Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Hump Day Thirsty
The dirty little secret of higher education is. . . ________________________
Higher ed has more than one "dirty little secret." One is that 1/3 to 1/2 of matriculating students are not college ready. Another is how a comparable number of students, not necessarily the same ones, simply don't want to be in college.
Another is how seemingly everyone having anything to do with the school of education apparently has rice pudding between their ears. Another is the egregious and too-often criminal nonsense that student-athletes get away with. Another is how college sports are financed. These aren't exactly secrets, although they are very dirty indeed.
Another is how you'd be hard pressed to find faculty espousing egalitarian values, and yet every knows that there is quite rigid hierarchy in academia. Nearly all the Harvard Ph.D.s get jobs before the Yale Ph.D.s do, and nearly all the Yale Ph.D.s get jobs before the Cornell ones do, and nearly all the Cornell Ph.D.s get jobs before the U. of Wisconsin-Madison ones do, and nearly all the U. of Wisconsin-Madison ones get jobs before the U.C. Riverside ones do. There are exceptions to this, but it will help to win a Nobel Prize first.
Yes, this. I'm constantly amazed how many well-educated, upper middle class people who didn't go to ivy league schools don't realize that most middle class families don't pay any tuition, let alone full freight, at the ivies. There are some downsides to having this knowledge, most notably the danger of overvaluing an ivy-league education and/or pressuring kids who might well be happier/get a better education elsewhere into trying to get into an ivy for financial reasons alone, but it's still interesting to note that this is common knowledge among my fellow ivy grads (who otherwise seem indistinguishable from my other well-educated friends/acquaintances), but considerably less so outside of those circles.
It may simply be a function of getting alumni magazines and letters/emails from the president, or noticing news stories that include the name of one of my alma maters, but it's interesting. I don't often feel like I belong to an elite group (more like I briefly visited one of the haunts of the elite, by some definition of elite, profited from the experience in ways that probably have little to do with what makes it a haunt of the elite, or at least known as such, and am still not quite sure what to make of the experience, though I'd happily revisit it if given the chance, which is highly unlikely). Still, even my relatively brief brush with the outside margins of such circles (perhaps combined with my parents' similar experiences) seems to have left me with access to some insider knowledge.
I'm definitely prouder of my small contribution to the success of a state school that manages to graduate members of various groups who are in danger of not making it to college or not making it through at almost the same rate as students who are traditionally successful in college than I am of having made it through two ivy degree programs (because getting in is definitely the hardest part of getting such degrees, and I had some demographic as well as family advantages, though I do think I made the most of the experience). I'm also cynical enough to suspect that my own school's geography and demographics (area with low unemployment, especially for the educated; high transfer rate from community colleges, which do some of the weeding for us; the fact that we're often a backup school for students from more privileged backgrounds and a first choice for first-generation students who start at community colleges) have something to do with our positive stats. Still, it's nice to know we're bucking some trends.
And I just looked up my currently school from the Politico piece Frankie linked. We graduate very few members of the 1% (looks like 1-2%, with a very slight upward slope that probably corresponds to the 2008+ recession), but somewhere in the low 30s to high 20s of the bottom 60%. The sad thing is that that curve has sloped pretty sharply downward in the last few years. I wonder how increased recruitment of international students, a direction in which we've been pushed by decreasing state funding, affects these numbers?
I think Frankie and Frod nailed it (though my own experience on the job market was not so easy as Frod describes). However, according to my facebook feed in the last 24 hours or so, the dirty little secret of academia is that some adjuncts also work as prostitutes: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/28/adjunct-professors-homeless-sex-work-academia-poverty
That's really just a titillating hook for a story on how hard it is to get by on adjunct wages, which should hardly be a secret after many such stories over the past few decades, but still seems to be something resembling a secret -- perhaps the kind of family secret that everyone knows but no one wants to talk about -- in academia.
A secret everyone knows about but apparently no one wants to talk about in academia is how seemingly everyone knows one or more cases of faculty who have had love affairs with their own students, and with no consequences whatsoever for the faculty, even how there are often serious consequences for the students, one of which is marrying the faculty member. Indeed, Margaret Wente seems positive nostalgic about it.
It increasingly seems that you can be right or be happy.
ReplyDeleteHigher ed has more than one "dirty little secret." One is that 1/3 to 1/2 of matriculating students are not college ready. Another is how a comparable number of students, not necessarily the same ones, simply don't want to be in college.
ReplyDeleteAnother is how seemingly everyone having anything to do with the school of education apparently has rice pudding between their ears. Another is the egregious and too-often criminal nonsense that student-athletes get away with. Another is how college sports are financed. These aren't exactly secrets, although they are very dirty indeed.
Another is how you'd be hard pressed to find faculty espousing egalitarian values, and yet every knows that there is quite rigid hierarchy in academia. Nearly all the Harvard Ph.D.s get jobs before the Yale Ph.D.s do, and nearly all the Yale Ph.D.s get jobs before the Cornell ones do, and nearly all the Cornell Ph.D.s get jobs before the U. of Wisconsin-Madison ones do, and nearly all the U. of Wisconsin-Madison ones get jobs before the U.C. Riverside ones do. There are exceptions to this, but it will help to win a Nobel Prize first.
Oops, I mean "...NOT espousing egalitarian values,..."
DeleteAlso, "every knows" should be "everyone knows"...
My physician told me to switch to decaf, but it had a bad effect on me: it made me drowsy.
I tried teaching classes during a decaf switch, and it was not a pretty sight.
DeleteWhat Frod said, plus:
ReplyDeleteThe richest students will continue to end up at the "best" schools as long as we define the "best" schools as the ones with the richest students.
Don't expect performance funding to fix it. Or anything else.
Yes, this. I'm constantly amazed how many well-educated, upper middle class people who didn't go to ivy league schools don't realize that most middle class families don't pay any tuition, let alone full freight, at the ivies. There are some downsides to having this knowledge, most notably the danger of overvaluing an ivy-league education and/or pressuring kids who might well be happier/get a better education elsewhere into trying to get into an ivy for financial reasons alone, but it's still interesting to note that this is common knowledge among my fellow ivy grads (who otherwise seem indistinguishable from my other well-educated friends/acquaintances), but considerably less so outside of those circles.
DeleteIt may simply be a function of getting alumni magazines and letters/emails from the president, or noticing news stories that include the name of one of my alma maters, but it's interesting. I don't often feel like I belong to an elite group (more like I briefly visited one of the haunts of the elite, by some definition of elite, profited from the experience in ways that probably have little to do with what makes it a haunt of the elite, or at least known as such, and am still not quite sure what to make of the experience, though I'd happily revisit it if given the chance, which is highly unlikely). Still, even my relatively brief brush with the outside margins of such circles (perhaps combined with my parents' similar experiences) seems to have left me with access to some insider knowledge.
I'm definitely prouder of my small contribution to the success of a state school that manages to graduate members of various groups who are in danger of not making it to college or not making it through at almost the same rate as students who are traditionally successful in college than I am of having made it through two ivy degree programs (because getting in is definitely the hardest part of getting such degrees, and I had some demographic as well as family advantages, though I do think I made the most of the experience). I'm also cynical enough to suspect that my own school's geography and demographics (area with low unemployment, especially for the educated; high transfer rate from community colleges, which do some of the weeding for us; the fact that we're often a backup school for students from more privileged backgrounds and a first choice for first-generation students who start at community colleges) have something to do with our positive stats. Still, it's nice to know we're bucking some trends.
And I just looked up my currently school from the Politico piece Frankie linked. We graduate very few members of the 1% (looks like 1-2%, with a very slight upward slope that probably corresponds to the 2008+ recession), but somewhere in the low 30s to high 20s of the bottom 60%. The sad thing is that that curve has sloped pretty sharply downward in the last few years. I wonder how increased recruitment of international students, a direction in which we've been pushed by decreasing state funding, affects these numbers?
DeleteI think Frankie and Frod nailed it (though my own experience on the job market was not so easy as Frod describes). However, according to my facebook feed in the last 24 hours or so, the dirty little secret of academia is that some adjuncts also work as prostitutes: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/28/adjunct-professors-homeless-sex-work-academia-poverty
ReplyDeleteThat's really just a titillating hook for a story on how hard it is to get by on adjunct wages, which should hardly be a secret after many such stories over the past few decades, but still seems to be something resembling a secret -- perhaps the kind of family secret that everyone knows but no one wants to talk about -- in academia.
A secret everyone knows about but apparently no one wants to talk about in academia is how seemingly everyone knows one or more cases of faculty who have had love affairs with their own students, and with no consequences whatsoever for the faculty, even how there are often serious consequences for the students, one of which is marrying the faculty member. Indeed, Margaret Wente seems positive nostalgic about it.
DeleteYou forgot Ponzi-scheme.
ReplyDelete