Bernie wants to cancel all of student loan debt (1.6T).

[zinfamous]

This poor lady is $200k in debt pursuing a degree in film. Dave asked her "How she plans on paying it back, and she's like I'll release my film and it willl be a HUGE hit and I'll use the money from that too pay off the loan. Some people are living in a fairy world. lol My point is NONE of these people should had gotten $200k plus unless they were going into medical.

Sure, it may not be the wisest strategy, but I'll counteract this statistically meaningless individual event with another:

Back in ~1990 whatever, Kevin Smith maxed out something like 5 or 6 credit cards to make Clerks all on his own. He basically put his future up for hock because he believed in his project and he believed in his own skill and talent. And of course now we know that he has basically won at life, in his way.
It's actually the kind of "balls and bootstraps!" myth that traditional conservatives cream their pants over; yet now all we do is see them mock the only, and very rare real life examples of people attempting to go this route. The only thing conservatives do is champion the laziness of inherited wealth and beg that they simply be fed more and more and more wealth, while mocking those coming from nothing that appreciate the utterly grim outlook of our increasingly class-based economic system, and realize that the only way to break through it these days is to put it all on the line.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

You think you posted something substantial? I just thought it was funny that that sentence appeared right in the middle of a jerk-off sermon about academic merit. I assure you that nothing else you posted was worth responding to.



That wasn't a criticism of spelling or grammar. The sentence was such a train wreck I had to read it several times to even guess what you were trying to say.



Yeah, I mean if anyone has great judgment, it's you.

But you had to respond while offering nothing.

Dismissed.

 

[TheVrolok]

"pwnd"? What are you in your 40s? 50s? How's that working for you?

He's in his early/mid 30s if I remember correctly, which makes it worse..

 

[brycejones]

He's in his early/mid 30s if I remember correctly, which makes it worse..

I wasn't going much past 15.

 

[Exterous]

Each class (regular 3 credit) = 1 hr 15 min for just two days out of the week. Many of these go outside normal working hours. How can it not be flexible enough where either you find work elsewhere to complement it or get offers to teach elsewhere? I think it's also the case many colleges will pay the same whether campus, hybrid or fully online. Nice padding for many.

No. A 3 credit hour class traditionally = 3 hours of class time which is then broken up however the room\resource\syllabus\seniority calculations work out. That could be (1) 3 hour class or (3) 1 hour classes. Your big schools (The ones hiring thousands of lecturers) are mostly 9-5 shops so little 'outside normal working hours' there*. This is especially true for big research institutions. Not only do these institutions hire even more lecturers (so faculty can spend more time on research\publishing) but classes are even more confined within 9-5 hours to allow for student research in the afternoons and evenings. As for the classes themselves, the hours change every 4 months making other employment options challenging. I'm also skeptical of the ability to to easily change teaching institutions during the week because I doubt there are that many places with numerous colleges\universities within decent commuting destination that also have job openings. (Given seniority issues when scheduling I suspect you'd get stuck with the same hours no one with higher seniority wants across institutions further limiting your flexibility. There are only so many 8am and Friday classes you can teach in a week)

*And often those that are outside of normal working hours are there because a notable lawyer, doctor, leading scientist etc is teaching a class in addition to keeping a very high paying day job elsewhere.

Payment for online classes is typically the same but your student load is usually higher. Net hours are usually less favorable for faculty for online classes due to increased student load, increased technical difficulties, increased program coordination or a combination.

As I said, prep should eventually become nonexistent (if not already) outside of utilizing given office hours after teaching a few classes of a given subject.

For your outdated teaching methodologies maybe (And perhaps a few courses that don't lend themselves as easily to the advances in education). The trend is for increased involvement and engagement with proven results but the downside is that each class is more and more unique - even between classes in the same day let alone year. Just look at immersion pedagogy for world language courses or the changes from increased focus on digital humanities (which is, admittedly, a bit nebulous across units let alone institutions).

And that's bs for a lot of classes. I've had numerous instructors mention that people weren't using office hours. And if they did? Only around midterm or final. Office hours are a lot like people raising their hand to ask questions in class, which is to say they generally don't do it.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/12/professors-examine-the-realities-of-office-hours/

Yet the reality is that not many students regularly visit offices, though more tend to show up during the weeks of midterms or final exams. So professors may spend much of that scheduled time catching up on emails, writing articles, and preparing for classes.

I'll concede its the case for professors and institutions that aren't updating their method of interacting with students. For those utilizing slack, teams or chat in canvas instead of the 'find my messy office in the myriad of buildings and corridors' their virtual office hour utilization is about 3-4x the traditional method. Some other schools like Cornell and MIT have been experimenting with an 'office hour hoteling' space but I'm not sure those attempts are far enough along to evaluate.

 

[Maxima1]

No. A 3 credit hour class traditionally = 3 hours of class time which is then broken up however the room\resource\syllabus\seniority calculations work out. That could be (1) 3 hour class or (3) 1 hour classes. Your big schools (The ones hiring thousands of lecturers) are mostly 9-5 shops so little 'outside normal working hours' there*. This is especially true for big research institutions. Not only do these institutions hire even more lecturers (so faculty can spend more time on research\publishing) but classes are even more confined within 9-5 hours to allow for student research in the afternoons and evenings.

Do you have a breakdown of what adjuncts do on the side? Because I know many who had professional work outside of the class or they had other classes they taught elsewhere. I can imagine too that those with less marketable subject degrees are the biggest whiners because they think the low-paid jobs they could potentially get are beneath them.

You must be assuming here. Here's two different colleges in two different states. Btw, I would find that ridiculous if that was the case for a 15-16 week semester system! (I'm already familiar with some stupidity such as CA cc's requiring a full extra credit of lab for equivalent science courses). If I had it my way, I would mandate a quarter system.

https://www.tnwesleyan.edu/understanding-college-classes-credit-hours/

"For the most part, classes will either meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 50 minutes each day, or meet on Tuesday and Thursday for 1 hour and 15 minutes each day. "

https://www.cuyamaca.edu/current-st.../fall/schedule-fall-2019-course-offerings.pdf

09:30AM-10:45AM MW

As for the classes themselves, the hours change every 4 months making other employment options challenging. I'm also skeptical of the ability to to easily change teaching institutions during the week because I doubt there are that many places with numerous colleges\universities within decent commuting destination that also have job openings. (Given seniority issues when scheduling I suspect you'd get stuck with the same hours no one with higher seniority wants across institutions further limiting your flexibility. There are only so many 8am and Friday classes you can teach in a week)

I can sympathize somewhat if we make a comparison with the grossly overpaid and completely unnecessary layer of administrative bureaucracy colleges generally have and the benefits that full-time faculty get which leads to colleges pushing for more adjuncts (sort of like how police departments keep fewer cops because it's cheaper paying them overtime than add a new hire). But even adjunct instructors have it good compared to many in the private sector. And many who complain about this are people who received low and middling Ph.Ds in relatively unmarketable subjects (really shocking they find themselves in a pickle... not). Why should society care so much to make them have a privileged position in society? These people want $7500-15000 per course, which is silly. Instead of trying to privilege certain jobs, interventions should broadly help workers.

*And often those that are outside of normal working hours are there because a notable lawyer, doctor, leading scientist etc is teaching a class in addition to keeping a very high paying day job elsewhere.

There's no reason why anyone with only 6-12 hrs a week can't find something else to complement it.

Payment for online classes is typically the same but your student load is usually higher. Net hours are usually less favorable for faculty for online classes due to increased student load, increased technical difficulties, increased program coordination or a combination.

From what I've seen, the load is typically barely any higher. Most online classes only have one 3-4-page paper to grade at most, which most instructors will either just assign a grade or make a brief one or two sentence statement about it. General discussion is graded so leniently it's incredibly easy to make a pass on them. Everything else is probably computed or done through Cengage, etc.. Online college instructor is one of the best jobs I'd say. Very little time or knowledge is required. Incredible per hour rate.

For your outdated teaching methodologies maybe (And perhaps a few courses that don't lend themselves as easily to the advances in education). The trend is for increased involvement and engagement with proven results but the downside is that each class is more and more unique - even between classes in the same day let alone year. Just look at immersion pedagogy for world language courses or the changes from increased focus on digital humanities (which is, admittedly, a bit nebulous across units let alone institutions).

Everything I've seen and from personal experience indicates teachers are just a small fraction of why students do well in courses. Just an FYI, there is little you can really do in regards to "involvement and engagement" with students as a group (as opposed to one-on-one) effectively. I hated how some instructors treated us like babies either by doing childish activities or by trying to make the class "fun" by going off on tangents full of humor. For example, having students come up with an example of backward or forward chaining as groups for the class time? I mean... really? It does NOT take me a whole class period to know the concept.

 

[Exterous]

Do you have a breakdown of what adjuncts do on the side? Because I know many who had professional work outside of the class or they had other classes they taught elsewhere. I can imagine too that those with less marketable subject degrees are the biggest whiners because they think the low-paid jobs they could potentially get are beneath them.

Breakdown? No but if you're working 10am-11am M-W-F then your ability to find 30+ hours a week employment elsewhere (for benefits) is extremely limited.

You must be assuming here. Here's two different colleges in two different states. Btw, I would find that ridiculous if that was the case for a 15-16 week semester system! (I'm already familiar with some stupidity such as CA cc's requiring a full extra credit of lab for equivalent science courses). If I had it my way, I would mandate a quarter system.

Assuming what? Hours spent in class per credit hour? Its a standard definition generally: The Carnegie unit. Some may round down a few minutes. Others offset classes by 15min and run the full hour while still others 'encourage' professors to end a few minutes early (which doesn't seem to work all that well and results in a culture where everyone is 5-10 min late).

Also - there is very little assuming here with any of this. The company I work for is contracted by colleges and universities all over the country for work (including some of the biggest and most well known)

I can sympathize somewhat if we make a comparison with the grossly overpaid and completely unnecessary layer of administrative bureaucracy colleges generally have

It's usually not all that unnecessary sadly. Higher ed is, perhaps, the most regulated industry in the US so bureaucracy is heaped on them. You've got the obvious FERPA data but most offer some sort of health or care clinic so HIPPA enters the mix. They take payments so thats PCI. Many give out loans so thats GLBA (intended for the financial sector but, due to language, applies to higher ed as well). Can't forget your ITAR export controlled requirements and Controlled Unclassified. Of course there are your education specific ones as well like Title IX (whose interpretation keeps shifting). And of you've got state and federal laws which can conflict. For example, as federal contractors there are certain diversity hiring requirements but several states have anti-affirmative action laws so schools have to spend a lot of extra time, effort and record keeping to toe a made up gray area between them (And there are audits). And, of course, you have to deal with varying HR laws across states and countries for your faculty, staff and students.

Let's also take software licensing. Software companies might license for faculty but not staff. Or for lecture but not research. Or education but not commercial work. Or require they be on university owned devices. Or require they be full time employees. Or only for a single address so institutions with more than one building (which is most of them) have to work around that. Or won't give device licenses for student labs. Or licenses are valid for education but not government work (which is conflicting because public universities are both). And conforming to the various acronyms in the above paragraph needs a small army of legal, procurement, IT security and researcher work to try and get a software company that works for the need to comply with state and federal regulations. But often you get software that can work with FERPA but not HIPPA or CUI but not GLBA so your admin or faculty who deal with a cross section of data types need to know or need help to know what can be used with which data, where and when.

There's no reason why anyone with only 6-12 hrs a week can't find something else to complement it.

They might find something but will it be full time and provide benefits? That is much harder. And probably doesn't pay well

From what I've seen, the load is typically barely any higher. Most online classes only have one 3-4-page paper to grade at most, which most instructors will either just assign a grade or make a brief one or two sentence statement about it. General discussion is graded so leniently it's incredibly easy to make a pass on them. Everything else is probably computed or done through Cengage, etc.. Online college instructor is one of the best jobs I'd say. Very little time or knowledge is required.

As someone who has implemented online classes this is not true. Well, not true for the institutions that seem to care about the quality of education anyway. The awareness and familiarity with platforms is not there yet so seemingly every class starts with some technical problem from a students mic, speakers, browser (or less than tech savvy instructor). Higher level universities are keenly aware of impressions that online is easier and also aware of the negative impacts to the way certain students learn so they put more time and effort into online classes to ensure they are just as hard if not moreso. And, in an ironic sort of way, there is more effort put into them to address learning style differences while traditional lecture methods are often left as is (despite having similar negative consequences to different learning styles. But thats the way it was always done so its fine...).

You've also got additional coordination for subjects that require or should have field work. Take Social Workers - they need field work to get their degree. So instead of one person working in a confined geographical areas with contacts they have known for a long time for placement - they could have students anywhere in the US so thats additional time spent finding placement with organizations you have had no previous contact with. Sometimes thats on the instructor for the class. Sometimes thats an expanded admin group. But usually a mix

Everything I've seen and from personal experience indicates teachers are just a small fraction of why students do well in courses. Just an FYI, there is little you can really do in regards to "involvement and engagement" with students as a group (as opposed to one-on-one) effectively.

That is not even remotely close to correct. There is a reason why student:teacher ratio is a large indicator of success. And I gave you two areas that serve as examples that your second statement is likewise false.