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As an undergraduate, I always felt like the money given to graduate students was just a tax on undergraduates. Whenever the graduate instructors wanted more mon
by Overtonwindow 4y ago
As an undergraduate, I always felt like the money given to graduate students was just a tax on undergraduates. Whenever the graduate instructors wanted more money, they would raise the fees for undergraduate students.
- CaveTech 4y agoAlmost as if graduate research and professors are required to build an environment for high-value undergraduate studies. The distribution of fees is far from ideal, but your complaint should not be directed towards those that literally define the institution you wish to attend.
- deodar 4y agoI have to agree with the GP comment. This is going to be a drain on both the undergrad programs and on the California taxpayers. I am not convinced that the value add to the undergrad environment will make up for it.
- watwut 4y agoPeople who do bulk of work related to teaching and research on teaching and research institutions are entitled to demand to be paid. Cooks and waiters in restaurants don't work for free either. Programmers don't work for free and negotiate salary raises.
- idontpost 4y ago[dead]
- mjhay 4y agoAre you not aware that grad students teach sections, grade, and do most of the research work that brings in grant money? All for near-poverty wages. It's astounding how so many people are so ignorant of how universities operate, despite having attended them.
- jonnycomputer 4y agoSort of. Kinda. Maybe. In my experience, graduate students aren't really that effective at research until several years in to their education. From a productivity standpoint, it is largely a loss. Many would prefer to hire post-docs instead. They end up being not much more expensive after everything else is taken into account, and they are ready to do good work from the get-go (which, for people who's livelihoods depend on getting tenure and/or grant money, is pretty dang important).
- mcguire 4y agoPostdocs were striking, too. https://www.science.org/content/article/postdoc-union-reaches-tentative-agreement-university-california https://www.science.org/content/article/postdoc-union-reache...
- nradov 4y agoGraduate research has little relation to the quality of undergraduate studies. https://www.hmc.edu/about/ https://www.hmc.edu/about/
- feet 4y agoWhat is the purpose of your link?
- nradov 4y agoThe data in that link shows that HMC provides a high quality undergraduate education. But they have very few graduate students doing research and teaching (just a handful of Master's degrees candidates) and don't have a doctoral program at all. So the statement by @CaveTech above is incorrect.
- feet 4y agoI didn't see any data on that page, it looked like a generic "about" page for a university
- nradov 4y agoThe data is literally right there under Mudd Facts.
- feet 4y agoThose are just marketing numbers used by every university. You could look at any university's website and say the same thing, not to mention it says nothing about graduate students or programs Every university has numbers on their site claiming how awesome they are, it's meaningless
- nradov 4y agoPick a different set of metrics if it makes you happy. There are a bunch of independent sites where you can find data on education outcomes. Whatever. The point is that by any reasonable standard, HMC delivers very high quality undergraduate education without having a bunch of graduate students doing research and assisting with teaching. Therefore the point made by @CaveTech above is invalid.
- passwordoops 4y agoIt's the dubious administrators raking in $250-400K a year that contribute to the increased tuition. See for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33831936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33831936
- kevinventullo 4y agoThank you! All the anti-union comments here kind of baffle me given that grad students meaningfully contribute to the academic mission. If anything, the economics of tutoring as a side gig in grad school led me to realize how much I was getting ripped off as a TA. There is much better fat to trim in the UC system than grad student stipends.
- vlovich123 4y agoHonestly, I’d much rather student tuitions be going to grad students working as TAs. It makes for better grad students (experience as teachers is invaluable in solidifying that undergrad knowledge which can fade) and encourages them to continue on their academic career path to PhD and beyond (which themselves are career tracks on life support).
- curun1r 4y agoThe dubious administrators are a symptom, not a cause. The root cause is guaranteed loan money. About a decade ago, I remember seeing a study posted here that said that for every dollar of increased guaranteed loans, tuition went up 71 cents. There’s just no incentive for a university to charge much less than the maximum amount that the student can borrow. The first step to addressing the college affordability crisis is to get the government out of student loans to attend private universities and colleges. If private lenders want to step in, that’s fine, but then they have to do an actual actuarial process to determine which students will be capable of repaying. Once the government is only involved in public education, they can start working on cost cutting, but that too has to start with cutting back on loans, because those just make tuition go up. I get that guaranteed loans come from a place of wanting to make education more accessible and not just a part of the entrenched privilege of the wealthy, but guaranteed loans are one of those zombie policies that makes the situation worse rather than accomplishing its goal.
- unethical_ban 4y agoGrad students aren't just "older undergrads who really like studying", they are researchers, assistants to professors, and teachers of undergrad courses. For that reason, they deserve to be paid, and I would argue given their role presently and for the future of the country, they should be paid at least enough to rent a 1 br apartment and cook their own meals.
- wlesieutre 4y agoA friend had a UC professor ask if she'd be interested in a remote postdoc because it would have been impossible for them to hire someone in California given the postdoc pay rates. I don't know if that's an unheard of arrangement or not, but it sounded totally weird to me.
- jleyank 4y agoMakes perfect sense for a computational field such as molecular modeling or engineering.
- j-wags 4y agoYour comment could be read in two ways. Could you clarify? 1) The UC professor offered a remote postdoc because they did not have enough funding to pay the minimum UC postdoc salary, but could pay less to out of state employees 2) The UC professor offered a remote postdoc because the allowed UC postdoc salary was not sufficient to attract candidates given the area's cost of living
- wlesieutre 4y ago2 was my impression for why they were looking for remote candidates, pretty hard sell to move to any of UC's areas on a $55k salary. Someone else probably accepted, in her case she'd already taken a better opportunity elsewhere. I just thought it was strange for a grad student position to be so disconnected from the university campus. But with the insane cost of living I guess it's not surprising.
- Phemist 4y ago
- HDThoreaun 4y agoThe entire academic institution is a scheme to extract money from undergrads to pay for research and administrators. Easy to see when you realize how much contempt professors have for undergrads.
- mjhay 4y agoIt sounds like you are quite ignorant of how research happens - the situation is precisely the opposite of what you describe. The research money comes almost exclusively from external grants, and the universities take a large chunk, often > 50%, off the top. The research subsidizes the university, not the other way around as you somehow think. Most professors would love to spend more time on undergrad education, but that's not what keeps the lights on - research grants do.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoProfessors would leave the university system if they didn't need the resources it provided them. They know they need undergrads, and they hate it.
- mjhay 4y agoYou have a bizarre idea of how this works. I take it you have never done grad school research? You can't just independently get research grants, you basically have to be in an established university or research center. The lab equipment, the computers, all of that comes from research grants. Professors are incentivized by the university to get more grant money (e.g. focus more on research), because that means the university gets more money. This isn't complicated.
- HDThoreaun 4y agoI guess I'm just jaded from having to deal with professors who obviously couldn't stand undergrads and did everything in their power to ignore them. Undergrad would be much more effective if it was separated from research.
- mjhay 4y agoThey taught your sections and did your grading, for 7/11 clerk wages. You are apparently very ignorant of how your university operated.