(I am not the author)
Of course politicians and rich people don’t want an educated population, those might actually notice who is exploiting them.
We know where the money goes:
The money goes to hire new directors of athletics. It goes toward new athletic facilities. It pays for the Starbucks our vice-chancellors love so much. It pays for the sushi bars they think will attract a “high caliber” of student. It pays the inflated salaries of the upper administration, who make healthy six figures even when they’re terrible at their jobs.
education has become too profit-driven, and ‘college’ sports are a massive part of the failure.
I actually left academics a while ago for similar reasons. I feel like I’ve been robbed of the ability to create a better future, all because everything is for-profit.
What hourly wage would be a fair and proper wage?
Ive always wondered why dissilusioned burnt out academics dont just post an add in wherever and just meet people at a bar or coffee shop or whatever. Basically free form schooling.
Please, correct me if im wrong, but isnt the most common reason people leave teaching is they dont get to just teach how and what they want to teach?
Edit: fyi i never went to post secondary. Always wanted to and is still a dream at 43. I realized im probably thinking of just lectures
My experience from an R1 university (research focused) is that most of the professors didn’t primarily want to teach, but instead to focus on research, while teaching was what they did to make their salary. They were usually happy to teach a few courses, and especially upper level courses focused on their area of expertise, but the main goal was getting funding to pursue research, and that usually comes from (or is distributed through) some public institution.
It wasn’t so much about the money so much as the enshitification of the services we provided. They basically treated people like cattle, and I didn’t like it. They often cut programs that actually taught meaningful technical knowledge and skills. The tipping point was how my last Uni dealt with the pandemic. The bare minimum quality of online courses was one issue, but a bigger issue is that most courses were still required in person. I did the math and figured that by opening at full capacity that some students would die as a statistical probability based on age demographics and trends in outbreaks for the area at that time, and it was a special kind of soul-shredding to participate in a system that indirectly murders the youth who would lead us to a better future.
But maybe I’m just a wuss, idk.
Free Form Schooling, at least in the USA, lacks federal accreditation and therefor students would not have access to federal aid including Pell Grant, Subsidized Loans, and Unsubsidized Loans. So the students would have expenses with no income or they would have to pay high taxes on income during their schooling. If you’re interested in trying a local college for an Associates to get your feet wet, then fill out the FAFSA online and you’ll see roughly what aid you qualify for, usually enough to get by depending on the rates of the schools you chose.
Thanks for the reply I dont really know much about accreditation so that is a new thing to think about.
I was asking about pay not as an insinuation(¿?) that had anything to do with why you left, i was just curious what you feel is an appropriate wage for teaching in your opinion.
I wonder what it would take, probably some kind of administered association. Like if someone formed an independent educators union that could then detail what a member must do to prove they qualify for teaching. Then charge what you want for running your own classes as you see fit without the need for a campus. Like i love learning but cant do online or self directed learning. Ive only ever been in classes with 30+ kids so i figure there are other models to try.
Once upon a time people had teachers brought to them and formal schooling wasnt much of a thing outside military institutions or great empires (though many exceptions did exist im sure)
Im not sure what an ideal class size is, but if you can cut down the hours needed to pass a course, people would probably be willing to pay per course directly to the person teaching and everyone would have a better experience
And in this modern world, being able to retrain to new things seems really important given expecting to work a job for 25 years then retire from it seems like something that is getting almost impossible to find if it isnt already
To me, and my rose coloured glasses it seems like an obvious choice if the institutions of learning stopped actually caring about the learning
And things like uber show us we can massively reorganize how we spend time on both sides of supply and demand
Uber is incredibly unethical with how they treat their “contractors” as well as their customers, and that sort of thing is exactly my concern relating to my previous position. An ethical upright institution would be ideal, but decentralizing it might not be any better or worse as a means of achieving that.
A university is just a college that stopped caring about its students.
as someone who went to a small lib arts school, and then to a R1 university for my grad degree… this is exactly the truth.
I was actively told multiple times how students didn’t matter, to stop caring, to stop prepping for teaching classes, and to just focus on applying for grants and polishing my research.
The one real benefit of the cold war was a focus on education.
most of the usa infrastructure, physical, intellectual, etc was built as a product of the cold war.
and we started viciously neglecting it in the 1980s, as the end of that war was becoming obvious
Wanted remote work, got it for less money and more work. Makes $54k. School enrollment is going down, and he says they won’t hire more staff. Finally says Americans have never supported public education.
Holy fuck what a long winded, winding pontificating piece. Complete with a bunch of short one sentence paragraphs. Not worth the read, unless you want the emotions. If you want the attacks on capitalism just go to the end.
I dated a uni prof for a long time and they work waay too much. Every night, every weekend, much of the summer. They then get paid peanuts.
It’s less than minimum wage and many of the consumables they pay for themselves.
Then the big wigs at the top get too much compensation.
Then the vendors get paid too much to provide piss-poor software and services.
I was a grad student, i saw the writing on the wall and left.
I’d be working 80-100 hr weeks, for about 50-75K, unless I became a superstar academic. And then? Maybe I make 120K. that was going to be my entire life, stuck at a cheap salary, working like a dog, no time for a family or a life or anything else.
I work in IT networking now, I make 120k/yr and do maybe 20-30 hours of a work a week.
