What’s happening in higher education is so heartbreaking. I adore universities. And yet... they increasingly don’t love us back. When I was offered access to a PhD program at a state flagship, I had to decline the offer of whole $12,000 a year for my teaching requirements, extreme debt or independent wealth being the clear expectation. Instead, I kept my (perfectly pleasant) corporate job and switched to looking at my academic pursuits as a hobby. A lovely hobby that has given me great pleasure, but also the only realistic option I had. While it worked out for me, what about all the interesting, brilliant, diverse would-be academics that we surely lose to their need to feed and house themselves?
I wish your story wasn't so common. The reality that pursuing a PhD requires either a vow of poverty or existing wealth is, and I don't say this lightly, anti-democratic. It's great that you're able to pursue those passions outside the academy, but what a loss to the academy! I've reconciled myself to my own alienation, the fact that the institution can't love you back, but it still saddens me.
Aside from seeking additional funding from the state, it seems to me that many costs could be cut— especially on the admin level. And if we want to get serious about a university’s mission to provide opportunities for advancement, I think we need to start by eliminating college athletics, which cause far more harm than good.
In terms of admin, some of it depends on what we're talking about. I think there's quite a bit of managerial bureaucracy that has crept in, but we also have things like technology and student services. For me, I think the approach has to be focused on mission over operations, and the mission should be teaching and learning. Where people help with that mission they're necessary.
But lots of the growth is in things like marketing, enrollment management, etc...which shouldn't really be necessary in a system where most students for most state institutions come from the state because they're supported by public dollars.
I wouldn't get rid of all college athletics because I think sports (like arts, etc...) are an important part of the overall student culture, but...in my book I sketch out the bones of a plan where D1 football and basketball are spun off into for-profit entities that pay athletes and then license use of facilities and name/likeness from the educational institution. They should be required to run on their own budgets, rather than drawing on students funds to stay solvent.
Some of y'all may be interested to know that the Chicago Tribune today, Sunday, has an article about the fate of football at the University of Chicago, including the famous quote from the president who said that whenever he felt like exercising he would lie down until the feeling went away.
Fantastic article! The plight of adjuncts is shameful—they need a union but that’s a fairy tale possibility I assume. Reading this made my blood boil, especially when it comes to the boneheads in state legislatures who cut funding to public universities over and over. There were so many more tuition aid possibilities when I went to college. In VA, there was even a state program that paid for “displaced homemakers” to attend community college after a divorce left them with no money to get an education or qualifications to make a living. Can you imagine such a compassionate program today? I don’t know how kids from non-wealthy families cobble together enough aid or part time jobs to get through college today. Education should be a right, not a privilege for the rich. Metastatic capitalism is killing us.
Unions are helping very much in some locations, but as you note, are not a possibility in others (like where I live in South Carolina). It's distressing how comfortable some folks have gotten about making education increasingly exclusive, available only to those who can pay for it themselves.
Yes, SC has such a benighted government that I’m constantly amazed that I continue to trudge to the polls every election. Looking forward to your return to bookclub.
Wow. Thanks for your response, John! I like your toned down position (as opposed to mine) regarding athletics. And I 100% agree with spinning D1 Football and Basketball into the elsewhere. Seems like this for-profit land is already emerging on the horizon. For years, I’d envisioned an amateur system like Ireland’s sports clubs, but either way… let’s separate these behemoth markets from higher Ed.
Thanks! For me the key is orienting those activities around the educational/development mission, rather than $'s and cents. Ideally, those other sports could provide some subsidy to the non revenue sports, with the non revenue sports being appropriate sized the money available.
The Drake Group (https://www.thedrakegroup.org) regularly examines how the current model of athletics fails the athletes and provides suggestions for reforms -- spinning off the top echelon of FB and BB (which is only top half of D1) and paying the labor is just one of their suggestions
"Substack is saying that this thing has a reading time of 18 minutes, but I don’t think that’s accurate because it counts the pictures like they’re text. "
Not including the time spent following your links, reading reviews elsewhere of books you mention, etc.
I feel something like a curse since I’ve spent most of my working life in two fields that capitalism is destroying: newspaper journalism and higher education. In both fields, the rhetoric of their proper mission is used to paper over the failure of both to do the job a healthy democracy demands. The most disheartening thing is that there are solutions, but the lack of leadership to make the changes we need. And a lack of understanding on the part of the public.
Excellent piece. The quote from Carol Christ @UC Berkeley is well... disheartening while true. I completed a PhD at age 50 hoping to teach an after five semesters at community college, countless interviews, and no offers, I finally realized it wasn’t in the cards for me. But now I have a substantial tuition debt that I will be paying until I die. And yes, I suppose it is worth mentioning, that my PhD is in the humanities. I’m proud of it and equally sad this field is no longer valued.
Agree ... but particularly in case of research-intensive universities, don't overlook ever-increasing costs of financial oversight (and fears of being audited). Although in principle those should be covered by indirect costs the university receives from grants ...
John, I have some interest in the actual expense of educating students, so your calculation on your remuneration vs tuition your efforts provided was interesting. Was this calculated as number of students X credit hours / full load credit hours X MSRP tuition? Thanks, Allan
It's somewhere between a true and back of the envelope calculation derived from number of credit hours I was responsible for using a revenue per credit hour number derived from actual university budgeting information. I couldn't tell you what that number was now, but I could probably reverse engineer it from when I wrote about it at my blog.
That is great -- no need to reverse engineer. I've come across the La Tech historian Drew McKevitt citing similar numbers. Humanities profs should get this info out more broadly, to hoist the neoliberal universities on their own petard.
I am the product of a land grant institution (U of Illinois) and taught 30 years at another (Purdue). I felt for all the students struggling to pay for their education.
Fellow Illini here! (Class of '92). At a post a few years ago I did the math on how feasible it was to pay one's way through the University of Illinois when I went vs. the time of writing and I calculated in would take 49 weeks of minimum wage work to pay a year's tuition today vs. something like 15 weeks when I started college. (This has maybe changed some since Illinois has been increasing its minimum wage, but tuition has also continued to increase.) https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/return-hope-thinking-about-future-higher-ed-public-good
Nice -- I am class of '71 (yes, I'm an old guy). I recall that the tuition for my first semester there in 1967 was ~$150 -- tuition rises started apace very soon after that.
And I just did the math as you had -- I was incorrect above. A year's tuition in 1967 was $170 and minimum wage was $1.40, so about 3 weeks work to earn tuition money.
Somewhere on my hard drive I have a spreadsheet of U of I tuition from 1965 to 2014 that I downloaded from the university before that data got more secure and even though my tuition was relatively cheap, I saw that it was double what it would have been had I started college four years earlier. I matriculated at the very start of the significant increase in the cost of tuition.
Very interesting. I came across your publication because I recently wrote about my college experience and the real value I got out of it, and why I don't think employers will do away with a college requirement any time soon (although the median does seem to point to that).
Wanted to share my thoughts with you and other readers who might be interested in another viewpoint:
What’s happening in higher education is so heartbreaking. I adore universities. And yet... they increasingly don’t love us back. When I was offered access to a PhD program at a state flagship, I had to decline the offer of whole $12,000 a year for my teaching requirements, extreme debt or independent wealth being the clear expectation. Instead, I kept my (perfectly pleasant) corporate job and switched to looking at my academic pursuits as a hobby. A lovely hobby that has given me great pleasure, but also the only realistic option I had. While it worked out for me, what about all the interesting, brilliant, diverse would-be academics that we surely lose to their need to feed and house themselves?
Having known many adjunct professors, this The Onion article has caused very sad chuckles for me and them: https://www.theonion.com/adjunct-professor-hoping-some-student-leaves-behind-war-1819578455
Unfortunately, not that satirical it turns out.
I wish your story wasn't so common. The reality that pursuing a PhD requires either a vow of poverty or existing wealth is, and I don't say this lightly, anti-democratic. It's great that you're able to pursue those passions outside the academy, but what a loss to the academy! I've reconciled myself to my own alienation, the fact that the institution can't love you back, but it still saddens me.
Aside from seeking additional funding from the state, it seems to me that many costs could be cut— especially on the admin level. And if we want to get serious about a university’s mission to provide opportunities for advancement, I think we need to start by eliminating college athletics, which cause far more harm than good.
In terms of admin, some of it depends on what we're talking about. I think there's quite a bit of managerial bureaucracy that has crept in, but we also have things like technology and student services. For me, I think the approach has to be focused on mission over operations, and the mission should be teaching and learning. Where people help with that mission they're necessary.
But lots of the growth is in things like marketing, enrollment management, etc...which shouldn't really be necessary in a system where most students for most state institutions come from the state because they're supported by public dollars.
I wouldn't get rid of all college athletics because I think sports (like arts, etc...) are an important part of the overall student culture, but...in my book I sketch out the bones of a plan where D1 football and basketball are spun off into for-profit entities that pay athletes and then license use of facilities and name/likeness from the educational institution. They should be required to run on their own budgets, rather than drawing on students funds to stay solvent.
Some of y'all may be interested to know that the Chicago Tribune today, Sunday, has an article about the fate of football at the University of Chicago, including the famous quote from the president who said that whenever he felt like exercising he would lie down until the feeling went away.
Fantastic article! The plight of adjuncts is shameful—they need a union but that’s a fairy tale possibility I assume. Reading this made my blood boil, especially when it comes to the boneheads in state legislatures who cut funding to public universities over and over. There were so many more tuition aid possibilities when I went to college. In VA, there was even a state program that paid for “displaced homemakers” to attend community college after a divorce left them with no money to get an education or qualifications to make a living. Can you imagine such a compassionate program today? I don’t know how kids from non-wealthy families cobble together enough aid or part time jobs to get through college today. Education should be a right, not a privilege for the rich. Metastatic capitalism is killing us.
Unions are helping very much in some locations, but as you note, are not a possibility in others (like where I live in South Carolina). It's distressing how comfortable some folks have gotten about making education increasingly exclusive, available only to those who can pay for it themselves.
Yes, SC has such a benighted government that I’m constantly amazed that I continue to trudge to the polls every election. Looking forward to your return to bookclub.
Wow. Thanks for your response, John! I like your toned down position (as opposed to mine) regarding athletics. And I 100% agree with spinning D1 Football and Basketball into the elsewhere. Seems like this for-profit land is already emerging on the horizon. For years, I’d envisioned an amateur system like Ireland’s sports clubs, but either way… let’s separate these behemoth markets from higher Ed.
Looking forward to reading your book!
Thanks! For me the key is orienting those activities around the educational/development mission, rather than $'s and cents. Ideally, those other sports could provide some subsidy to the non revenue sports, with the non revenue sports being appropriate sized the money available.
The Drake Group (https://www.thedrakegroup.org) regularly examines how the current model of athletics fails the athletes and provides suggestions for reforms -- spinning off the top echelon of FB and BB (which is only top half of D1) and paying the labor is just one of their suggestions
"Substack is saying that this thing has a reading time of 18 minutes, but I don’t think that’s accurate because it counts the pictures like they’re text. "
Not including the time spent following your links, reading reviews elsewhere of books you mention, etc.
Those are my extra public service!
I feel something like a curse since I’ve spent most of my working life in two fields that capitalism is destroying: newspaper journalism and higher education. In both fields, the rhetoric of their proper mission is used to paper over the failure of both to do the job a healthy democracy demands. The most disheartening thing is that there are solutions, but the lack of leadership to make the changes we need. And a lack of understanding on the part of the public.
All I can say amen to this. Not a word I’d disagree with.
Excellent piece. The quote from Carol Christ @UC Berkeley is well... disheartening while true. I completed a PhD at age 50 hoping to teach an after five semesters at community college, countless interviews, and no offers, I finally realized it wasn’t in the cards for me. But now I have a substantial tuition debt that I will be paying until I die. And yes, I suppose it is worth mentioning, that my PhD is in the humanities. I’m proud of it and equally sad this field is no longer valued.
Agree ... but particularly in case of research-intensive universities, don't overlook ever-increasing costs of financial oversight (and fears of being audited). Although in principle those should be covered by indirect costs the university receives from grants ...
John, I have some interest in the actual expense of educating students, so your calculation on your remuneration vs tuition your efforts provided was interesting. Was this calculated as number of students X credit hours / full load credit hours X MSRP tuition? Thanks, Allan
It's somewhere between a true and back of the envelope calculation derived from number of credit hours I was responsible for using a revenue per credit hour number derived from actual university budgeting information. I couldn't tell you what that number was now, but I could probably reverse engineer it from when I wrote about it at my blog.
That is great -- no need to reverse engineer. I've come across the La Tech historian Drew McKevitt citing similar numbers. Humanities profs should get this info out more broadly, to hoist the neoliberal universities on their own petard.
I am the product of a land grant institution (U of Illinois) and taught 30 years at another (Purdue). I felt for all the students struggling to pay for their education.
Thanks!
Fellow Illini here! (Class of '92). At a post a few years ago I did the math on how feasible it was to pay one's way through the University of Illinois when I went vs. the time of writing and I calculated in would take 49 weeks of minimum wage work to pay a year's tuition today vs. something like 15 weeks when I started college. (This has maybe changed some since Illinois has been increasing its minimum wage, but tuition has also continued to increase.) https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/return-hope-thinking-about-future-higher-ed-public-good
Nice -- I am class of '71 (yes, I'm an old guy). I recall that the tuition for my first semester there in 1967 was ~$150 -- tuition rises started apace very soon after that.
Os-kee-wow-wow!
And I just did the math as you had -- I was incorrect above. A year's tuition in 1967 was $170 and minimum wage was $1.40, so about 3 weeks work to earn tuition money.
Somewhere on my hard drive I have a spreadsheet of U of I tuition from 1965 to 2014 that I downloaded from the university before that data got more secure and even though my tuition was relatively cheap, I saw that it was double what it would have been had I started college four years earlier. I matriculated at the very start of the significant increase in the cost of tuition.
Very interesting. I came across your publication because I recently wrote about my college experience and the real value I got out of it, and why I don't think employers will do away with a college requirement any time soon (although the median does seem to point to that).
Wanted to share my thoughts with you and other readers who might be interested in another viewpoint:
https://workinggirl.substack.com/p/why-college-was-worth-it-for-me-and