More Money Than Brains: Why Schools Suck, College Is Crap, and Idiots Think They're Right by Laura Penny

Author:Laura Penny
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Retail, Sociology, U.S.A.
ISBN: 9780771070488
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2010-04-19T15:00:00+00:00

There aren’t any comparable recent Canadian numbers. The last time StatsCan counted, back in 1998, there were 28,000 part-time profs and 34,000 with tenure. But Canadian universities have since persuaded the federal bean-counters that it’s too dang hard to keep track of the adjuncts who come and go.

Does any school really want to ‘fess up and let parents and students know how many of their costly classes will be conducted by greenhorn grad students and “roads scholars” or “freeway flyers,” who teach a bunch of different courses on different campuses to cobble together a meagre living? Teaching matters sooo much to deans and admincritters that they are willing to pay someone approximately one tuition fee – if they are lucky – per class per term. Some U.S. schools pay as little as $1,000 per class per term. If there are thirty students in that class, they should receive approximately $33.33 worth of expert attention apiece. Surely the business types would approve of such an efficient apportionment of teacher attention. But do you think Any University U.S.A. will include that figure in their promotional brochures and web pages?

It’s easy to see the values of the contemporary university. Just take a stroll through your friendly local campus and look at the buildings. There’s always cash for a new dorm or a new stadium, since benefactors like to slap their names on those. Mall-ish food courts are common. I’ve never set foot in a business building that wasn’t state of the art, from the floors to the chairs to the classroom tech. Conversely, I have taken and taught liberal arts classes in mouldy rooms strewn with trash in the wings of the university that nobody bothers to maintain, since nobody wants to donate a Bigwig Memorial Mop-and-Paint Job.

All the angry talk about elite institutions existing at a luxurious remove from the “real world” is risible. Does a tenured prof at Yale or U of T have a sweet ride? Sure. But they are at the tippy-tippy top of their fields, and investment bankers of like rank would laugh at the paltry sums nerds consider good money. Moreover, the really high salaries at universities go to non-academic types such as management and athletic coaches.

Most college and university instructors in North America are harried, underpaid contract or part-time workers, just like many of their students. Both groups are short on money and time, busting their humps in pursuit of a promotion that may never arrive. Ivory tower, my arse! This sounds exactly like the mercenary shit-show that the commonsensical call the “real world.”

Universities hire more contingent workers because they’re cheaper and because they can, as there are more Ph.D.’s and M.A.’s than there are real jobs, particularly in the humanities. Some boomers are finally aging out of the profession, as promised throughout the 1990s, but they aren’t going to retire as quickly as people think. Just look at the way they’ve prolonged Rolling Stones tours and their erections beyond all seemliness. Even when they do

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