Professors in Poverty

[JonA]

In college I took one class taught by an adjunct.

I'm glad it was just the one

 

[barbos]

I am curious how you say society values adjuncts. Do people hire adjuncts off the street?

Ask a student how much s/he thinks his History 220 professor makes?
Ask a parent how it feels to know his or her child is dining at the home of his econ professor?

Professors are still for the most part thought of as smart and held in some esteem among the general public.

What that public does not know is the differences among an adjunct, an associate, and an assistant professor are or exact which one of those their kid's professor is.

Most people watching that video will probably think adjuncts should be paid more. No one with a PhD should be on food stamps.

Hmmmmm, why does this OP reek of a special pleading? You wouldn't know someone close who is flirting with this as a career choice, would you?

But you are correct, no one with a PhD should be on food stamps. If they deserve to be "thought of as smart" and "held in esteem" they ought to have no trouble getting a real job and supporting themselves, so let's boot them off. That would solve that annoyance.

That's exactly what is happening more often than not. People with "useless" PhDs like physics/math are routinely booted off and forced to work on WallStreet for $700k/year where they write algorithms to fuck ordinary folk who think they don't need to support fundamental science.
So consider what is best for taxpayers, PhD who costs you $100-200k/year and works on something interesting (to him) or PhD who costs you $700k/year at least (in reality few millions) and who does some crap which does not interest him at all.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The reason for oversupply of PhDs (in US at least) is that universities need graduate students to do the teaching but they eventually get their PhD and this is where universities lose their interest in you. This also reduces the average quality of PhDs and eventually professors.
Ironically the ultimate cause of this nonsense is this idea that everybody has to get higher education.

How do you get from

universities need graduate students to do the teaching but they eventually get their PhD and this is where universities lose their interest in you

to

This also reduces the average quality of PhDs

 

[barbos]

How do you get from

universities need graduate students to do the teaching but they eventually get their PhD and this is where universities lose their interest in you

to

This also reduces the average quality of PhDs

You can't figure it out?
To do a lot of teaching (in hard fields at least) you need a lot of grad students, and to get a lot of grad students you need to lower acceptance requirements, otherwise they will not pass it.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

How do you get from to

This also reduces the average quality of PhDs

You can't figure it out?
To do a lot of teaching (in hard fields at least) you need a lot of grad students, and to get a lot of grad students you need to lower acceptance requirements,

Ok, this is where I lose you. Do you have stats to backup that assertion?

otherwise they will not pass it.

 

[barbos]

How do you get from to

This also reduces the average quality of PhDs

You can't figure it out?
To do a lot of teaching (in hard fields at least) you need a lot of grad students, and to get a lot of grad students you need to lower acceptance requirements,

Ok, this is where I lose you. Do you have stats to backup that assertion?

otherwise they will not pass it.

That was not an assertion, that was an explanation, I explained you mechanism. And what kind of statistics you need anyway?
Most PhDs do not get hired by academia even in the fields without obvious "civilian" applications like theoretical physics.
The reason for that is oversupply of PhDs or under-supply of positions, or both. I personally think it's both.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

How do you get from to

This also reduces the average quality of PhDs

You can't figure it out?
To do a lot of teaching (in hard fields at least) you need a lot of grad students, and to get a lot of grad students you need to lower acceptance requirements,

Ok, this is where I lose you. Do you have stats to backup that assertion?

otherwise they will not pass it.

That was not an assertion, that was an explanation, I explained you mechanism. And what kind of statistics you need anyway?
Most PhDs do not get hired by academia even in the fields without obvious "civilian" applications like theoretical physics.
The reason for that is oversupply of PhDs or under-supply of positions, or both. I personally think it's both.

Some metric that shows that qualifications for PhDs have become less stringent over time and across disciplines would generate stats that could lend credence to your hypothesis.

 

[barbos]

Some metric that shows that qualifications for PhDs have become less stringent over time and across disciplines would generate stats that could lend credence to your hypothesis.

Ask some PhD in sociology for that
But my "hypothesis" does not rest on that. It rests on simple number of PhDs produced. The only way to increase that number is to decrease the quality.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Some metric that shows that qualifications for PhDs have become less stringent over time and across disciplines would generate stats that could lend credence to your hypothesis.

Ask some PhD in sociology for that
But my "hypothesis" does not rest on that. It rests on simple number of PhDs produced. The only way to increase that number is to decrease the quality.

So you have no proof. And without proof, you have only an assertion.

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

 

[barbos]

Ask some PhD in sociology for that
But my "hypothesis" does not rest on that. It rests on simple number of PhDs produced. The only way to increase that number is to decrease the quality.

So you have no proof. And without proof, you have only an assertion.

What you ask is not proof.

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Are you implying that people became million times smarter since the 1980?

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

I was not talking about price. If I was I would have mentioned word "price"
But yes, lowering price (PhD wages in Academia) does decrease quality to some extent.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

So you have no proof. And without proof, you have only an assertion.

What you ask is not proof.

Care to rephrase this. I don't understand what you are trying to say. Did you mean, what you ask FOR is not proof? because actually what I asked for I would accept as proof, hence my asking for it. But you don't have it.

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Are you implying that people became million times smarter since the 1980?

A Million times smarter? No, but then again I try to not posit questions that sound like they come from a six year old describing how many jelly beans he wants in Easter Basket. But I will say that humans today know things and how to do things they did not know in 1980. Or would you disagree?

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

I was not talking about price. If I was I would have mentioned word "price"

Look dude, I am just trying to help you out as you seem to be lost and floundering.

But yes, lowering price (PhD wages in Academia) does decrease quality to some extent.

You still have not shown proof of you assertion that increase in quantity leads to a decrease in quality.

 

[Trausti]

Seems somewhat relevant to this thread.

The journalists–and Americans—have been kept in the dark while universities and many allied name-brand companies have quietly imported an extra workforce of at least 100,000 lower-wage foreign professionals in place of higher-wage American graduates, above the supposed annual cap of 85,000 new H-1Bs.

Less than one-sixth of these extra 100,000 outsourced hires are the so-called “high-tech” computer experts that dominate media coverage of the contentious H-1B private-sector outsourcing debate.

Instead, the universities’ off-the-books H-1B hires include 21,754 professors, lecturers and instructors, 20,566 doctors, clinicians and therapists, 25,175 researchers, post-docs and biologists, plus 30,000 financial planners, p.r. experts, writers, editors, sports coaches, designers, accountants, economists, statisticians, lawyers, architects, computer experts and much else.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/05/industry-universities-hide-workforce-100000-extra-foreign-white-collar-h-1b-employees/

 

[barbos]

What you ask is not proof.

Care to rephrase this. I don't understand what you are trying to say. Did you mean, what you ask FOR is not proof? because actually what I asked for I would accept as proof, hence my asking for it. But you don't have it.

I explained why what you are asking is not required. You are making unreasonable demands here. I mean you know damn well I don't have what you're asking for and plan simply declare "You don't have a proof"

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Are you implying that people became million times smarter since the 1980?

A Million times smarter? No, but then again I try to not posit questions that sound like they come from a six year old describing how many jelly beans he wants in Easter Basket. But I will say that humans today know things and how to do things they did not know in 1980. Or would you disagree?

You confuse knowledge with ability to create that knowledge. I sure know more than Einstein ever knew. certainly more than Newton. But I am not smarter than them.

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

I was not talking about price. If I was I would have mentioned word "price"

Look dude, I am just trying to help you out as you seem to be lost and floundering.

But yes, lowering price (PhD wages in Academia) does decrease quality to some extent.

You still have not shown proof of you assertion that increase in quantity leads to a decrease in quality.

You still have not shown that I had not shown proof.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Care to rephrase this. I don't understand what you are trying to say. Did you mean, what you ask FOR is not proof? because actually what I asked for I would accept as proof, hence my asking for it. But you don't have it.

I explained why what you are asking is not required.

Try again.

You are making unreasonable demands here.

No I am not. You say that the increase in the quantity of PhDs lowers the quality of PhDs and/or the requirements for PhDs. I asked for proof that that has actually happened. You don't have any.

I mean you know damn well I don't have what you're asking for and plan simply declare "You don't have a proof"

Yeah because that is what has happened. You have made an assertion for which you can not provide proof.

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Are you implying that people became million times smarter since the 1980?

A Million times smarter? No, but then again I try to not posit questions that sound like they come from a six year old describing how many jelly beans he wants in Easter Basket. But I will say that humans today know things and how to do things they did not know in 1980. Or would you disagree?

You confuse knowledge with ability to create that knowledge.

No. I have not.

I sure know more than Einstein ever knew. certainly more than Newton. But I am not smarter than them.

I have not said nor will I ever say you are. Can you show that PhDs today are not as knowledgeable as they were three and a half decade ago? What are the differences today from back then? How are PhDs today not performing on the job as well as they did in 1980? And if you can show this, can you then show that this reason is the reason or at least a major reason why PhDs in teaching are being paid so abysmally?

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

I was not talking about price. If I was I would have mentioned word "price"

Look dude, I am just trying to help you out as you seem to be lost and floundering.

But yes, lowering price (PhD wages in Academia) does decrease quality to some extent.

You still have not shown proof of you assertion that increase in quantity leads to a decrease in quality.

You still have not shown that I had not shown proof.

I have not proved a negative? Gee, no wonder you're having so much trouble with the concept of proof, you don't have the foggiest notion how proof works. This explains SO much about your posts.

 

[barbos]

I explained why what you are asking is not required.

Try again.

You are making unreasonable demands here.

No I am not. You say that the increase in the quantity of PhDs lowers the quality of PhDs and/or the requirements for PhDs. I asked for proof that that has actually happened. You don't have any.

I mean you know damn well I don't have what you're asking for and plan simply declare "You don't have a proof"

Yeah because that is what has happened. You have made an assertion for which you can not provide proof.

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Are you implying that people became million times smarter since the 1980?

A Million times smarter? No, but then again I try to not posit questions that sound like they come from a six year old describing how many jelly beans he wants in Easter Basket. But I will say that humans today know things and how to do things they did not know in 1980. Or would you disagree?

You confuse knowledge with ability to create that knowledge.

No. I have not.

Yes you have.

I sure know more than Einstein ever knew. certainly more than Newton. But I am not smarter than them.

I have not said nor will I ever say you are.

I did not say you had said that.

Can you show that PhDs today are not as knowledgeable as they were three and a half decade ago?

I don't have to. You made a claim that people nowdays are smarter than in the past confusing knowledge with intelligence and I merely pointed that out. So it is you who made a claim and you need to demonstrate the proof of that now.

What are the differences today from back then? How are PhDs today not performing on the job as well as they did in 1980? And if you can show this, can you then show that this reason is the reason or at least a major reason why PhDs in teaching are being paid so abysmally?

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

I was not talking about price. If I was I would have mentioned word "price"

Look dude, I am just trying to help you out as you seem to be lost and floundering.

But yes, lowering price (PhD wages in Academia) does decrease quality to some extent.

You still have not shown proof of you assertion that increase in quantity leads to a decrease in quality.

You still have not shown that I had not shown proof.

I have not proved a negative? Gee, no wonder you're having so much trouble with the concept of proof, you don't have the foggiest notion how proof works. This explains SO much about your posts.

You still have not demonstrated that what you ask is required here.

 

[ronburgundy]

Adjuncts don't want to be adjuncts. They want full time professorships at a school. Adjuncting is what one does to while trying to get a full time professorship in a tough job market with an oversupply of candidates. But their chance to get a full professorship requires that while they wait, they must adjunct rather than some other better paying job, because once they step outside of academia, they lose any standing as a viable full time hire.

Most long term adjuncts are people who lack any competitive skills or accomplishments beyond classroom teaching related to contributing to the intellectual growth of their discipline (i.e., they don't produce peer reviewed academic research), which is typically required for both a full time position and eventual tenure tied to those positions.

But it is highly unethical for public colleges to take advantage of desperate people by paying them so little after being the one's who helped them into debt via giving them their financially useless graduate training. A typical semester course means 20 weeks X 10 hours per week = 200 hours per semester course. At $2000 per course (what many colleges pay adjuncts), that is $10 per hour pre-tax and without health or retirement benefits. That is absurd for someone performing a task where the minimum job qualifications include a doctorate degree. Even if there is a glut of candidates, it is unethical to pay so little. If the tuition must be raised to pay them more, then that must be done. If other areas of the budget need to be cut to pay them more, then that needs to be done.

That said, the long term ethical solution is one that many of those who want higher adjunct pay will not like. It requires eliminating adjunct jobs and replacing them with full time positions, which means a huge % of current adjuncts will be out of the field entirely and especially those who are not highly competitive for the more limited full time positions. The only reason to have adjuncts rather than full time profs is to pay them less. So, any increase in their pay means a reduction in that type of position.

In turn, it is highly unethical to accept students into debt creating 4-6 year "training" programs (grad school), if there are no jobs out there for them. So that means cutting the glut of doctorates, so that there are not very many beyond what is needed to fill the full time jobs. That requires massively raising the admission and graduation standards for graduate schools. Cut the number of Ph.Ds granted in proportion to the current glut within that discipline, which probably means rejecting 2/3 of the people currently being accepted into grad school in English. This is especially true since taxes subsidize public Universities and should not be subsidizing training for positions that don't exist.

BTW, eliminating a large % of grad students will mean that full time profs no longer can fulfill as much of their duties via advising grad students and teach grad course, which means more time for them to teach undergrad courses instead of having adjuncts do it. But, that also means we cannot have "Research" Universities where all the faculty are doing lots of research and yet there is also a huge undergrad population that needs to be taught. Those schools need to become a hybrid where some full time positions require research productivity and some are more like liberal arts college positions where full time teaching and minimal research is expected.

 

[barbos]

It's all good but nothing will be done. Universities are interested in profits, that means more and more undergrad students and courses. And the rest follows from that, you need people to do the teaching. During my grad school at my department there was only one adjunct teaching I think. The rest were real professors and grad students, grad students did all the gradings and some teaching. Basically, you need certain amount of grad students, otherwise you have nobody to grade these hordes of undergrads.

 

[ronburgundy]

It's all good but nothing will be done. Universities are interested in profits, that means more and more undergrad students and courses. And the rest follows from that, you need people to do the teaching. During my grad school at my department there was only one adjunct teaching I think. The rest were real professors and grad students, grad students did all the gradings and some teaching. Basically, you need certain amount of grad students, otherwise you have nobody to grade these hordes of undergrads.

But one reason that full time profs cannot teach as many undergrads is that they are teaching and advising grad students, who increasingly are getting a useless degree for which their are no jobs. Reduce the grad students and make profs teach more undergrad courses.
The need for grading assistants is not a valid reason to have more graduate students. They cost money too, typically more per hour than adjunct professors do. Hire advanced undergrads that already took the course to be grading assistants. Most upper-level courses have far fewer students and do not require grading assistants. Paying a 22 year old still working on or who just received their Bachelors $15 an hour to grade makes much more sense than paying graduate students that same amount, who then flood the post-graduate job market.

Part of reducing graduate students should be something like tying the number that a department can accept in a year to the number of their graduates who got a full time degree related job the prior year. That combined with minimum wages for Ph.D level adjuncts closer to $6k per semester course taught would attack the problem from both ends.

The obstacles to the solution are political and the self-interests of the various parties, but there is no pragmatic reason why undergrads cannot be taught and useful academic research conducted without flooding the world with doctorates that cannot make a living related to their degree.

 

[beero1000]

It's really hard to find accurate data on the number of PhDs supervised by the average professor. Here's some data (about 200,000 total records) in Math (about 1500 PhDs per year in the US), from http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/extrema.php (Note: math PhDs, not rigorously collected, data incomplete, ancient scholars included, double counts dual advisors, etc)

About 76% of math PhDs never supervise a doctoral student. Many permanently adjunct, leave academia or take jobs at schools that do not offer a PhD. Only 14% advise more than one student (above replacement).

Median Ph.D. students advised: 0
Mean Ph.D. students advised: 1.06

I suspect the numbers are a bit different for other fields, especially lab sciences. However, the general rule seems to indicate large amounts of attrition - most PhDs don't end up teaching PhDs. That does not necessarily mean that we have suddenly started graduating too many PhDs - the mean replacement rate is still pretty close to 1.

Other data:
AMS Report on Recruitment and Hiring
AMS Report on New Doctoral Recipients

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Try again.

You are making unreasonable demands here.

No I am not. You say that the increase in the quantity of PhDs lowers the quality of PhDs and/or the requirements for PhDs. I asked for proof that that has actually happened. You don't have any.

I mean you know damn well I don't have what you're asking for and plan simply declare "You don't have a proof"

Yeah because that is what has happened. You have made an assertion for which you can not provide proof.

As for increase in number decreasing quality, would you not agree that computers today are more plentiful than they were in 1980 and that the quality of computers is much better?

Are you implying that people became million times smarter since the 1980?

A Million times smarter? No, but then again I try to not posit questions that sound like they come from a six year old describing how many jelly beans he wants in Easter Basket. But I will say that humans today know things and how to do things they did not know in 1980. Or would you disagree?

You confuse knowledge with ability to create that knowledge.

No. I have not.

Yes you have.

I sure know more than Einstein ever knew. certainly more than Newton. But I am not smarter than them.

I have not said nor will I ever say you are.

I did not say you had said that.

Can you show that PhDs today are not as knowledgeable as they were three and a half decade ago?

I don't have to. You made a claim that people nowdays are smarter than in the past confusing knowledge with intelligence and I merely pointed that out. So it is you who made a claim and you need to demonstrate the proof of that now.

What are the differences today from back then? How are PhDs today not performing on the job as well as they did in 1980? And if you can show this, can you then show that this reason is the reason or at least a major reason why PhDs in teaching are being paid so abysmally?

Increases in quanitity do not automatically mean decreases in quality. You may be think about price? Is that what you meant? Too many adjuncts drives their wage price down?

I was not talking about price. If I was I would have mentioned word "price"

Look dude, I am just trying to help you out as you seem to be lost and floundering.

But yes, lowering price (PhD wages in Academia) does decrease quality to some extent.

You still have not shown proof of you assertion that increase in quantity leads to a decrease in quality.

You still have not shown that I had not shown proof.

I have not proved a negative? Gee, no wonder you're having so much trouble with the concept of proof, you don't have the foggiest notion how proof works. This explains SO much about your posts.

You still have not demonstrated that what you ask is required here.

you have not shown anything more than assertion, which is what I said in the beginning. Until you show it to be more than that by showing sort of data to back it up, it will continue to be an assertion and not a point of fact.