

A successful academic faces lifelong debt - Arun2009
http://chronicle.com/article/At-What-Cost-/49253/

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sschronk
I'm a college professor myself. It is a thankless job. You spend more than 20
years in school, washing dishes, working at a dead end job waiting for that
moment when you finally get to teach.

My teaching job pays about $30.00/Hr. However I only get to work about 25
hours a week or so. It's not much money to live on.

Also realize the pressures of college teaching:

Society needs you to teach skills to the students that they will need to
excel. The students have been given a free ride all the way though High
School.

How do you teach C programming to students that cannot do any algebra and have
no understanding of logic?

If you make the class hard enough for them to excel in the global marketplace,
all of the students drop out.

It you make it easy enough for everyone to pass, you have scarcely covered the
first one or two chapters of the book.

~~~
mixmax
I think this is a huge problem for America.

It's a political problem because a working democracy requires smart people
that are able to understand complex issues and cast their vote accordingly. As
an outsider it's probably easier to see, but American politics has turned into
a farce where political issues matter much less than appearances on the right
talkshows and hitting the lowest common denominator. The press has to play
along with this, if they don't nobody will read their newspapers or see their
newscasts. Jon Stewart, a comedian, is often seen as one of the best political
reporters in the country.

It's an economic problem because in the future (and now) we have to be pretty
darn smart to compete in the international arena, and India, China, etc. are
basically eating Americas lunch.

Education is one of the best and most important investments a country can
make, and to be frank I think it's despicable that a college professor doesn't
make more than you do.

~~~
catzaa
> Jon Stewart, a comedian, is often seen as one of the best political
> reporters in the country.

This is part of the problem. Instead of people reading in depth newspapers
they want to be entertained. They then switch to comedy shows which take sound
bites out of context for the laught of the minute and call it politics.

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patio11
Maybe being an assistant professor of Native American studies is a lifestyle
choice to be indulged in by people who are either married to or descended from
people who did commercially valuable work? The engineering department has
spots available for us kids who have to work for a living.

~~~
anigbrowl
How dare you. This person _did_ work to get where she is - did you miss all
the stuff about working as a waitress and a cleaner? Obviously, you don't
consider Native American studies valuable because it's a field with limited
commercial application. And so you equate this perceived lack of value with a
lack of willingness on her part to do any work, a faulty syllogism if ever
I've seen one.

I understand that you believe her field of study to be an unwise economic
choice, such that the cost of acquiring her expertise exceeds the commercial
potential. To me the problem is that even though students are paying more than
ever for school, the perceived value of educators continues to fall. a story
like 'girl starts out poor, gets PhD and job at top university' ought to be an
inspiration, but now apparently we have to tack on '...stays poor because she
picked some frou-frou field of study I don't approve of'.

MBA culture has fucked this country up really badly.

~~~
tptacek
Her field of study _is_ an unwise economic choice. That part of the comment
you're replying to isn't an opinion.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'd have to see the college accounts before I'd concede that. If it is so
lacking in value, I wonder how come it was so expensive for her to obtain her
PhD?

~~~
scott_s
Because, as a liberal arts student, she probably didn't have much in the way
of assistanceships or scholarships. Most science and engineering students are
supported through teaching assistanceships, research assistanceships or
fellowships from outside her school. Those pay both tuition and a modest
salary.

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ShabbyDoo
If she is current on other financial obligations, should't she be able to
finance that $30K at much less than 10%? So, the interest portion would be
$3K/year. Is that a significant portion of a Dartmouth Assistant Professor's
income?

I live in the MidWest, and cleaning "ladies" want $20-$25/hour under-the-
table. Perhaps she should take on such work on Saturdays to reduce her debt
load.

[As an aside, I can't understand how bad America can be if one can make this
much cleaning houses. Some of these people aren't even all that good at it!]

~~~
hegemonicon
That's what I'd like to know - how LITTLE does an assistant professor make
that 60,000 dollars of debt will take a lifetime to pay off, even in the
absence of a mortgage (and presumably a car) payment?

~~~
weaksauce
according to the chronicle the average assistant professor salary is ~$80k. I
doubt that a native american studies assistant professor will get that much
but I have been wrong before.

[http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/index.php?action=result&...](http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/index.php?action=result&search=dartmouth&state=&year=2009&category=&withRanks=1)

~~~
scott_s
That averages the science and engineering professors with the liberal arts
professors. At my school, I know the starting salary for a CS professor is
going to be around $85k. But looking at the History department, I see some
assistant professors as low as $52k.

See:
[http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries/salary?nam...](http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries/salary?name=&dept=history&school=vt&year=2009)

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jrockway
The comments on the site are ... pleasant. I don't think I've ever seen a blog
post where the author admits to having some personal flaw where the first 10
comments aren't "HAH UR DUM". Looks like the Chronicle attracts slightly more
intelligent readers than the average blog.

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ganley
Many people have worked off far larger debts on far smaller salaries, many of
them working far more difficult jobs than being a college professor. Not to
mention those to whom these kinds of educational opportunities were never even
a possibility. A little perspective is in order.

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wglb
While I empathize with the difficulties she surmounted, I think it not good to
be ashamed of where you came from. To the contrary, attaining the recognition
that she did starting with the humble beginnings should be something to feel
proud of.

