4 ms·

Former tenured professor. I think your impression is generally spot-on although there's nuances and it's more complicated than that. In general, universities

by o09rdk 7y ago

Former tenured professor. I think your impression is generally spot-on although there's nuances and it's more complicated than that. In general, universities are suffering from many of the same pressures as other fields. Nonprofits are being run as profit-generating centers, and the implicit promotion track goes from faculty to senior faculty to administration, if you're even on tenure track. The administration salaries are increasing, as are the number of administrative positions (deans, associate deans, vice associate deans, assistant deans, etc.), and the structures are becoming increasingly hierarchical. Things are very top-heavy and expensive to run because the salary budget is so disproportionately distributed. I don't think that's all of it, though. The rest of it is harder to quantify, but is the flip side of the educational bubble coin. Students are rushing to go to college in record numbers, which then puts pressure on colleges to stand out to attract more students and more high-paying students who become high-donating alumni. Institutions that should be getting public funding are not, which then trickles down to students; other private institutions then benefit from the increased tuition norms etc. It's a complicated problem that involves HR and administrative practices and norms, economic incentives within university funding structures, incentives coming from a broken employment system in the US, problematic incentives coming from federal grant structures, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Ancalagon 7y ago
Can you expand on the broken employment system in the US? Honestly just curious.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  If I had to complain about things, it would be these: 1. Lack of workplace training - very few employers will pay for you to train/gain experience, partly because there's nothing preventing someone from jumping ship for better pay once the training is complete 2. Credentialism - the things that actually matter in hiring are either difficult or illegal to test for (conscientiousness, knowledge, intelligence), and so degrees are used as proxies instead
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    > very few employers will pay for you to train/gain experience Yes and no. Most HVAC shops will pay for technician's training. Most dev shops pay for technical conferences. Most managers have access to management seminars and training. Expecting an employers to pay tens of thousands of dollars seems weird, but many employers do pay on a smaller scale for skills training. > degrees are used as proxies instead Though conventional wisdom is that a degree doesn't matter 5 years after graduation. Nor does it seem that prestigious positions are even that picky in practice. Yes, there are a number of Harvard, Stanford, Yale alumni in Congress, but other seven of the top 10 colleges for Congress members are public state schools. [1] [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/the-top-10-colleges-for-members-of-congress?slide=4 https://www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/the-top-10-colleges-f...
    - crowbahr 7y ago
      Dev shops pay for technical conferences but few tech places want to hire fresh, green devs and train them up. They all would prefer experience. It's why you see so many forums talking about sending out applications to hundreds of places for months when searching for their first job, then never having a problem again after.
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      The degree you get certainly matters for graduate admissions though. For example, at both MacGill and U of Montreal they don't take any account of industry experience when you are applying for grad school. And they assume grade inflation, so unless you scored A average you can give up.
      - paulddraper 7y ago
        That's true. It's a relatively small set of jobs that require a medical, law, or phd degree.
      - blaser-waffle 7y ago
        Schools in QC are a different breed, though. The cost for QC residents is very low, and the cost for non-QC residents is still pretty tolerable. This means there are lot of applicants -- like why not, it's cheap -- and they can be picky. I've also noticed that Canada and Australia place far more emphasis on formal credentials than US colleges. US Uni's will take you if you can demonstrate competency and can pay; Uni Melbourne won't talk to you unless you have the exact, specific kind of degree. Ditto for UBC, U Sydney, etc.
- o09rdk 7y ago
  I think in general I mean that people are seen as cogs in a machine, rather than individuals to be trained, and there's no safety net from the government, either in terms of real retraining or advanced education or life benefits or anything. HR gets a million applications, people are evaluated on what boxes can be checked off rather than their skillset, etc. With regard to the educational system, the problem is that degrees are seen as signals or credentials (to use the language of the article) rather than as a background. That's admittedly a fuzzy distinction, but it really reduces the degree to the degree per se rather than the host of courses and experiences the person during college. So, we talk about "useless degrees" without recognizing that someone might have had equivalent coursework and experience without majoring in something else per se. In the end it doesn't matter.

by o09rdk 7y ago

Ancalagon 7y ago

Can you expand on the broken employment system in the US? Honestly just curious.

DuskStar 7y ago
If I had to complain about things, it would be these: 1. Lack of workplace training - very few employers will pay for you to train/gain experience, partly because there's nothing preventing someone from jumping ship for better pay once the training is complete 2. Credentialism - the things that actually matter in hiring are either difficult or illegal to test for (conscientiousness, knowledge, intelligence), and so degrees are used as proxies instead
- paulddraper 7y ago
  > very few employers will pay for you to train/gain experience Yes and no. Most HVAC shops will pay for technician's training. Most dev shops pay for technical conferences. Most managers have access to management seminars and training. Expecting an employers to pay tens of thousands of dollars seems weird, but many employers do pay on a smaller scale for skills training. > degrees are used as proxies instead Though conventional wisdom is that a degree doesn't matter 5 years after graduation. Nor does it seem that prestigious positions are even that picky in practice. Yes, there are a number of Harvard, Stanford, Yale alumni in Congress, but other seven of the top 10 colleges for Congress members are public state schools. [1] [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/the-top-10-colleges-for-members-of-congress?slide=4 https://www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/the-top-10-colleges-f...
  - crowbahr 7y ago
    Dev shops pay for technical conferences but few tech places want to hire fresh, green devs and train them up. They all would prefer experience. It's why you see so many forums talking about sending out applications to hundreds of places for months when searching for their first job, then never having a problem again after.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    The degree you get certainly matters for graduate admissions though. For example, at both MacGill and U of Montreal they don't take any account of industry experience when you are applying for grad school. And they assume grade inflation, so unless you scored A average you can give up.
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      That's true. It's a relatively small set of jobs that require a medical, law, or phd degree.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Schools in QC are a different breed, though. The cost for QC residents is very low, and the cost for non-QC residents is still pretty tolerable. This means there are lot of applicants -- like why not, it's cheap -- and they can be picky. I've also noticed that Canada and Australia place far more emphasis on formal credentials than US colleges. US Uni's will take you if you can demonstrate competency and can pay; Uni Melbourne won't talk to you unless you have the exact, specific kind of degree. Ditto for UBC, U Sydney, etc.
o09rdk 7y ago
I think in general I mean that people are seen as cogs in a machine, rather than individuals to be trained, and there's no safety net from the government, either in terms of real retraining or advanced education or life benefits or anything. HR gets a million applications, people are evaluated on what boxes can be checked off rather than their skillset, etc. With regard to the educational system, the problem is that degrees are seen as signals or credentials (to use the language of the article) rather than as a background. That's admittedly a fuzzy distinction, but it really reduces the degree to the degree per se rather than the host of courses and experiences the person during college. So, we talk about "useless degrees" without recognizing that someone might have had equivalent coursework and experience without majoring in something else per se. In the end it doesn't matter.