It seems that they do understand this economy. It’s capitalism.
where are college professors living in their cars?
It’s a little more complicated than that. I think the factors are:
- part-time adjunct vs full-time
- research vs non
- type of college (prestige, size, focus)
- what you do in summers
- field
So for example you could be a machine learning Research Professor (non-tenure-track) in a first-tier university and bring in a lot of money through grants. Or you could be a tenured teaching professor at a smaller college and not work in summers and make a mid-level income. Or you could be a part-time instructor (e.g., adjunct faculty) in the humanities and make very little.
Typically, the amount of grant money you receive does not affect your salary. It can affect your job security and it can be a factor in earning tenure, but in general, writing more grant proposals=/=higher pay (just more money for research).
Plus, even at R1 schools, tenure-track positions are often starting out with pretty low pay compared to tuition and very low compared what the professor could be making in private industry. According to this study by National Center for Educational Statistics, only about a third of college budgets are spent on instruction, with about another third on support services (counselors, financial aid, tutoring/library services, accessibility services, etc.), with the remainder spent on administration. But that doesn’t look so bad until you realize that at most schools, 50%-75% of the courses are not taught by full-time instructors, but by adjuncts, and adjuncts are often paid at or below the poverty line (about 25k/year in 2020). Even as a tenured instructor with 10 years of salary schedule advancements and a partner with a full-time job in higher education, I’m still living paycheck-to-paycheck.
So, yes, it is more complicated than “all professors are underpaid,” but not by much. It’s really more like “75% of college instructors are near or below poverty level.”
Agree with the above, with the exception of summer work which is unrelated to what they make from being professors. If you are a college professor and need to keep a second job to keep the roof over your head, then I think the point stands.
Community college professor here. I’m lucky enough to be tenured at this point, but when I started teaching, I was making just enough money such that if I had been paying the going rate for rent edit: and health insurance, I would have been losing about $100/month, before taking into account other expenses like food (or health insurance or gas or utilities…) (edit: I went back and checked numbers, my memory was a little off). And that was with me teaching 75% at two different schools (so, a total of about 24 units per term when full-time is usually 16 units per term)
I was privileged enough to be able to live with family while I pursued a full-time position and extra work, but many are not so lucky.
So, yeah, college professors are drastically underpaid, on par with K-12 teachers
I don’t know, tenure track professors doing research, probably not. But the cost of living here is kind of insane. If we didn’t have a double income, my wife would have to take a pretty substantial downgrade in where she lives. Cost of living is getting out of hand everywhere regardless, and the point still stands I think.
There’s really a two tiered structure to academia that seems to be hidden from most students. Maybe even 3 tiered. There’s the tenure-track research faculty who might teach one class per semester (often less) - they’re still underpaid relative to industry equivalent jobs, but they get their research freedom and low six figures after a few years while bringing in seven figure research grants for the university. Mid-six-figures if they’re upper admin. There’s non-tenure-track adjuncts & academic professionals who teach 3-5 classes per semester, often at multiple universities because no one will give them enough classes to live on, doing the bulk of a university’s teaching, especially at ‘tier 1 research’ universities, and they’re lucky to get median salary. There’s also a set of tenure-track faculty at universities without big research programs who teach 2-3 classes, maybe do a little bit of research or literature review, but probably without any significant extramural funding. They get paid somewhere in between.
They all get called “professor;” they all have PhDs; there’s infighting to keep the faculty as a whole from rising up. I used to tell my students they (or someone on their bahalf) paid about $200 for each of my lectures, and they’re free to skip them if they want, but even in a tiny seminar, 10 students, $2000/hour revenue, the highest paid professors are only getting 5% of that (not accounting for out-of-class effort).
everywhere there are professors.
It’s very common in the US.
https://fox59.com/news/national-world/ucla-professor-says-hes-homeless-due-to-low-pay/amp/
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/homeless-professor-who-lives-her-car
You do know these are all about the same lady from 7 years ago. Stop living in the past.
Girlfriend works in childcare and I work in elder care. Fuck me double
Hey there and solidarity from the disability care world. We need a damn union, I heard like 25% of the millenials are in human care positions, so I’m hoping we do something soon, we got the people for it.
Elder care wealth is extracted using service companies as services. E.g. they hire their for-profit cleaning service for astronomical money while their non-profit elderly care facility claims to make no profits. Since the service takes the money and the elder care facility is paying for a known cost (cleaning, supplies, whatever) then they can still claim to be non-profit. The non-profit pays no taxes so they aren’t doubly taxed either.
This is a widely known scheme in the north east, combined with the fact that when it’s inspection time to see staff levels the business owners mysteriously are given a heads up before they show up so they can make sure just enough staff is there. They routinely understaff these facilities because each person there is just another wage to pay.
Bottom line, for profit healthcare is appalling and corruption is everywhere.
I took a few courses about public policy at my university and met with the groups trying to create change. Did a research paper on this topic even.
The ones in the industry know the secrets and the ones in the government turn a blind eye because lipservice and inspections on paper sound great when you’re trying to get votes from older people. They want to believe that when they need care that the providers will be doing the right thing. Sadly, they are not doing the right thing. There’s so much money in it when you’re charging over $400 per day per patient.
Here’s an article that talks about it.
They use nicer words to make it sound less predatory:
Providers have wide latitude in how they utilize MassHealth and other funds, since there are no limits on self-dealing transactions/contracts and no ceiling on administrative costs.
The growth of for-profit ownership in nursing homes, including significant investment by private equity firms and real estate investment trusts, makes it clear that nursing homes are profitable businesses.
A Boston Globe 2014 study of Massachusetts nursing home finances found that many nursing homes directed cash to subsidiaries “…paying million-dollar rental fees and helping to pay executives’ six-figure salaries…”
If you reach out to the authors of that article, including a former state senator, they’d be glad to talk to you about it. They won’t remember me though, it’s been a while. The things that can be said aloud go way beyond what is written down. No one wants to air their dirty laundry but trust me, the nursing homes are generally given a heads up before inspections take place so nobody gets fined and there are no problems. Unless something changed very, very recently.
It’s as if theres some parasitic force siphoning all those dollars somewhere . . . oh right, there is.
That’s a Nazi dogwhistle btw, Lemmy dipshits who hear something vaguely anti-capitalist and upvote.
Is the dogwhistle the word “consoom”, I take it? Super curious to hear more. I understand dogwhistles but haven’t heard about this one.
But I always got weird feelings from the people on the internet spelling ‘consume’ that way. For instance there’s this guy on YouTube called Luke something who makes videos on Linux and some other open source stuff, but began at some point to seem extremely condescending about everything and misanthropic generally really. Then he had a video that showed a house he bought and at some point you could see his tiny little bookshelf and it was just full of right wing garbage, lol. That and he moved to apparently middle of nowhere because that’s what he decided to spend his sweet doge gainz of what looks like maybe $100k max on, lmao. Super weird vibes. Oh and lots of Pepe the frogs, too, IIRC…
Sorry, ignore my other comment, I think I see you were referring not to “consoom” but the comment it was replying to, and the “parasitic forces,” which I assume is the dogwhistle you meant and I guess is trying to say to those in the know “iT’s ThE jEwS”
Let me guess, you think it’s the “globalists” running everything by which you mean the Jews? Take your Nazi shit elsewhere.
Pathetic…
The level of anti intellectualism among political zealots is the reason why we are here.
No … I think they mean obviously the bourgeoisie 1% making all the real money while the rest of us fight over the scraps.
You’re being weird calling this Nazi shit. It just isn’t.
I suggest voting with your feet and living in cheaper countries with better infrastructure.
Why give broken US systems more money if you weren’t getting anything in return?
It’s not like you can just up and move when you don’t have money. There’s also the little issue of not being a citizen wherever you go, and then add in the culture shock, and family being far away. It’s no wonder people stay.
“It’s not like you can just up and move”
yes, you can.
you need a few hundred bucks and a job that makes you $500 a month(there are many), or if you’re fine with teaching fundamental English a few hours a week, you don’t need any savings.
with that much, you can live at the level you’re living in the US right now or far above it, and then build off of there pursuing what you’re interested in because you don’t have any financial stressors.
“There’s also the little issue of not being a citizen wherever you go”
this is far more of a benefit than a liability.
do you mean a positive issue? I can’t really think of any liabilities of being a non-citizen.
“culture shock”
“culture shock” is an absurd debilitating elitist promise and symptom of jingoism.
it is a flimsy term with laughable connotations.
“you all ride bikes? but I’m used to a car, im so confuuused!?”
this is like saying people should never exercise because they might hurt themselves.
or that people should never eat food because they might choke.
Americans get “culture shock” because they are taught to be afraid of non-american cultures.
"oh no. chopsticks. however, will I overcome this barrier? "
“It’s no wonder people stay.”
it is truly a wonder how much Americans complain about their shitty, expensive livelihoods ( rightly so), and how much they’re getting screwed over by the education, employment, healthcare systems in the US and can’t afford to live, but absolutely refuse to engage with the simplest alternative.
in the same breath condemning their government and the systems that abuse them, they haughtily defend that abuse.
" what am I going to do, leave my abuser?"
Yes, that would be a savvy alternative to being abused.
You know what? Instead of just down voting you, imma explain. You highlighted exactly why people do not understand abuse.
Sure, leaving your abuser is the obvious answer. But the ability to leave your abuser is much more complex. If you were being savagely beat, but if you left your child starts to get beat, and they have restricted access to your child, how do you leave then?
Do you think victims want to keep being abused? No. Many times they can’t find an escape because so many things are controlled by there abuser. Money, communication, social lives, health. People dont leave countries for the exact same reasons. A lot of us know one language, and do not have enough time to learn another. What about those of us who have to take medication daily? How am I supposed to get that medication across the border and find a doctor to prescribe it. Hell, how do I even know if the medicine I take is available in that country? Research it? Can’t. Don’t have the time.
Critical thinking requires you to test aspects supporting and dissenting from your original understanding. Instead of “why x reasons won’t prevent you” in this scenario, find a single reason that could.
I can guarantee you that there is a long complex list of reasons why people are unable to leave the abuser just like they are unable to leave a country.
I’m going to just roll into Canada and see if they kick me out? You can’t just show up in a country and roll the dice. American is not a desired nationality in developed countries.
Yes, you can just show up in a country.
I’m not sure what dice you’re referring to, what sort of risk are you afraid of?
it’s very easy to travel to other countries.
That’s pretty fuckin dependent yo.
US to Mexico? Yeah Portugal to Spain? You bet. HK or Taiwan to PRC? HELL YES.
Mexico to US? Depends. US to Canada? Depends. UK to France? Depends.
NK to SK? Lol no Cuba to US? Lol no
Inside the Eurozone you’re right, but it’s not really an effective blanket statement.
