5 ms·

> there's only so many teaching slots available, and there's a fuckton of Phd graduates desperate to obtain one regardless of the salary or employment terms Th

> there's only so many teaching slots available, and there's a fuckton of Phd graduates desperate to obtain one regardless of the salary or employment terms This is another problem produced by academic exploitation. Ph.D. students are produced 10-to-1 relative to tenure track jobs. Why would universities eat $50-60,000 in tuition and pay $25–35,000 in stipends per year per graduate student if they know they are over-enrolling? It's not like Ph.D. students bring money into a department, regardless of their level of "desperation" to get a terminal degree. That's a big and unnecessary loss to take every single year. The answer is that grad students, like adjuncts, free the professors from the most onerous aspect of teaching classes: doing all the grading. In exchange for tuition and stipend, grad students have to serve as TAs once or twice a year (in some departments they can also take positions as Research Assistants or as administrators for undergrad programs). Some grad students will get the opportunity to sole-teach their own seminars. Because professors do not want to teach, and want to focus entirely on their personal research program and publications, having an excess of grad students around to grade, guest lecture, and fill out the course offerings every semester is worth the $25-$35,000 annual stipend (about the same that the adjunct professor writing this article makes). You're right that universities don't have to offer any more than $35,000 + shitty benefits + no job security, because the adjuncts and grad students will still take the opportunity believing that it might turn into an opportunity to move up into the professoriate if they just work hard enough or if their next publication is just a little more brilliant. Doesn't change the fact that it's still a cynical and hypocritical exploitation of the "intellectual reserve army of labor" (to paraphrase Marx). Universities are some of the most leftist institutions in North America, but the professoriate and deanery are perfectly fine with naked exploitation both on the supply side (grad students) and the demand side (adjuncts). If departments need graders, they should hire masters students rather than admit Ph.D. students and then cynically consume 5–10 years of their life. If departments need teachers to supplement their researchers, they should create a position distinct from tenure-track professor/reader, perhaps "lecturer," but that is not "part-time"/contract work and is compensated appropriately.

analog31 12y ago
This is another problem produced by academic exploitation. Ph.D. students are produced 10-to-1 relative to tenure track jobs. Why would universities eat $50-60,000 in tuition and pay $25–35,000 in stipends per year per graduate student if they know they are over-enrolling? It's not like Ph.D. students bring money into a department, regardless of their level of "desperation" to get a terminal degree. That's a big and unnecessary loss to take every single year. In my field, no competent grad student paid tuition, and it wasn't a meaningful measure of value or cost. Nobody would have accepted an offer from a grad program that didn't provide a full ride. So tuition was basically funny money, like a "list price" that is always discounted. My research work brought in enough grant money to pay for my stipend plus equipment and other expenses. If anybody was taking a loss, it was the National Science Foundation.
- Perceval 12y ago
  Grants are easier to come by in certain fields than in others. Natural sciences, for the most part, have it much easier than social sciences and humanities. Tuition begins to matter when students lose funding. Then it's no longer "funny money." According to the Ph.D. completion project, between 50–60% of students that enter a Ph.D. program finish it by the 10 year mark: http://www.phdcompletion.org/quantitative/book1_quant.asp http://www.phdcompletion.org/quantitative/book1_quant.asp Most programs guarantee funding only through the first 4–6 years. Some programs make students compete against one another for quasi-guaranteed funding after a certain point. A substantial minority of graduate students are either going to quit the program with only a masters degree to show for it or are going to end up paying tuition. Usually they can reduce the amount of tuition paid by enrolling as a "non-resident student" or something similar. But the tuition rate (and how long they will cover tuition) isn't something that can be brushed aside, either by students managing their finances, or by departments assessing their budgets.
  - jkaunisv1 12y ago
    Assuming some amount of my taxes goes towards funding these grants, I'd much rather that money goes towards funding advances in battery or materials technology than to in-depth analyses of Shakespeare. There are advancements and improvements to be made in fields like social work and law but I don't think they'll be made by writing dissertations. Also, are you saying some PhD's take 10 years to complete, not including undergrad/masters? My understanding was a PhD on its own was typically a 3-6 year endeavour. I know it's a difficult project to manage but 10 years seems long.
Lazare 12y ago
Oh yes. It's quite wonderful, really. For the cost of a stipend and waiving tuition, they get someone who'll work almost for free, grading papers, teaching seminars, and maybe even bringing in grant money. Then as soon as they graduate, they're back, desperately applying for adjunct positions. If you were very cynical, you could try and consider the RoI on a stipend from the point of view of the administration. It's one of the most abusive and exploitive things you'll find outside of a North Korean prison camp.
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  You could also look at it from the perspective of students, who have been told for nearly two decades that they should be college bound, and that they should get "the best education they can," and then finally that they should "do what they love." When you finally exit the pipeline, you realize that the best education isn't worth much outside of the school you got it from, and doing what you love doesn't pay very well. The problem is that you learn this about 6 years too late, and transitioning to a job where you're actually valued will set you back even further.
RK 12y ago
As a grad student in the 2000's I was told by a professor that the department would take into consideration the expected attrition rate (typically ~50%) when admitting grad students. The idea being that they would have enough TA's for intro classes. Attrition would make the number of advanced students more inline with the money available to fund PhD students till they graduated. In other words, they purposefully over-admitted to get TA's, most of whom would leave with an MS as best. This was in science departments. In departments that had few or no "general ed" courses, such as engineering, and thus little need for TA's, the graduation rate was much higher.
jonathantm 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
> Why would universities eat $50-60,000 in tuition and pay $25–35,000 in stipends per year per graduate student if they know they are over-enrolling? It's not like Ph.D. students bring money into a department, regardless of their level of "desperation" to get a terminal degree. That's a big and unnecessary loss to take every single year. Well, largely because the PhD students don't just do the teaching work, they do the research, too! Professors are often stuck as something more like a manager these days, which means that even the "winners" of the academic rat-race don't really get what they actually wanted: to do research full-time with a secure salary.
- kaitai 12y ago
  And this is why I, a sort-of confirmed desperate academic (ok, I know how to code so not really!) finally stepped off the hamster wheel of looking for a tenure-track job: my friends who got the golden ring still had sucky jobs that involved 60 hours minimum work per week, and so much of it was NOT RESEARCH! Move across the country four times, move the family, leave my support systems, all to do a job that in the end isn't even what you thought it would be? No.

analog31 12y ago

This is another problem produced by academic exploitation. Ph.D. students are produced 10-to-1 relative to tenure track jobs. Why would universities eat $50-60,000 in tuition and pay $25–35,000 in stipends per year per graduate student if they know they are over-enrolling? It's not like Ph.D. students bring money into a department, regardless of their level of "desperation" to get a terminal degree. That's a big and unnecessary loss to take every single year. In my field, no competent grad student paid tuition, and it wasn't a meaningful measure of value or cost. Nobody would have accepted an offer from a grad program that didn't provide a full ride. So tuition was basically funny money, like a "list price" that is always discounted. My research work brought in enough grant money to pay for my stipend plus equipment and other expenses. If anybody was taking a loss, it was the National Science Foundation.

Perceval 12y ago
Grants are easier to come by in certain fields than in others. Natural sciences, for the most part, have it much easier than social sciences and humanities. Tuition begins to matter when students lose funding. Then it's no longer "funny money." According to the Ph.D. completion project, between 50–60% of students that enter a Ph.D. program finish it by the 10 year mark: http://www.phdcompletion.org/quantitative/book1_quant.asp http://www.phdcompletion.org/quantitative/book1_quant.asp Most programs guarantee funding only through the first 4–6 years. Some programs make students compete against one another for quasi-guaranteed funding after a certain point. A substantial minority of graduate students are either going to quit the program with only a masters degree to show for it or are going to end up paying tuition. Usually they can reduce the amount of tuition paid by enrolling as a "non-resident student" or something similar. But the tuition rate (and how long they will cover tuition) isn't something that can be brushed aside, either by students managing their finances, or by departments assessing their budgets.
- jkaunisv1 12y ago
  Assuming some amount of my taxes goes towards funding these grants, I'd much rather that money goes towards funding advances in battery or materials technology than to in-depth analyses of Shakespeare. There are advancements and improvements to be made in fields like social work and law but I don't think they'll be made by writing dissertations. Also, are you saying some PhD's take 10 years to complete, not including undergrad/masters? My understanding was a PhD on its own was typically a 3-6 year endeavour. I know it's a difficult project to manage but 10 years seems long.

Lazare 12y ago

Oh yes. It's quite wonderful, really. For the cost of a stipend and waiving tuition, they get someone who'll work almost for free, grading papers, teaching seminars, and maybe even bringing in grant money. Then as soon as they graduate, they're back, desperately applying for adjunct positions. If you were very cynical, you could try and consider the RoI on a stipend from the point of view of the administration. It's one of the most abusive and exploitive things you'll find outside of a North Korean prison camp.

jschwartzi 12y ago
You could also look at it from the perspective of students, who have been told for nearly two decades that they should be college bound, and that they should get "the best education they can," and then finally that they should "do what they love." When you finally exit the pipeline, you realize that the best education isn't worth much outside of the school you got it from, and doing what you love doesn't pay very well. The problem is that you learn this about 6 years too late, and transitioning to a job where you're actually valued will set you back even further.

RK 12y ago

As a grad student in the 2000's I was told by a professor that the department would take into consideration the expected attrition rate (typically ~50%) when admitting grad students. The idea being that they would have enough TA's for intro classes. Attrition would make the number of advanced students more inline with the money available to fund PhD students till they graduated. In other words, they purposefully over-admitted to get TA's, most of whom would leave with an MS as best. This was in science departments. In departments that had few or no "general ed" courses, such as engineering, and thus little need for TA's, the graduation rate was much higher.

jonathantm 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

> Why would universities eat $50-60,000 in tuition and pay $25–35,000 in stipends per year per graduate student if they know they are over-enrolling? It's not like Ph.D. students bring money into a department, regardless of their level of "desperation" to get a terminal degree. That's a big and unnecessary loss to take every single year. Well, largely because the PhD students don't just do the teaching work, they do the research, too! Professors are often stuck as something more like a manager these days, which means that even the "winners" of the academic rat-race don't really get what they actually wanted: to do research full-time with a secure salary.

kaitai 12y ago
And this is why I, a sort-of confirmed desperate academic (ok, I know how to code so not really!) finally stepped off the hamster wheel of looking for a tenure-track job: my friends who got the golden ring still had sucky jobs that involved 60 hours minimum work per week, and so much of it was NOT RESEARCH! Move across the country four times, move the family, leave my support systems, all to do a job that in the end isn't even what you thought it would be? No.