Sounds like you're suggesting unions for grad students. Which, frankly, isn't that insane given the tremendous abuses they are suffering under currently: for below-poverty-line pay, you teach most of the courses the university offers. As Federal student loans vastly enrich university budgets, and as the teaching is the real value the university provides, that's the kind of imbalance that leads to people thinking that a union might not be a bad idea. Solidarity, baby! Popcorn!
40 comments:
Loved that movie.
I'm confused by the term "tremendous abuse".
I worked my way through school tutoring and teaching supplemental courses in areas with high failure rates. I was paid peanuts, but then I had no experience. I was very happy to get the work (without it, I would have had to go into debt) and the wage was eminently acceptable to me. Plus, my knowledge of the subject matter was greatly enhanced by the experience I gained teaching it to others.
Had the jobs not been acceptable, I was free to take other work (assuming, of course, that I could convince an employer I was qualified).
My brother and sister in law were likewise happy to have the opportunity when they were earning their PhDs. As was my daughter in law. The first thing one is asked when applying for a job is, "What relevant experience do you have?". Answering, "Why... none, actually" doesn't tend to lead to gainful employment.
If this situation is so tremendously abusive, why does anyone accept the job? Would negotiating higher wages via collective bargaining lead to more opportunities for students, or fewer?
Sounds like First World "abuse" to me. Not sure we need to be protected from the opportunity to work hard or prove ourselves when breaking into a field.
The problem underlying adjunct professors and grad students teaching for peanuts is twofold. First, there is a flood of supply with limited demand. And that's never a good thing for those in the supply chain. Too many people want those jobs, so they're effectively competing in a race to the bottom of salaries ("I can do that job for three bank notes!" "I can do that job for two bank notes!"). I have friends who are caught in this. One worked full time at Target in order to be able to teach at the college. Teaching professionally was his hobby in effect, because he was completely unable to earn a living doing it for what they would pay.
The second cause is frankly the more troubling one to me. And that is the American university system is a guild. In the medieval sense of the word. Between the arcane accreditation process, the anti-competitive nature of the tenure system, and the clannish tendencies of the administrations, colleges and university systems are designed to protect the guildmembers and exploit the apprentices and journeymen.
In order to become a tenured professor, one must first acquire the proper credentials from the guild (in almost every case, this is a PhD). In this analogy, grad students are the apprentices. They must grade papers, administer tests... the simple grunt work that professors do not wish to do. And they generally do this for little or no pay, as it is "part of their education" (in this case, I would say more properly, they're completing their apprenticeship). Once their grad work and PhD is complete, they do not become a member of the professorial guild, they merely now can potentially become a journeyman. At this point, if there is not a glut of tenured professors at a given college, a university might put forth a call for an opening. At this, journeymen from around the country flock to that college and apply for the position. A few will be allowed to become "adjunct professors" which means they're still journeymen, and not given the full rights and pay of a tenured guildmember. Only after a college's tenured members finally accept one of the adjuncts will a formal offer be given to that one to become a tenured professor. And at this point, a full member of the guild. And just like a medieval guild, a full guildmember now is set for life. Yes, it was a struggle to get there, but once firmly in place, it is near impossible to fire or remove such a professor. But if any such professor is ever thrown out at one university, they're out of the guild altogether. For those who betray the guild will never be allowed to work within it again.
This system is designed to exploit the many in order to support the few. This is not an accident, and quite literally, any other business that tried to operate like this would be slapped down by the government for unfair treatment of its workers. But for whatever reason, we've allowed this system to remain virtually unchanged for the history of this nation. And just look at what happens when entrepreneurs attempt to enter into competition with the university system. They are decried as "for profit colleges" (as if Harvard is some kind of philanthropy and operates at a loss) and derided as "diploma mills". Seriously, the vitriol leveled at these businesses (there's no sense not calling them what they are, they are businesses whose product is technical education to allow their customers to get jobs) is staggering. Because the guild will not let a challenge to their monopoly stand.
I suppose I believe that we don't need government or outside entities telling professions how to un-f*** themselves.
My DIL is an adjunct prof and will probably never get a tenured position. Her pay isn't very high, but then she works in a field with a glut of applicants (philosophy). On the plus side, she has enviable working conditions and a low stress job. She was able to take 6 months' maternity leave and has summers off.
Most people would kill to get that kind of job. And in truth, she busted her butt to get it, even though it's below what she hoped for (a tenured position). She worked harder than most at the job search, and it paid off for her after 2 years of concerted effort.
Pay is determined by an amalgam of factors: how many people are willing to do the work? How many are qualified to do the work? How does the job rank in the list of other professional opportunities that are readily available to them (competition from other employers/fields)?
When I look at my DIL's neighborhood (University City in St. Louis), I don't see anyone suffering greatly. I see very affluent profs living a lifestyle I would *love*. I have decided not to get a graduate degree (I could make it work financially, but in my judgment the outlay doesn't match the financial benefits and I happen to be very debt-averse). She could afford it more easily.
I don't believe she's "exploited", nor do I see any of their large circle of friends (most of whom are profs) being in any way exploited.
They made different choices with their lives, and there are - as always - tradeoffs associated with those choices. If they don't like that field, they can always leave it. The substantial up-front investment they made (getting a grad degree) is a deterrent, not a bar.
That sounded more declarative than I meant it to sound - of course, my opinion only :p
"Tremendous abuses" is accurate in context, which is to say that there are certainly far worse abuses than grad student assistants suffer in grad school, but those abuses call for much stronger remedies than a labor union.
At our flagship state university, student assistants -- those who can get student assistantships at all, and aren't just studying out of pocket -- work a job that is more than full time after you count the grading they have to do. They are paid below the poverty line, and still required to pay student fees, after which (and taxes) their net annual salary is about ten grand.
So the university has pushed most of its teaching load off onto people it pays badly enough that they are eligible for food stamps and other forms of welfare (which is to say that they've pushed their labor costs onto the Federal taxpayer rather than the Georgia taxpayer). Yet, thanks to the vast increases in tuition, university revenues are way, way up.
The universities are spending that money on lavish salaries for administrators and lavish facilities that aren't really part of the mission of the university. They aren't spending it on new tenure track positions, so that the deal that people hoped for when they undertook the poverty and hardship of grad school increasingly won't be available. But it's not because the university doesn't have the money to pay for tenure track professors instead of adjuncts: it's because they're electing to value other things more. The teaching and research, which is the real purpose of the university, is being undervalued by the administrators, who are favoring the interests of their class.
This is the kind of problem that labor unions are good at dealing with. Like an angry raft of fire ants, grad students are powerless and easy to crush alone, but could survive this if they pulled together. It would be the best thing for everyone if they did: it would improve things for themselves, of course, but also for their students and their parents (who would benefit from the altered focus on teaching students, which is what they are paying for), for taxpayers (getting grad students off welfare), for young professors (who would find more tenure track jobs) and for society (which does not benefit from having moneyed classes of government administrators hanging around with time and cash on their hands).
Mostly I wanted to post the Grosse Pointe Blank clips, though, because it's one of my favorite movies. :)
My dad was a tenured professor, my sister works for a union of university faculty members, and my best friend from college days (along with her like-minded husband) is an adjunct professor. I'm not getting the pathos at all. My dad had a pretty cushy job, if you didn't care about making any money, which he didn't. He didn't rely on grad students for anything in the way of teaching; on the other hand, he taught so little he was the despair of his department heads--just the occasional seminar for other people utterly obsessed with combinatorial analysis or whatnot. He got to think about his favorite topic all the time and never had to give two seconds' consideration to market forces or competition. He'd have been dumbfounded if a grad student had complained to him about working conditions. The complaints my sister negotiates for her union members are a howl. My college friend and her husband get low pay and great benefits for doing what amounts to their hobby and living in an ivory tower that suits them to a T.
In fact, what all these people have/had in common is a resolute refusal to think about their jobs in the terms that Cassandra expresses: who values getting this work done enough to part with valuable resources in return? How many people can do it well? How many people want to do it enough to volunteer or work for nearly nothing?
The answer to the first question is: lots of people, and indeed more and more people. College graduates make up around a third of the American population.
The answer to the second question is: a fair number of people, though not nearly as many as the population of people who will seek the BA/BS level of education.
The answer to the third question is: manifestly, still a lot of people. That's no surprise, for the reasons we've talked about: the desire to know is part of your basic nature as a human being. The life of contemplation in science or study can be one of the most rewarding of all lives, in terms of non-monetary rewards.
On the other hand, Mike is also quite right about the guild aspect. If you took away the guild aspect, grad students instead of forming a union could just establish a new college and become the faculty of it. If they did a better job teaching -- and right now, they're the ones doing most of the teaching, so why shouldn't they be better at it? -- then people could study with them instead of State University. There would be plenty of money for them to pay themselves good wages because they offered a superior product on the market.
But that option is not on the table because their school wouldn't be accredited by the state. Degrees they issued would be worthless.
There's no doubt that the life of contemplation has its own rewards, which are a reason so many people want to be part of it. That doesn't change the fact that the economic aspects have been rigged, and are at the moment highly exploitative of the younger generation.
Somewhat ironically, I had a very similar discussion recently with my sister in law, who has a PhD in plant genetics. My brother has a PhD in number theory.
Both have had trouble finding ANY job over the years that paid well - my brother taught undergrad and graduate math for years. Now he works for the Evil Government. Pay wasn't great for many years, but now he's a GS15 and is getting paid quite good money (but he has to manage people, which he hates, to get that salary).
My very liberal, feminist sister in law was - much to my delight - outraged about govt. scrutiny of their hiring process. Apparently, they're not hiring enough women (never mind that not many women apply for positions - apparently that's irrelevant), which obviously means *DISCRIMINATION!!!!!11!ELEVENTY!!!*. Her position is that they want the best qualified candidate, NOT a token womyn.
The longer I look at so-called structural oppression issues, I believe they are unavoidable and often - despite unpleasant side effects - present for good reasons. We can have the govt. doing it to us, or people - being human - seize that power for themselves. Either way, people create systems in institutions that serve some purpose that's not always apparent from the outside.
It's never perfectly fair, but I just can't see people who have the money to get a graduate degree as oppressed underdogs. The truth is, most are very fortunate and are where they are because - in their estimation - the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.
There's always someone willing to do unpleasant/difficult work. I have, and would do it again. I find the notion that there's some wage that's "fair" unconvincing: wages represent a balance between what the employer wants and what the employee wants. If a balance can't be struck, applicants walk away and positions go unfilled.
That's not really a tragedy in my view.
Oh, and I have little sympathy for grad students on welfare, if there is such a thing. If you can find money to go to grad school, you're not destitute.
If you took away the guild aspect, grad students instead of forming a union could just establish a new college and become the faculty of it.
Why don't they? Maybe because running a college is harder than it looks from the comfy chair :p
If they did a better job teaching -- and right now, they're the ones doing most of the teaching, so why shouldn't they be better at it? -- then people could study with them instead of State University.
They're free to try - what's stopping them? Except hard work, risk, etc. They'd be working FAR harder if they had to run a school in addition to teaching. Which is kind of the point. Every disgruntled employee is just *sure* that if he/she were in charge, all these difficulties would be swept away.
Allow me to express my grave doubts on that score :p
There would be plenty of money for them to pay themselves good wages because they offered a superior product on the market.
Maybe, maybe not. You're presenting a vastly oversimplified best case scenario in which grad students actually have the ability (and the capital) to do all these things.
But that option is not on the table because their school wouldn't be accredited by the state. Degrees they issued would be worthless.
How are they prevented from applying for accreditation? Who is preventing them?
Prevented from applying? That's not the suggestion.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools manages collegiate accreditation in Georgia, but lower-level accreditation is done by a group called the Georgia Accrediting Commission. It's super easy to get a private school accredited at the primary and secondary level. The application fee is just $50, and you can even get a waiver for the first year. That's why there are lots of private schools at these levels: it's not hard to do.
For a college, the procedure is a little more arcane (and expensive: application fees start at $10,000). It enshrines the protection for guild members -- faculty must be preferred by degree type given by an existing institution. The standards are vague enough to give the Association broad leeway in decision.
They'd be working FAR harder if they had to run a school in addition to teaching.
How big a school are we talking about? If the comparison is to private schools at the primary/secondary level, many of these are not huge. Heck, a lot of parents who homeschool branch out to become accredited to teach neighborhood kids.
We can have the govt. doing it to us, or people - being human - seize that power for themselves.
Well, right now you have the government doing it for you. I'm suggesting that people should seize some power for themselves.
"I'm suggesting that people should seize some power for themselves."
I'd say a good start would be to start a school, then, and start attracting students. Not accredited yet? Life is tough. If what you're teaching is really valuable, you'll start with some motivated students and work your way up until you're ready to apply for accreditation.
They'd have to be really motivated to pay you for a degree that they can't use to get a job. I mean, sometimes people are. As AVI is talking about today, people make money teaching yoga (or martial arts).
Still, it's a government-backed crony system of artificial barriers to entry to the market. The State U can get accredited because it has a faculty of Ph.D.s (although they do little enough of the teaching). The grad-student startup would have the same people doing the teaching, but wouldn't even be eligible for accreditation because the teachers (again, the very same people teaching at State U) didn't have the upper-level degree.
I could be OK with artificial barriers to market entry if they served some outstanding purpose. I'm not sure that's true here, any more than I think that the government-run public schools at the Middle School level are guaranteed to be better than private or even home schools.
By the way, I am not and have never been a graduate assistant. Any emotional interest I have here is sympathetic rather than material.
I'd say a good start would be to start a school, then, and start attracting students. Not accredited yet? Life is tough. If what you're teaching is really valuable, you'll start with some motivated students and work your way up until you're ready to apply for accreditation.
Bingo. Accreditation doesn't exist for no reason. If they can convince the degree-buying public and employers that they offer a quality product, then they should go for it. Of course it may turn out that (surprise!) the public and employers actually value accreditation, even if you don't.
They're not "artificial barriers" they're barriers that arose due to actual problems certifying quality. Simply declaring them "artificial" seems a bit hasty - and would seem to violate that maxim of Chesterfields we all like so much about not abolishing things until you fully understand why they're there in the first place.
FWIW, I never took a single class taught by a graduate student. Not once, ever, in the 4 different colleges I attended! And (with the exception of 1 year at an Ivy) I did not attend pricey schools.
One of the hallmarks of the more competitive schools is a low ratio of graduates/TAs/part-time faculty to FT, tenured faculty. At schools like Duke, for instance, 94% of classes are taught by FT faculty.
There are a lot of atrocious stats out there, like this one:
http://www.aaup.org/file/Instructional_Staff_Trends.pdf
It's misleading counting heads as opposed to counting the percentage of classes taught by various types of instructor.
Well known ratings like the US News report take % of FT faculty and degrees held into account:
Faculty resources (20 percent): Research shows that the more satisfied students are about their contact with professors, the more they will learn and the more likely they are to graduate. We use six factors from the 2014-2015 academic year to assess a school's commitment to instruction.
Class size has two components: the proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students (30 percent of the faculty resources score) and the proportion with 50 or more students (10 percent of the score).
Faculty salary (35 percentis the average faculty pay, plus benefits, during the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years, adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living using indexes from the consulting firm Runzheimer International. We also weigh the proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields (15 percent), the student-faculty ratio (5 percent) and the proportion of faculty who are full time (5 percent).
So it's not as though schools don't have powerful incentives to minimize the use of grad student instructors.
They are "artificial barriers" in the sense that they are barriers created by artifice, rather than natural barriers (e.g., access to land filled with coal is a natural barrier to being in the coal production business). The point about them is not that they're artificial, it's that they are arbitrarily different for colleges than for other schools -- primary and secondary schools. That plays into the guild system that Mike is talking about in a way that is not the case for the other schools.
I don't see any reason to think that college is more important than primary school: if anything, I'd think the opposite was true.
Of course it may turn out that (surprise!) the public and employers actually value accreditation, even if you don't.
Where did you get the idea that I don't value it, or don't think others do? I've said all along that it represents a barrier to entry to the market. If you can't get accredited, your degree is worthless economically -- the only reason anyone would pursue it is because they love learning about the subject (as with yoga, etc). I'm not at all sure what you think I'm trying to argue here.
So it's not as though schools don't have powerful incentives to minimize the use of grad student instructors.
I'm not sure how this is relevant either. I'm not complaining about the fact that schools use grad students to teach introductory classes, nor urging colleges to cease the practice.
It's hard to see what you're arguing - you characterized accreditation thusly earlier:
Still, it's a government-backed crony system of artificial barriers to entry to the market.
That hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement (nor does it sound as though you value accreditation!
The State U can get accredited because it has a faculty of Ph.D.s (although they do little enough of the teaching). The grad-student startup would have the same people doing the teaching, but wouldn't even be eligible for accreditation because the teachers (again, the very same people teaching at State U) didn't have the upper-level degree.
Again, maybe I'm missing something, but I'm hard pressed to think of many cases where apprentice, inexperienced workers are better at something than experienced ones. There are, of course, individual cases but arguing that there's no difference seems odd to me.
And the stats don't back that up - the experience level and degree status of profs is highly correlated with student retention rates. So clearly, accreditation is serving some purpose, if only to keep schools from hiring a few PhDs and having the majority of their classes taught by grad students!
That doesn't sound like a 'crony-based' system to me!
One more point: what percentage of classes do you think are actually taught by grad students?
The confusion may arise from the fact that you're taking my criticism of the current system of accreditation as a criticism of accreditation per se. I'm not criticizing the concept of accreditation. I'm criticizing the current system for collegiate accreditation.
...I'm hard pressed to think of many cases where apprentice, inexperienced workers are better at something than experienced ones...
Sure, but how is that relevant if the grad students are teaching the classes in both cases? The difference is that one institution has a bunch of credentialed faculty who are being paid to do research rather than teach, and the other wouldn't. From the perspective of human knowledge, research by experts is valuable. From the perspective of teaching students, it's not as obviously valuable.
... what percentage of classes do you think are actually taught by grad students?
I have no idea that isn't anecdotal. That anecdotal figure is 43% for introductory classes next semester (which is where almost all the students are -- upper level classes are usually taught by at least adjunct professors, but they contain only majors and are far smaller).
Also, that 43% is calculated by looking at the instructor of record for the classes. All of the other classes will also have a graduate teaching assistant, who will teach a lot of the classes (and do all of the grading). But for 43% of classes, there is only a grad student.
Sure, but how is that relevant if the grad students are teaching the classes in both cases?
They're not. I know of no schools where 100% of the classes are taught by grad students.
The difference is that one institution has a bunch of credentialed faculty who are being paid to do research rather than teach, and the other wouldn't.
Again, you're assuming (on no evidence I've seen) that grad students are doing most of the teaching at most schools.
From the perspective of human knowledge, research by experts is valuable. From the perspective of teaching students, it's not as obviously valuable.
Oh, I don't know. If I were a graduate student, it would matter a lot to me whether my school had research opportunities (like the ones my sister in law and my DIL's sister got to work with). That was valuable on-the-job training that led to employment opportunities after graduation.
My DILs sister, for instance, worked on cutting edge cancer research while in grad school. The school won a grant b/c her prof was conducting the research.
It was valuable to her, and presumably valuable to other grad students in her field.
From this non university guy- Let them set chokers or unload fishing boats for a summer. All complaints will then have some verified conditions to be weighed against. My guess is, most would cease complaining.
None of my undergrad courses at Rice were taught by grad students.
I can't get worked up about the problems of accreditation. Of course an accreditation is only as good as the reputation of the accreditor, but I have no problem with people in a certain field relying on a third party to check into an institution's qualifications and rendering an public opinion on them. If I think the accrediting organization is bogus (Standard & Poor's comes to mind) I can always ignore it and pick up an unaccredited product at a bargain. That doesn't make the accreditation artificial, just untrustworthy. If enough people conclude that it's untrustworthy, it will lose its value and someone else probably will step in to fill the breach. That is assuming, of course, that the whole issue is left to the market instead of being imposed by the government. All kinds of mischief can result when the government mandates something like a triple A rating and requires everyone to pretend that an investment with that rating is "safe." There's artifice for you.
Forget grad students running their own college, what about PhD's running their own college? Again, having a PhD does not guarentee that classes you teach are, or indeed ever will be accredited by the State Accreditation Boards. Boards, which I will reiterate have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of the current guild system.
Generally, I am suspicious of government accreditation requirements. Mostly because the vast majority of them are ridiculous barriers to open competition. Do you really believe that workers at nail salons should be required to be licensed in order to apply nail polish and fake nails? Or that barbers should need to be accredited in order to cut hair? We're not talking about performing surgery, or practicing law here, we're talking about non-invasive cosmetics. But these licensing requirements serve no purpose but to protect the existing business owners and operators from competition. Much like the taxi medallion system. It's a racket, and one that the government is complicit in.
If the fear of "unapproved college professors" is so great that we must set up legal obstacles to creating competition for the existing system, they'll need to provide some proof of potential harm. But as of right now, I simply cannot see the danger in letting "just anyone" teach philosophy or history. If the information they pass along is incorrect, then the market should push those false teachers out. But to arbitrarily declare, "well, we can't trust those people without proof they're doing it right, so let's use the compelling force of government to stop them" is just silly.
I do hate to get all libertarian up in here, but I fail to see the public interest involved in preventing people from teaching without government approval.
From this non university guy- Let them set chokers or unload fishing boats for a summer. All complaints will then have some verified conditions to be weighed against. My guess is, most would cease complaining.
*snort*
That made my day :)
Do you really believe that workers at nail salons should be required to be licensed in order to apply nail polish and fake nails?
Well, there are actually public health issues with nail salons. I honestly don't know whether accreditation is necessary, but I don't believe nail salons should be unregulated either.
Fake nails are nasty, and can do real damage. Ditto for hair dye and straighteners.
Barbers... I don't know.
You guys seem to be ignoring how laws get made. Generally, they result from allegations of harm from the general public complaining to the legislature. And lawsuits alleging harm. They don't spring fully formed but nekkid from clamshells :)
Maybe, after the fact, having lived with the results of industries being regulated, we don't see the benefits but having complained about things to the government and getting no joy, I can assure you it's not as easy to get laws passed as people seem to be assuming here.
The public interest is (to me) quite obvious: providing a mechanism to protect consumers from fraud is one obvious benefit. I checked the accreditation of every school my sons attended and I was happy to have a way to find out how good the school was.
And it's really not government accrediting schools as far as I can see. The orgs seem to be mostly non-profits offering a service. I don't see why such voluntary associations should bother a libertarian?
Lawyers have state bar associations. Doctors have the AMA. Professionals have a vested interest in self-policing that is (I believe) beneficial.
If a bunch of PhDs want to start their own school, let them. They'll have to market and fund it and convince the public they have a superior product, just like any other business or non-profit has to in order to win business.
Cassandra
FWIW, I never took a single class taught by a graduate student. Not once, ever, in the 4 different colleges I attended! And (with the exception of 1 year at an Ivy) I did not attend pricey schools.
The Ivy cover school I attended my freshman year had a grad student teaching the discussion section of my Intro Psych class. All of the lab courses I took at State U had grad students teaching the lab sections, with one exception. The Senior Engineering Lab course I took- a 5 credit monster that took 25+ hours a week- had a Post Doc plus a grad student running it. I did not feel deprived by the absence of a prof in the labs.
Re all the $ going to administrators- this will not go down until schools notice that their enrollments are dropping. Many of the administrators are there to assure the school complies with various federal mandates.
Re the excess of Ph.D.s and all the adjuncts- this will not go down until it is made clear to beginning grad students that they have a low probability of getting a tenure track position. Heretofore, the schools have been able to string them along.
I saw early on that there would be an excess of Ph.D.s, so I made no effort get a Ph.D. for a nonexistent tenure track position. -
Re the excess of Ph.D.s and all the adjuncts- this will not go down until it is made clear to beginning grad students that they have a low probability of getting a tenure track position. Heretofore, the schools have been able to string them along.
I agree with you up to a point but I also believe students bear some responsibility to research the job prospects in their fields (this can't and shouldn't be delegated to schools, though I agree honesty is the best policy).
When my DIL said she was going for a PhD in philosophy, pretty much everyone on our side of the family said, "Ummm.... OK. You want fries with that?"
She really did understand the prospects going in, though, because she had done her homework. She knew the odds, and was determined to do whatever it took to succeed. So I am OK with this, especially as she pulled it off (due in very large part to her drive and determination).
Conversely, I read that STEM students were almost immune to unemployment, but after graduating found it hard to break into my field. My brother and sister in law had similar difficulties, though both now have wonderful jobs they love, that pay well. But it wasn't easy for them.
So I don't think there are (or should be) guarantees. I roll my eyes every time I see right leaning pundits and bloggers suggesting that schools be held "accountable" for the employment prospects of recent grads. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
On a similar note, I have a niece and nephew who switched majors in school precisely because the job market changed. I think people really do need to pay attention to the world around them and not rely on 3rd parties to do their due diligence. Sounds like that's precisely what you did :)
The Ivy cover school I attended my freshman year had a grad student teaching the discussion section of my Intro Psych class. All of the lab courses I took at State U had grad students teaching the lab sections, with one exception. The Senior Engineering Lab course I took- a 5 credit monster that took 25+ hours a week- had a Post Doc plus a grad student running it. I did not feel deprived by the absence of a prof in the labs.
FWIW, I'm not at all knowledgeable on this topic, but this sounds like the way I would expect most grad students to be used (running labs or discussion groups, which isn't the same as teaching an entire class alone, or helping a prof).
Teaching a class involves a ton of prep work. I am pretty skeptical that the average or even above average grad student would be interchangeable with an experienced professor.
But then - being an Evil Boss (all rights reserved), I'm skeptical that order and excellence just spontaneously create themselves. I spent about 1/3 of my time at work doing quality control, and I have great people on my team. But there has to be some direction and supervision. It's noticeable when I can't provide that - things aren't done as well. This isn't a popular thing to say nowadays, but I think it is true nonetheless.
I can't think of many examples of high functioning organizations that don't provide leadership and oversight functions, and frankly (having experienced the chaos it produces in my company) I outright detest the notion that talented amateurs do the same quality work as experienced professionals. I wish that *were* true - it would make my life a LOT easier! But my observations with groups in my company that *don't* provide oversight, training, and leadership is that they do really crappy work that the rest of us constantly have to fix after it has gone tragically wrong :p
...which explains why I'm still working at 7 at night!
Cleaning up the mess left by one of those groups that believes "we don't need no stinking standards".
Curiously, my alma mater was created when a group of recent graduate, instructors, and students left Cal State Pomona to start the Southern California Institute of Architecture. They had some highly regarded instructors, and motivated students, and managed to make it work. After some time, they managed to get accreditation also. It's also highly atypical in that you had to take most of your general eds elsewhere, as they didn't have the staff or resources to teach most core classes. Where they excelled was the studios, which were and still are highly regarded in the architecture world. Instructors were required to also be practicing in some fashion, and that has set a standard that still hold in architecture at least. It can be done, but it certainly isn't easy, and whatever path is taken, there are pros and cons.
"Many of the administrators are there to assure the school complies with various federal mandates."
THIS is the big reason college has gotten so expensive.
You guys seem to be ignoring how laws get made. Generally, they result from allegations of harm from the general public complaining to the legislature. And lawsuits alleging harm. They don't spring fully formed but nekkid from clamshells :)
Some laws are formed because the general public complains about allegations of harm, it is true. But if you believe for a hot minute that this is the only source of new laws, lady... I got a bridge to sell you!
Many laws also come about because lobbying groups (which represent citizens, no doubt) pressure lawmakers into passing laws that are good for their interested groups. Some of these are benign, others less so.
http://www.businessjustice.com/us-supreme-court-holds-licensing-boards-not-completely-exempt-fr.html
In North Carolina, the State Board of Dental Examiners was using their power to shut out competition in the teeth whitening business by demanding that anyone who engaged in the practice had to be licensed by them. The SCOTUS ruled that this was a monopolistic practice and had to cease. And this is far from the sole example of this.
The idea that a state board must approve barbers, taxi drivers, and yes nail salon workers is nothing less than a state approved anti-competition guild system. It serves the interest of the guild, not the public and in fact, harms the public in a way that all monopolistic practices do. And see, right here is where the "lividterriers want no form of government control or regulation" falls down. Because anti-trust laws are absolute necessities in order to maintain a healthy free market. Without them, natural selection among businesses can and will lead to monopolies which generally use their power to get the government to skew the market in ways which favor them.
The real danger of these guild systems is that they do not have to actually be monopolies to act like them. There is no doubt that all dentists in North Carolina are in active competition with each other. They could never be accused of operating a monopoly, because there are an absolute plethora of dentist offices throughout the state, and they don't work for the same corporation or parent company. But by controlling the State licensing board, they can act as a protected guild and crush any potential competition that does not belong. You see these organizations as "maintaining professional standards", I see them as protecting their guildmembers and only blacklisting the most egregious offenders while protecting the rest from competition.
The old saw about "What do you call the guy who graduates at the bottom of his class from the worst medical school in the country? Doctor." is absolutely true. He met the minimum standards, and without a body of offenses to cause demand to have him thrown out of the profession, he will be licensed just like the top graduate of the best medical school in the country would.
You're both onto something, I think. There are often excellent reasons for strict licensing of inherently dangerous professions. At the same time, because the public associates this good process with happy results, unscrupulous people have been known to exploit it as an unearned barrier to entry and competition. Hair-braiding is a good example.
Oh absolutely! I don't question the idea of medical boards and State bar associations. I don't even question dental licensing boards. I question when they use that power to try and regulate competition out of the market. Especially with regards to services that should not require any kind of advanced safety training.
The licensing of barbers is by far the most egregious. Sure, they should be required to sterilize things like combs and such to prevent the transfer of lice and other such pests. But frankly, to require a license under penalty of law? Frankly, that's stupid. A mother who cuts her own children's hair is fine. If another mother who does not think she is as good at hair cutting (or simply doesn't like doing it) is willing to pay the first mother to cut her childrens' hair as well, I don't see why a license should be required under penalty of law.
And for my part, I'm not questioning that schools should be accredited by some competent authority. I'm only pointing out the vastly different standards for primary/secondary schools on the one hand, and post-secondary schools on the other. The standards are extremely different, which accounts for why there are numerous private school options across the state, but few private colleges by comparison.
Cassandra, I see your point. If someone is fool enough to believe that getting a Ph.D. - which may take a decade or so- will give that person a good chance of getting a tenure track position, when the actual odds are probably closer to 1 in 10, let that fool go ahead and do it.
And for my part, I'm not questioning that schools should be accredited by some competent authority
I will. Because what is there about teaching at the college level that is so inherently dangerous to public safety that we require State approval in order to let someone do it? Medical schools that graduate students unable to pass the State's medical exams are not going to stay in business. Same with law schools whose students can't pass the bar. And as for history majors, sociology majors, philosophy majors, and even computer science majors like me, is there that much risk involved in letting "just anyone" teach us that the government must get involved?
Or is it simply another protection racket for the tenured guildmasters? I would very much like for someone to show me I'm wrong on this. That I'm overlooking the need for the State governments to "license" a school in order to issue diplomas stating that their students completed the classes that school deemed worthy of giving a degree for. Because as near as I can tell, if the students of any given school can pass the bar, or medical board exams, or indeed, any given professional certification, what business is it of the State government to "allow" it?
I would very much like for someone to show me I'm wrong on this. That I'm overlooking the need for the State governments to "license" a school in order to issue diplomas stating that their students completed the classes that school deemed worthy of giving a degree for. Because as near as I can tell, if the students of any given school can pass the bar, or medical board exams, or indeed, any given professional certification, what business is it of the State government to "allow" it?
Is government not "allowing" unaccredited colleges a real problem? Because the list of unaccredited colleges seems pretty long to me.
I see ones from Oregon, CA, VA, NC, AZ, MS, MD, CO, FL, AL, SC, LA, TX, WA, HI, DE, MI, NY, IN, IL, PA, GA, OK, MO, WY ... I stopped looking about 1/3 of the way down the list.
At any rate, I have *far* more pressing matters upon which to cogitate.
Like today's Quote of the Day:
" I fail to see a gay pole as having any historical significance in the founding of our state or nation"
FESTIVUS, PEOPLE!!!! :)
The link is safe to click, by the way.
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