NBC: Why Americans are increasingly dubious about going to college

[Hibush]

You do have to spend money on the things that lead to the result you want. Just flinging money doesn't accomplish much.

Sometimes, some of the money needs to be spent on bribes to grease the wheels for the important things to happen (e.g. Littoral combat ships provide employment to  assemblers in an important district. The ships don't need to do anything to fulfill their essential political role.) Policymakers need to keep their eye on the primary goal, and make sure those essentials have adequate funds.

[dismalist]

Policymakers need to keep their eye on the[ir] primary goal, and make sure those essentials have adequate funds.

Getting re-elected! :-)

[mleok]

I don't think we're lowballing education.

I think adjuncts who spend more time on the freeway than they do teaching, preparing, and grading would disagree with you.

[Anon1787]

I don't think we're lowballing education.

I think adjuncts who spend more time on the freeway than they do teaching, preparing, and grading would disagree with you.

Adding money to a system where resources are directed at administration and to a lesser extent full-time faculty won't improve the situation of adjuncts that much (Educationdata.org claims that U.S. public universities spend $29K per student but only 27.5% of that goes to instruction).

[Wahoo Redux]

I don't think we're lowballing education.

I think adjuncts who spend more time on the freeway than they do teaching, preparing, and grading would disagree with you.

Adding money to a system where resources are directed at administration and to a lesser extent full-time faculty won't improve the situation of adjuncts that much (Educationdata.org claims that U.S. public universities spend $29K per student but only 27.5% of that goes to instruction).

I think the point is that we would be smart to spend money on fulltime faculty and not on parceling out classes to parttime adjuncts.  Unfortunately, because we lowball education, we must rely on something like 60% PT faculty including graduate students.

Really, anyone who claims that we overspend on education is naïve, uninformed, ideological, or just in denial.

And yes, there is some mismanagement, as their always is, but that does not change the essentials. 

[Anon1787]

I think the point is that we would be smart to spend money on fulltime faculty and not on parceling out classes to parttime adjuncts.  Unfortunately, because we lowball education, we must rely on something like 60% PT faculty including graduate students.

Really, anyone who claims that we overspend on education is naïve, uninformed, ideological, or just in denial.

And yes, there is some mismanagement, as their always is, but that does not change the essentials. 

Compared to other countries, U.S. per student expenditures are not low (e.g., restricting the comparison to public universities, the U.S. spends more per student than Germany).

Well-educated adjuncts who advocate that more people get a college education because it will help them get better jobs while complaining about the low wages of adjuncts ought to be able to find higher paying jobs if that's what they want.

[kaysixteen]

I get that adjunct porn is tiresome, and I try never to add to it here myself.   That said, I am more or less out of patience with the nutty thesis that adjuncts ought to be able to transition at will to well-paying non-academic employment.   Some stem types certainly can do this, and there may be a handful of non-stem fields, non-professional ones, where this might also be the case, but for most social scientists and the vast majority of humanists, well...

[Wahoo Redux]

I think the point is that we would be smart to spend money on fulltime faculty and not on parceling out classes to parttime adjuncts.  Unfortunately, because we lowball education, we must rely on something like 60% PT faculty including graduate students.

Really, anyone who claims that we overspend on education is naïve, uninformed, ideological, or just in denial.

And yes, there is some mismanagement, as their always is, but that does not change the essentials. 

Compared to other countries, U.S. per student expenditures are not low (e.g., restricting the comparison to public universities, the U.S. spends more per student than Germany).

Well-educated adjuncts who advocate that more people get a college education because it will help them get better jobs while complaining about the low wages of adjuncts ought to be able to find higher paying jobs if that's what they want.

I see we would rather not approach the overt evidence of inadequate support for education in the U.S. and instead strawman onto another apples-to-oranges comparison and the tired adjunct problem----which could be solved if we supported our educators more.  We have plenty of students still, even with the demographic cliff, to employ many, many more well qualified FT teachers instead of an army of PT adjuncts, some of whom are well qualified to be college professors, some not-----please, pretend that that is not true.

[marshwiggle]

I get that adjunct porn is tiresome, and I try never to add to it here myself.   That said, I am more or less out of patience with the nutty thesis that adjuncts ought to be able to transition at will to well-paying non-academic employment.   Some stem types certainly can do this, and there may be a handful of non-stem fields, non-professional ones, where this might also be the case, but for most social scientists and the vast majority of humanists, well...

I think you've missed the point of the earlier comment:

Well-educated adjuncts who advocate that more people get a college education because it will help them get better jobs while complaining about the low wages of adjuncts ought to be able to find higher paying jobs if that's what they want.

"Well-educated adjuncts" in this case are either lying or else ridiculously clueless. They're lying if they know higher education isn't an automatic ticket to high paying jobs. They're being clueless if they refuse to take any of those jobs and instead complain about the low pay of adjunct jobs. (In other words, their own advice is either wrong or they refuse to take it themselves.)

[Wahoo Redux]

"Well-educated adjuncts" in this case are either lying or else ridiculously clueless. They're lying if they know higher education isn't an automatic ticket to high paying jobs. They're being clueless if they refuse to take any of those jobs and instead complain about the low pay of adjunct jobs. (In other words, their own advice is either wrong or they refuse to take it themselves.)

No, my friend, you missed the point and, as is so typical, strawmanned a bunch.  You are actually reliving an old and tired conversation.

I said nothing about adjuncts wanting more students for better jobs.  I was responding to that comment, actually.  That was a strawman.   And I've never heard anyone say that in the first place.

And no one said anything about "high paying." Only a few profs ever, and only profs in prestige universities get "high paying" jobs, and even those are not so "high paying" relative to other professional careers.  That was your strawman.

And I said nothing about "clueless" adjuncts.  Most are pursuing a dream.

I said we could actually employ well-qualified, FT teachers, even considering the current overall scenario, if education was adequately funded.  Think about it before you respond again...

[ciao_yall]

"Well-educated adjuncts" in this case are either lying or else ridiculously clueless. They're lying if they know higher education isn't an automatic ticket to high paying jobs. They're being clueless if they refuse to take any of those jobs and instead complain about the low pay of adjunct jobs. (In other words, their own advice is either wrong or they refuse to take it themselves.)

No, my friend, you missed the point and, as is so typical, strawmanned a bunch.  You are actually reliving an old and tired conversation.

I said nothing about adjuncts wanting more students for better jobs.  I was responding to that comment, actually.  That was a strawman.   And I've never heard anyone say that in the first place.

And no one said anything about "high paying." Only a few profs ever, and only profs in prestige universities get "high paying" jobs, and even those are not so "high paying" relative to other professional careers.  That was your strawman.

That said, FT faculty earn a middle-class wage and have benefits. Some might consider a middle-class wage to be "high paying" but to most it's quite satisfactory.

And I said nothing about "clueless" adjuncts.  Most are pursuing a dream.

What I find odd is all the adjuncts who argue they should be paid 100% pro-rata, or get full benefits. I don't think I have ever seen an article by an adjunct arguing for a full-time job. What's up with that?

I said we could actually employ well-qualified, FT teachers, even considering the current overall scenario, if education was adequately funded.  Think about it before you respond again...

For whatever reason, there are enough people out their willing to adjunct at current wages. Colleges/taxpayers are willing to save money by paying lower wages. So, in that sense, education is "adequately" funded because supply meets demand.

Back to the comment about "middle-class" wages - back when "the academy" was mostly white men with leather elbow patches on their tweed jackets, the idea of a college staffed with full-time professors owning a home near the college was a cheerfully accepted part of society.

Now that "the academy" includes a lot of women and people of color, suddenly it's okay to have lots of adjunct faculty with low wages, no benefits, and job security.

What's up with that?

[dismalist]

I said we could actually employ well-qualified, FT teachers, even considering the current overall scenario, if education was adequately funded.

The share of education spending in GDP in the US is about the same as in France and Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Education here is funded just like in other rich countries.

[marshwiggle]

Back to the comment about "middle-class" wages - back when "the academy" was mostly white men with leather elbow patches on their tweed jackets, the idea of a college staffed with full-time professors owning a home near the college was a cheerfully accepted part of society.

Now that "the academy" includes a lot of women and people of color, suddenly it's okay to have lots of adjunct faculty with low wages, no benefits, and job security.

What's up with that?

Just as the composition of faculty has changed, so has the composition of the students. As the bar has been continually lowered for admission, with the consequent creation of more remedial classes (official and otherwise), a lot of the adjunct hiring has been for this remedial teaching. ( You don't find many adjuncts in engineering, and the ones there are won't be working for peanuts.) If admissions standards were raised so that only well-prepared students were admitted, there wouldn't be nearly the need for all of those adjunct positions. The proportion of teaching by full-time faculty would go way up.

[Wahoo Redux]

I said we could actually employ well-qualified, FT teachers, even considering the current overall scenario, if education was adequately funded.

The share of education spending in GDP in the US is about the same as in France and Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Education here is funded just like in other rich countries.

Regardless, it is not enough.

[Wahoo Redux]

a lot of the adjunct hiring has been for this remedial teaching.

Where did you hear that?

( You don't find many adjuncts in engineering, and the ones there are won't be working for peanuts.)

Try not to state the obvious.

There is an easy escape for engineers into industry.

The departments with the most adjuncts teach the classes that every freshman must take----namely composition and other gen ed classes.  So engineering does not need adjuncts.  Your engineers will go through these classes taught by adjuncts.  But we don't want to pay to teach your engineers how to write; I've worked at a STEM-focused school----your engineers really need to be trained to write.

If admissions standards were raised so that only well-prepared students were admitted, there wouldn't be nearly the need for all of those adjunct positions. The proportion of teaching by full-time faculty would go way up.

The students that go to college are generally educated.  They can read and write and handle numbers, just not as well as we think they should.

How do you figure that "The proportion of teaching by full-time faculty would go way up" if we limited the numbers of students?  FTE money, tuition, and fees would follow the numbers down.

Marshy, are you just arguing to argue?