CS are majors that companies specifically target In your industry.

Which industries hire for English majors? Are there good opportunities to be had, and are future prospects looking stable,upwards or down?

Industries where writing and reading comprehension arein demand, such as advertising, journalism, marketing, film, diplomacy, public relations, publishing, technical writing, law, and many more ...

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

#430

Post by alexanderstears »

kbenson wrote: post #415
alexanderstears wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it the same way, sure the power of the purse and all but if the Federal Government can't coerce states to follow immigration law as a condition of accepting some federal grants, we may as well say that the feds can't tie money to behavior and just let the chips fall where they may. I get that women and men have different physical capabilities but why split it on gender? Why not split it on race? There isn…

> I don't see it the same way, sure the power of the purse and all but if the Federal Government can't coerce states to follow immigration law as a condition of accepting some federal grants, we may as well say that the feds can't tie money to behavior and just let the chips fall where they may. I'm confused, I wasn't making any case for that. I'm not sure where we got to Federal funding tied to specific program attr…

>I'm confused, I wasn't making any case for that. I'm not sure where we got to Federal funding tied to specific program attributes.

Federal funding coerces schools into offering women's sports programs.

> I wouldn't be comfortable attributing it to genetic variance of physical capability without a bit more info.

Why do we have to attribute the difference to genetics or physical capability to make sports programs accessible? What about mental capability? Mentally impaired, physically okay individuals compete in the special Olympics. Why not create a class for people who are using performance enhancement drugs?

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