Universities Preferring Students Who Can Pay in Full

Apropos of Daniel's post (see below) as well as this week's roundtable discussion of money-related issues in higher education, the New York Times reports that as those mysterious endowments are deflating, faculty are being furloughed, and salaries are being trimmed, college admissions staff are accepting more applicants who are "of means" (i.e., candidates who can pay for tuition, fees, and room and board outright without financial aid):

Colleges say they are not backing away from their desire to serve less affluent students; if anything, they say, taking more students who can afford to pay full price or close to it allows them to better afford those who cannot. But they say the inevitable result is that needier students will be shifted down to the less expensive and less prestigious institutions.

I wouldn't want to propose a slippery slope argument, but this strategy seems a dangerous trend to set. The language of "shift[ing] down" students who would rely on full or more financial aid seems euphemistic: we're potentially talking about de-democratizing access to higher education, resulting in lessened diversity in terms of socioeconomic class, race, etc. Furthermore, colleges that have recently committed to reducing student debt by offering more substantial aid packages and/or replacing loans with grants are betraying some defeatist attitudes already:

William D. Adams, the president of Colby College, told students in a letter that the college would continue its new policy of replacing loans with grants this year, but that he could not guarantee that future budgets would be able to afford to do so. Grinnell College in Iowa also intends to meet a promise this year that no student graduates with more than $2,000 a year in loans, but officials say it may be hard to sustain that.

“These are things you’ll have to pry from our hands,” said Seth Allen, Grinnell’s dean of admission and financial aid. “At the same time, you have to be realistic.”

Yet how eerily the term "realistic" sounds like "unfair" or "discriminatory." If this trend expands and continues, wouldn't universities be in danger of regressing, admitting only the wealthy students while denying access to higher education and the opportunity it promises for those who cannot afford it?

Seeking Financial Aid

While in the near future America's colleges are not going to be free and are increasingly becoming more expensive there are financial aid opportunities available for well qualified students. While in the initial years of the Pell Grant it allowed almost all students to go to college for very affordable prices. While colleges are expensive now, there are various external and internal financial aid opportunities that allow well qualified students with financial need to study at even the most expensive institutions of the country. The following universities have a no-loan policy for admited students.

School	No-loan financial aid for families meeting these eligibility requirements:
Amherst College	No max of income
Arizona State University	Arizona residents with family income of up to $25,000 [1]
Bowdoin College	No max of income [2]
Bridgewater State College	Offers unsubsidized or subsidized loans to any student who files the FAFSA.[3]
Brown University	Family income below $100,000 [4]
Caltech	Annual income below $60,000 [5]
Claremont McKenna College	No max of income [6]
Colby College	No max of income; all students [7]
Columbia University	All students eligible for financial aid regardless of family income[8]
Cornell University	Annual income below $75,000
Dartmouth College	Annual income below $75,000 [9]
Davidson College	No max of income
Duke University	Annual income below $40,000[10]
Emory University	Annual income below $50,000
Haverford College	First-year students with financial need. [11]
Harvard University	Annual income below $60,000
Lafayette University	Annual income below $50,000[12]
Lehigh University	Annual income below $50,000[13]
MIT	Annual income below $75,000[14]
University of Maryland, College Park	Maryland resident with 0 EFC. [15]
Michigan State University	Michigan resident with family incomes at or below the federal poverty line. [16]
Northwestern University	Family income lower than approx. $55,000. [17]
North Carolina State University	Income less than 150% of the poverty line. Requires the family to have "limited assets," regardless of state residency. [18]
University of Chicago	Students who demonstrate financial need and whose annual family income totals $75,000 or less.[19]
UNC Chapel Hill	200% of federal poverty line ($24,000 to $37,000)
University of Pennsylvania	Annual income below $100,000 [20]
Pomona College	No max of income [21]
Princeton University	No max of income
Rice University	Annual income below $80,000
Stanford University	Annual income below $45,000
Swarthmore College	Anyone with financial need [22]
Tufts University	Annual income below $40,000[23]
Vanderbilt University	No cap.[24]
Vassar College	Annual income below $60,000.[25]
University of Virginia	200% of federal poverty line ($24,000 to $37,000)
Washington and Lee University	No max of income
Washington University in St. Louis	Annual Income below $60,000[26]
Wellesley College	$60,000[27]
Wesleyan University	$40,000[28]
College of William and Mary	$40,000 (VA residents only)
Williams College	No max of income
Yale University	No max of income

*Taken From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_aid

Some of these universities are the most expensive and most prestigious universities in the country. These universities give grants (and I believe federal work-study opportunities) to allow admitted students under the specified circumstances to have no loans. In addition there are outside scholarships listed in websites like fastweb.com and questbridge.org that further award scholarship money to students. Public universities are subsidized by the state, although the percentage of state funds has dramatically decreased, and further democratize going to university. For some students that do not have the qualifications to gain admission to the colleges mentioned before then it is hard to pay for college. However, there are thousands of resources that may allow students to pay for college, however these students have to be actively looking for information. Scholarships are not just knocking at the door, the student has to find them. Students seeking aid should not limit themselves to the overworked counselor or to staying in a specific region but rather be open to possibilities. Maybe the "perfect fit" college is not affordable but there are still various other schools that provide a quality education. Maybe schools, especially underfunded schools, should provide early information (freshman year) on these scholarships so that students are motivated to work hard and find these opportunities. Today, anyone in the United States with the motivation and the academic abilities (including extracurricular activities) can gain admission to Ivy Leagues and in some cases not even have to pay. The information is out there, one just has to find it.

Working Students

Today’s economy has put a financial stress on all Americans and is starting to reverse the ideals that were instilled about American higher education. The American dream has always been that: if you have the talent and motivation to do well in life, you will do well. This dream extended to the university. Talented students who showed great promise were granted scholarships and other forms of financial aid, especially if they could not afford to go to college. Other forms of financial aid, such as government grants and student loans helped to put students through college who otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to go. But the financial crisis has forced the government and the universities to cut back on funding for students. These students are now forced to work in order to make it through. Now universities, who are trying to sell a product (education) to the students, have come up with new ways to market their product during the financial crisis. The UPS “school-to-work” program that was discussed in Bousquet’s “Students Are Already Workers” was put into place in order to provide students with jobs while they work. However, the emphasis is not placed on education, but on work. Students have to work the shifts that no one else wants (such as 3 A.M.) then attend school. This leaves the students exhausted and burnt out, which leads to more students dropping out. Despite the obstacles, a few students make it through; however, this is a small number in comparison. Should a program that is causing most of its students to drop out due to exhaustion and long working hours be allowed to continue, or is this program a necessary evil?

Transparency in the University Setting

While some universities try to have “transparent” financial report, these often are ambiguous and unclear. In the report the class analyzed in class, Trinity University reported its annual operating budget with ambiguous terms that made a considerable percentage of expenses and revenues remained vague. One of these was “auxiliary enterprises”, which was quiet out of place considering this university is a non-profit organization. I have not contacted the business office to clear up the meaning of these vague terms but I do believe these terms were made vague for a reason. What was surprising is that tuition made up a bit more than half of the income for operations. As Nelson and Watt state in page 92, there are various departments that are profitable and others that lose money. Those that lose money have to get subsidized by the university to survive. Tuition is the same for all majors, regardless if a person is majoring in philosophy or neuroscience. There are universities in other countries that have different tuition depending on the major; philosophy might be cheaper than neuroscience for example. Should American universities employ this method of setting tuition different depending on majors? After all, an economics major might not use all the expensive lab equipment that a person majoring in chemistry will use. Do you have any idea on how to make university financial reporting, especially private university statements, more transparent? I do think every student would like to see more transparency on where their high tuition money is going, and not just have terms like “auxiliary enterprises”.

How should the university be run over?

One of the most interesting topics that is covered in "Academic Keywords" by Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt is whether the universities should have an open or closed budget and the results that it can bring. I disagree with the current system that has a closed budget because I think that everyone who is part of the university should know where their investment is going or from where their income is coming. Although I am not suspicious about it, I think that it would in some way "help" the administrators to be more "honest" and fair otherwise it would cost them to lose the prestige and reputation of their business. This would make people also more confident and convinced about the instituion where they are living and earning their living. But anyway some of the administrators may claim that they are choosing a closed budget for concurrence reasons.
Another attractive topic was the investment that the pentagon is making on research at the universities. I totally disagree with this policy because it is only exploiting the students and the faculty but is also interferring with the universities' moral values. I believe that politics has to stay away from education, so that it does not become biased. The pentagon may argue that the research at university is cheaper and that the students and the faculty are serving the country, but after all these claims are definitely political goals.
One of the most taugh topics covered there is the payment of teachers. Although some of the surveys are trying to show that teachers are paid more than they deserve by stating that the universities who pay teachers less earn more, I strongly disagree with this claim and believe that the teachers should be valued more according to their contribution that they are giving to the university.
I also believe that a cooperative university would be more prolific because eveyone who is part of the university would be encouraged to do their best in front of the others.
I find the statement of the president of Phoenix to realistic and that there nothing wrong with it. He states that the students of his university are attending this college not because of knowledge or education but to help their future. Most of the students attend college thinking about their future profession and not because of adhering to moralistic values that seem somehow utopic in front of the reality that waits for them. As stating in this article students truly understand that a college degree means a safer future.
I am also supportive of the commercial university because this goal "helps" them to meet the requirements and needs of the students more. Someone may find it unfair because it includes facts such as a basketball coach paid more than the president of the university, but this is the best way to help the students who are the real " owners" of the universities.

University of Phoenix

Yesterday in class we just barely had time to touch on the idea of online universities such as the University of Phoenix and compare them to more traditional institutions such as Trinity where students actually attend classes and learn from qualified professors. However, in the short time that we discussed this topic, there was one very interesting point that Dr. Bridges mentioned, which I also remembered wondering about myself as I read the article ("Drive Thru-U." by James Traub): that the founder of the University of Phoenix, John Sperling, actually attended a liberal arts institution himself (Reed College). People tend to choose such liberal arts schools over larger state universities or other options, because they want a holistic education that provides them with a wide base of knowledge that can be used (and appreciated) in other aspects of life besides one's occupation. Sperling's university however, aims to provide "a useful and profitable service" (education) that pertains to a specific field. This seems odd considering that Sperling himself chose to attend a liberal arts institution, an indication to me that he values general education and sees the good that it can bring; that is, he chose to attend a liberal arts institution but then chose to run a type of educational business that seems to resemble liberal arts colleges less than almost any other type of educational institution. This specific case made me think that maybe the problems we face concerning higher education today (rising tuition, lowered quality of instruction at many schools, bias caused by corporate funding, etc.) are not caused by the public's own ignorance of the forces at hand but perhaps more so by the greed and deception of a very few individuals seeking to turn a profit for themselves. I presume that Sperling is aware that the education his university if offering does not compare to that offered at traditional institutions yet he chooses to market and sell the "product" anyway, because it is making him rich. Isn't it possible the same type of thing is occurring at many other schools today though? That administrators, trustees, or even professors are aware of some of the possibly detrimental effects of their decisions and actions (to students), yet still choose to carry them out because of the potential for personal gain?

The Corporate University

The new phase of discussion being adressed in class has focused on the modern university as a corporation more so than an institution of learning. We defined the corporate university as one whos ultimate goal is to make money rather than provide a quality education for students. The objective of firms across the globe is to profit from the exchange of a good or service, and in the case of the corporate university, the service they offer is the education that many people desire. The question to ask is whether or not an institution focued on making money through the education system is really dedicated to the successful education of its students (really customers). Another is if people should even use these insitutions to pursue their educational goals, realizing that whether or not they achieve them is not the concern of the university. With that in mind, it is necessary to realize the advantages that come with a coporate university. It stands to reason that with more money and an emphasis on continuing to make money, there will be more opportunities for students in the form of advantages such as technological advancements and increased access to research. With both positives and negatives associated with the coporate university, the decision which path to choose when pursuing higher education falls to the students themselves and becomes that much more difficult.

Student Complicity with Academic Corporatization: A Polemic

We have a tendency to blame corporations, administrators, and professors for allowing universities to fall prey to corporate control and/or emulation. Certainly Jennifer Washburn's book University, Inc., parts of which were assigned for today's class, gives ample evidence that plenty of faculty members at Research I and Ivy League universities have happily played into the pockets of large biotech, pharmaceutical, and other companies. As recently reported by both The New York Times and NPR, Harvard recently launched an ethics review of faculty members' suspicious associations with pharmaceutical companies, culminating in the announcement that the school would be fortifying its conflict-of-interest policies in terms of articulation as well as enforcement.

What inspires hope in this situation is not just that a six-year fight actually generated enough buzz to bring about change but also that the protesters were students. The events at Harvard were instigated by medical students attending a lecture by a professor who was promoting a brand-name drug during class; these students became leery, investigated the instructor's background, and found that he had financial ties to the company producing the "advertised" drug. By circulating petitions, promoting awareness, forming committees, and generally organizing, students were able to enact a requirement that all lecturers disclose industry ties in their classes: these students were able to accomplish something no other leading medical school has.

By contrast, too many students display indifference and/or are complicit with the corporatization of academia that has diminished the quality of the educations they are supposed to be receiving. Take the students in our own seminar, for instance. Our university bookstore is owned by not an independent seller, as it was the first couple of years I was an undergrad here, but rather Barnes & Noble. When I ordered books for the course, I specifically requested paperbacks, naively believing that the store would search for used copies of these cheaper editions. When five out of the nine students brought their books to class today, one brought the paperback while the other four brought used hardback copies, which were the editions provided by our trusty B&N on-campus bookstore. As one student said, "at least they're used," yet what may not be clear is that the bookstore will often charge only a few dollars less for a used hardcover copy than the original publisher's list price for a new hardback, which is still quite a bit more expensive than even a new paperback of the same text. So the corporate-owned bookstore is costing students more money than was planned and than is necessary.

But when asked whether they knew how much these editions cost, the students did not recall, which is not surprising given that some students at the school probably just swallow the costs without so much as batting an eye while others might complain for a day or two but then resign themselves to having no other options (e.g., local used bookstores, online used booksellers, the reserve copies in the library, or interlibrary loans). It's only those (apparently few) students who come from lower-income families or who are paying their own way through school--students who come to Trinity on scholarships, loans, and other financial aid--who may truly feel the burden of those bookstore receipts months after the books are purchased. But then here's the real killer: when asked if anyone had actually read the assigned reading for the day, no one raised a hand (well, one student admitted to having done only part of the readings because he had not read the syllabus closely enough). So not only are students buying overpriced editions of their textbooks from the corporate university bookstore but also they are not even cracking open those overpriced books except when attempting to hide from the instructor when she calls on students to discuss the readings.

Why don't students bother to read for class? Obviously one might say that their priorities are elsewhere, whether that be other classes, extracurricular activities (however one wishes to interpret that wonderfully ambiguous phrase), family obligations, social commitments, etc. I think I was a fairly strong student as an undergraduate, and even I had trouble keeping up with sometimes as much as 1,000 pages of reading per week plus assignments, papers, exams, etc. (sorry, profs!), and I would spend weekends and holidays catching up on what I hadn't been able to read on time. But in terms of our particular seminar, I fear that this excuse also suggests that a course focused on the purpose, organization, and politics of the very institution in which they live and study--and to which they pay almost $40,000 a year--may lack real interest for the overwhelming majority of the enrolled particpants. Unlike the medical students at Harvard, these first-year undergrads appear unengaged with the material because they are under the deception that they are not immediately influenced by the forces they are asked to read and (halfheartedly) debate about--they do not feel inspired enough to act, or, perhaps, even if they can observe those factors at work around them, many simply seem not to care. It is often the case that professors will be much more excited about the subjects they teach than the students who take their courses, but it is especially disheartening to those of us who are trying to organize against the crisis of academia that such self-reflexive material fails to get under the skins of others who are negatively affected by the policies and structures of the corporate university. And this apathy on the part of students is just one reason (among many) that this corporatization maintains such a stronghold on American higher education and continues to precipitate its decline.

Of course, the other reason students may not read or otherwise complete requirements for any given course is that they (excuse the pun) buy into the notion that they are merely consumers of a product or service. They pay the school tuition, room and board, and other fees (not to mention the prices of those terribly expensive books), and the faculty and administrators become mere suppliers of the purchased goods. In this model, faculty--from well-paid tenured professors to sub-minimum-wage adjuncts--are expected to inculcate knowledge and teach skills while entertaining students (i.e., keeping the customers happy by providing customer service with a smile). But what responsibilities do consumers have to this academic corporation? Should students/customers not be expected to participate in the production of their own educations? And if faculty must shoulder the entire burden of education (i.e., they must teach without the concomitant expectation of active student learning), does this mean that instructors have transformed from civil servants to corporate drudges?

Finally, in my basic (and I mean basic) understanding of economics, the consumer's responsibility is to demand a high-quality good or service that is hopefully produced in an ethical manner. The medical students at Harvard demanded such and are successfully realizing these principles, but will informed, savvy, motivated undergraduates at public state universities, regional colleges, and private liberal arts colleges follow suit? Or will the complacency and resignation that currently plague many pro-corporate administrators and faculty also continue to infect the students whom they serve?

The Humanities Trap: Grad School, Take 2

In my post on the humanities grad school trap, I included links to Benton's article on not encouraging undergraduates to go to graduate school. Benton has written a second article now discussing some of the flaws in arguments written by respondents to his original article:

"Just Don't Go, Part 2"

Benton mentions some of the criticisms he received in response to his original column:

There is one criticism about my last column that resonates with me strongly: that turning students away from graduate school is abandoning the values of the scholarly life. One letter writer lamented that my soul had died. Others — usually older, tenured faculty members — said that I had overlooked the value of learning for its own sake, underestimated the joys of the "life of the mind," and placed too much emphasis on making a living.

This kind of opposition just seems somewhat close-minded; at what point did "the life of the mind" become limited to only the academy? I know plenty of non-academics--doctors, lawyers, office workers, librarians, teachers, editors, museum curators, actors, musicians--who can also be said to live this "life of the mind." The university in no way has exclusive rights to "learning for its own sake." Furthermore, anyone who thinks that "making a living" shouldn't be a priority is either independently wealthy, dependent on others for income, naive, and/or ignorant of current events.

Benton also writes about the heady rhetoric that circulates among those of us in the system:

It is striking how often the word "love" is used by defenders of the current job system in academe; they would never use the word in their serious work. There is a double-consciousness about graduate school in the humanities. We often pretend that it is a continuation of the undergraduate, liberal-arts experience when it is really — like law school and medical school — professional training for one kind of position: a research professor at a university, and, failing that, a teacher at a liberal-arts college.

All of which comes back to the point: What good is professional training for a job that you are not likely to get, after a decade of discipline, debt, and deferred opportunity?

Alexa asked me one day in class why I continue to adjunct despite the lack of compensation. I believe I answered, "because I love teaching." This is not an untrue statement, obviously, but the notion of continuing in a career merely as a labor of love does, as Benton notes, rings somewhat of naivete. I believe I've said before on this blog that I discovered the profession of college teaching as a high school sophomore, having done a career research project for six weeks in an English class. I fell in love with the idea of being able to teach college students about literature and writing while researching a specialized topic of my choice, and being a college student and then a graduate student only deepened that passion. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to follow my heart (ambition?), as it were, for so many years--not everyone finds a career that they really love, and not everyone gets to indulge in that beloved profession, and I have somehow managed to accomplish both. But the unendingly frustrating aspect of many adjunct professors' situations is that we have found something we love to do, we're devoted to it, but our love is apparently . . . unrequited. And unfortunately, academia is not quite the romantic comedy we might hope for: it's rare that the resolution for adjuncts works out so that a more permanent relationship, one that is fulfilling and mutually respectful, emerges out of all the obstacles, misunderstandings, and anxieties. I think one of the other challenges is that once we have found this professional true love, we have to wonder whether any other career can be quite as satisfying. Yes, the analogies comparing the grad student or PhD and the university with the romantic couple abound, but perhaps the adhesive binding these concepts together most strongly is the idealism that can so easily turn into confusion, desperation, and crushing disappointment.

Benton brings up a separate dysfunction of academic humanities:

Graduate schools are not much help either. They play obfuscatory games with their placement records and rarely give students a realistic sense of what it is like being in graduate school — how it's not all about the "life of the mind" as two years gradually turns into a decade of contracting horizons and growing desperation.

This is a point that more prospective graduate students need to understand. I've actually protested against my own graduate department's obnoxious practice of misrepresenting its own job placement record. On its Web site, the department states that I have obtained a position at Trinity University, but they do not clarify that this is a temporary, adjunct job; any casual observer would more than likely assume mine was a tenure-track position. Several others on the list who are given as having been hired at institutions of varying caliber are also actually adjuncts, or else they are postdoctoral fellows or visiting professors (more coveted yet still temporary positions). A few years back, an acquaintance of mine who was hired as a tutor in the university writing center was labeled simply as being placed at Harvard. Granted, some of the people on the list did get tenure-track jobs at the listed locations, and I certainly believe that the other names on the list are more than worthy of tenure-track positions at some of the most prestigious institutions, yet to imply that all of us actually obtained said positions is simply deceptive and unethical.

Benton may be somewhat idealistic himself in believing that only those who do not plan on becoming professors should be pursuing humanities graduate degrees; it's difficult to imagine the cycle reversing itself. But at the very least, if I had been able to give myself advice from the perspective I now have, I would advocate Alexandra Lord's sage recommendations about the need for graduate students to prepare themselves for Plan B while in grad school--taking on internships, community service, non-academic jobs, etc. as a way of giving them the training and tools that will pave the way for other types of careers. As I've said several times in class, this type of planning should be going on at the undergraduate level as well: universities that encourage students to focus solely on their studies and do not facilitate meaningful extracurricular/extramural activities that will provide students with necessary real-life work experience and perhaps even mentorship are doing their students a real disservice. But until institutions of higher education step up, it will remain up to co-eds to take initiative and seek out these opportunities as a way of avoiding future limitations.

More on Adjunct Labor

I find it interesting that the amount of material on adjunct labor seems ubiquitous, yet awareness of the problem among administrators and tenure-track faculty lags--or, even worse, negligence abounds.

Let's begin with a recent video entitled The Adjuncts, posted on YouTube by CUNY adjunct Chloe Smolarski:



The American Association of University Professor's (AAUP's) publication Academe devoted its November-December 2008 issue to adjunct issues.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 2005 developed this study on full-time, non-tenure track contract faculty members, which also provides details about the decline of tenure-stream positions. It also provides recommendations for appropriate compensation of adjunct professors. This AFT study focuses on part-time adjunct faculty.

The National Education Association (NEA) also has several reports on contingent faculty.

Adjunct Faculty Organizing for Better Work Conditions

1) Justin Pope, "Analysis: Universities Overproduce PhDs": An AP article that discusses the correlation between the granting of too many doctoral degrees and the consequent overproduction of adjunct faculty.

2) Jon Marcus, "Tenuous Track Positions": The plight of adjunct professors, who may nevertheless gain some steam in coming months or years with a movement toward organizing.

Adjuncts in higher education, estimated to number some 600,000 across the US, are paid the equivalent of 64 per cent less per hour than their full-time colleagues, receive no health insurance or other benefits, may lose their appointments with little notice if enrolments shift or budgets fall, and are typically not entitled to jobless compensation because they are considered temporary. To earn a living, many teach large numbers of courses at different schools simultaneously.

3) Audrey Williams June, "New Group Aims to Be National Voice for Adjunct Faculty Members": Article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a new group called the National Coalition for Adjunct Equity (NCAE) and its aims. The comments section of the article is interesting in terms of the ongoing discussion: adjuncts, tenure-track faculty, administrators, and other voices are all expressed.

4) Steve Street, "Help Is on the Way": An article responding to the comments section of the article in item #2, with information as well on Obama's new higher education initiatives and the Coalition for Contingent Academic Labor (Cocal).

Don't let academe's apologists use the recession as an excuse for failing to reform the faculty labor system.

(Lack of) Employment for PhDs

Here are some articles on the recent economic recession and its effect on the job market. As one of the "victims" of this downturn, I can say that in past years, I was able to apply to over 50 tenure-track positions per year in my subfields (Romantic, Victorian, long nineteenth-century British literature). This year, that number dropped to fewer than 20--counting those jobs that were later cut after posting because budgets were cut.

1) Patricia Cohen, "Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times": an article in The New York Times describing how the current economic situation has slashed tenure-track university positions, and not just in the humanities fields.

The anticipated wave of retirements by faculty members who are 60-something is likely to slow as retirement savings accounts and pensions wither, administrators and professors say. That means that some students who have finished postdoctoral fellowships and who expected to leave for faculty positions are staying put for another year, which in turn closes off an option for other graduate students coming up the ladder.

What's strange is that although this article was reported recently in The New York Times, this issue of oversupply of PhDs/lack of full-time, tenure-track jobs has existed for 20 (or is it now 30?) years. This is not news. One also begins to wonder how many non-academic readers of journalism would actually care about the plight of academics.

2) Nicole Brooks, "Unemployment and the Toil of Sisyphus": A recent Ph.D. in history decides to end the masochistic track of debt and unemployment given this year's practically nonexistent academic job market.

Since the 1990s, it has been considered par for the course for history Ph.D.'s to spend several years after graduation publishing and teaching, whether as visiting assistant professors, postdocs, or adjuncts, in order to secure entry-level jobs as tenure-track faculty members. Nonetheless, despite years of emphasis on positive job growth in history, even the AHA has recently admitted that most doctoral recipients will never achieve a position with the possibility of tenure. Worse still, many of the remaining history Ph.D.'s will fail to even obtain a full-time, untenured faculty position.

Paula Foster Chambers, PhD, founder and list manager of Work For Us, a national email discussion list about post-academic careers for people with graduate education in the humanities and social sciences, sent me the following links to sources on employment statistics for those who pursue graduate work in these disciplines. In her email, Paula wrote:

Here are some online resources for you to check out and see if they might be interesting to your class. The major researcher I would like to introduce you to is Maresi Nerad, who has collaborated with several others over many years to study career outcomes of PhDs. Nerad created CIRGE, the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education, through which she has conducted a number of longitudinal studies of employment outcomes after the PhD. Though these resources focus on the value and outcomes of graduate degrees, not undergraduate degrees, I suspect they would enrich your class anyway because many of the concerns are the same. You can also cheer your students up by telling them that very few college grads end up working in the field of their major, so they can probably lighten up and major in whatever they want.

1) Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE)'s Social Science PhDs: Five+ Years Out Survey

2) Career Outcomes for English PhDs (Ten Years Later Study, includes statistics for PhDs in other fields, including the social sciences and "hard" sciences)

3) A Plethora of Other Studies of Graduate Education and Employment Statistics by CIRGE