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Should universities not be held accountable for the fraud that they have perpetrated on their students? The tobacco companies were taken to court because their
by nickff 10y ago
Should universities not be held accountable for the fraud that they have perpetrated on their students? The tobacco companies were taken to court because their products had long-term consequences which they persistently minimized, while continuing to push product; it seems universities have done the same. If anything, the universities have better, clearer data than the tobacco companies, and the universities have far more people with clear understandings of both statistics and the observable consequences of getting a PhD. Throwing away the last years of your life because of cancer doesn't seem clearly worse than throwing away the best years of your life seeking a PhD.
- nevdka 10y agoThe observable consequences of PhDs are higher salaries and lower unemployment than Masters, Bachelors or lower [0]. PhD students also spend 'the best years of their lives' working deeply on something they care about. Where's the fraud? [0] http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
- ikeyany 10y agoI'm guessing the depressing reality that you're spending those years broke, stressed out, and doing unglamorous work compared to your peers who went for greener pastures.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoYou should read the article more closely. It advocates exactly holding universities accountable, and in particular, holding universities accountable for deliberately casualizing academic (ie: PhD-holding) labor by converting tenured professorships into adjunct positions, even while expanding enrollments and using the tuition money to hire more and more administrators. It would be more accurate to say that universities are exploitative than that the existence of a self-reproducing class of professional scientists is irrational. >But perhaps the best way to get answers is to talk to the parents of college students, the ones footing the bill. Ask whether they’d rather pay that ballooning college tuition for lazy rivers on campus, for fruit baskets and housekeepers for executive staff, and for other rising non-classroom costs; or for more top PhD talent, smaller classrooms, more one-on-one attention from faculty, more independent studies and research opportunities with faculty, and a stable faculty who won’t have to leave halfway through their student’s college career. Then you’ll get a sense of the real, unmet demand for PhDs, and the irrationality of a market that isn’t delivering.
- nickff 10y agoI am making the case for lawsuits with billion dollar settlements or judgements against universities, as well as ongoing concessions. The article advocates what I would describe as 'half-measures', not actual penalties. Many have proposed criminal charges against tobacco company executives, and I see no reason that the university heads should be held to a lower standard.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoHow can I contribute ;-)?
- nickpsecurity 10y agoOff-topic, whatever happened to DECA? Link is dead.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoIt's on Github after Google Code shut down, but progress is nonexistent since I got sidetracked trying to prove the type-system and type-inference algorithm work in Coq. I encountered so many errors in my own reasoning about that damn thing that I decided to not accept anything less than a formal proof. My willpower is wearing down, considering the effort it takes to achieve a full Coq development of something serious like that.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoAs a phd holder who knew the dangers going in, I can assure you those were by no means the best years of my life.
- nickff 10y agoI apologize if I was unclear, but I meant that your 20s are generally thought to be 'the best years of your life', and those are precisely the years many spend getting a PhD (thus spoiling the years). Many smokers knew the risks, yet that did not shield the tobacco companies from the prosecutorial ire of the states.
- red_blobs 10y agoWhat ever happened to personal responsibility? It's something that needs to be instilled in our youth before they ever get to college. I know at least 3 people that knowingly got PHDs in majors that will not amount to any sort of high-paying job. They chose to do this and it's not really the job of the university to determine the market value of their degrees.
- nickff 10y agoThose arguments could all be used against the tobbaco company lawsuits too; I am asking what makes them different.
- sjg007 10y agoThey probably aren't that different.. For profit schools are going thru the ringer now precisely because they don't deliver an education. Could a PhD program or law school face the same scrutiny? Possibly. It will be interesting to see how the legal arguments against the for profits unfolds.
- AstralStorm 10y agoThe long term costs are visible in plain to everyone (unless there are lies about prospects) and PhD are not addictive.