Calling them "students" is not helping, the work is often part of their professors' output. Maybe should be called research apprentices/assistants/interns or just PhD candidates.
This is the issue with how this whole thing is framed.
Of course the university doesn't owe grad students anything besides an education.
But, being a grad student need not involve any teaching or professor research support. That's labor. It's customary labor that may be exchanged for education, but it is indeed an exchange of value for labor and subject to everything that entails.
Source: got a real grad degree without any of that BS just paid tuition (partially via my employers tuition reimbursement:)
You could owe them both in one of the most expensive places in the US to live. Teaching the lower division courses you won’t touch should at least afford rent, groceries, and gas.
Oh and Berk also objects to DEI, how surprising coming from an Apartheid-era relic. He’s just another conservative, tenured piece of shit who likes riling up the student body.
He's another South African who grew up in the Apartheid era, and left South Africa around the time Apartheid ended. You can taste the vile Apartheid poison in all his work.
The Stanford University endowment includes real estate and other investments valued at $36.5 billion as of August 31, 2023,[1] and is one of the four largest academic endowments in the United States.[2] The endowment consists of $29.9 billion in a merged pool of assets and $6.6 billion of real estate near the main campus. Along with Stanford's pension assets, working capital, and non-cash gifts, the endowment is managed by Stanford Management Company (SMC), a Stanford-owned investment management company.[3]
The same Stanford that charges $62k per year in tuition and is located in one of the most expensive areas in the U.S.? Maybe the grad students should commute from Wyoming in order to teach Professor Dickweed's classes for him so they can afford rent? The disconnect from reality is ridiculous.
Weird. Here I thought having to work a full time job came at the expense of education. I have coworkers who only take once course per semester, because they literally have no time for more.
Then again, our mistake was being born into the working class. We should’ve tried being born into rich families that could provide for us during school instead.
There's plenty of working class families that have and continue to put their children through college. If you select with respect to cost, it is especially not hard.
That's not to say college isn't incredibly overpriced these days, but 2 year community colleges offer a great budget pathway
I finished my Biochem PhD in 2023 and the only way I survived the 6 years of indentured servitude was by working from 2014 to mid 2017 in the pharmaceutical industry. I saved and invested every penny I could, then moved to Pittsburgh where the $23,500 pre tax stipend went a bit further. Also, graduate student in my department were banned from having any other jobs, and yes it was enforced. One of my cohort had got in serious trouble working at the museum and one had minor issues when they picked up a faculty member while driving Uber.
Several generations were sold a lie about college being a necessity to move ahead in the world. Now people are calling these guys out on it and they're all surprised Pikachu face.
I agree that there's no right to a living wage, or any job at all. What there is a right to is basic income, whether it's in the form of negative taxes, jobs programs, or other means.
I think you may be taking this wrong. The problem is that universities are severely underfunded and always have been. They simply don't have the money to pay a living wage to grad students. When forced to do so, some universities have simply dissolved student positions as a response.
The problem isn't the university or this professor. The problem is why we aren't funding these better so that they can pay a reasonable wage.
Stanford is private with an endowment over $35 billion and charges $25 grand per semester for graduate programs. I'm not interested in my tax dollars funding a private college primarily for rich assholes.
It’s an endowment, they can’t just empty that pool of money they take around 4% of the money each year that they get from investments which ends up being around 10% of their budget
They also have 12.8 square miles of campus to maintain… which requires a lot more than just the 2300 professors. They also have adjunct professors, lab managers, researcher techs, facilities, and a ton of other expenses that are required from an R1 research university.
The grad students while they don’t get a “livable wage” do get their tuition comped and get a housing stipend. Like we can always do better but undergrad students are being done much dirtier than grad students as they are going into huge amounts of debt to try and even afford tuition
Those all fall into the underpaid category too. Adjunct professor is particularly abused.
$2.5B from tuition and endowment, $2.2B in sponsors and $1.6B in donations. $6.3B a year income. 27.4k total employees. If each and every employee was paid $100k, that's $2.7B for salaries.
There are interesting expenses in there. Like $178M spent for travel and food. I wonder how many teaching assistants and adjunct professors get private jets and private chefs like the President and his executive staff and all the Deans and their staff. I had a friend 10 ago who applied for the job to be the private chef for a dean in a medium college.
You and I are the only people in this thread with actual experience at a university. The rest are just looking for places to project their anger and general malaise.
I worked at a university, did research at a university and was a student. There is obviously waste and definitely some amount of grift but the auditing requirements in place to prevent grift are arguably so strict that they cause as much or more waste as they save in grift.
You have to understand that the teaching assistants can't teach effectively unless the Dean gets his $50k/year mortgage paid for by the university along with a new car.
Tea-drinker slang for "fool". The name fits.
Is tea drinking a big enough deal to have its own slang?
Another rich kid from South Africa acting like he did it all on his own.
More like Bonathan Jerk
Calling them "students" is not helping, the work is often part of their professors' output. Maybe should be called research apprentices/assistants/interns or just PhD candidates.
This is the issue with how this whole thing is framed.
Of course the university doesn't owe grad students anything besides an education.
But, being a grad student need not involve any teaching or professor research support. That's labor. It's customary labor that may be exchanged for education, but it is indeed an exchange of value for labor and subject to everything that entails.
Source: got a real grad degree without any of that BS just paid tuition (partially via my employers tuition reimbursement:)
You could owe them both in one of the most expensive places in the US to live. Teaching the lower division courses you won’t touch should at least afford rent, groceries, and gas.
Oh and Berk also objects to DEI, how surprising coming from an Apartheid-era relic. He’s just another conservative, tenured piece of shit who likes riling up the student body.
He's another South African who grew up in the Apartheid era, and left South Africa around the time Apartheid ended. You can taste the vile Apartheid poison in all his work.
So a fascist. Not suprising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University_endowment
The same Stanford that charges $62k per year in tuition and is located in one of the most expensive areas in the U.S.? Maybe the grad students should commute from Wyoming in order to teach Professor Dickweed's classes for him so they can afford rent? The disconnect from reality is ridiculous.
Weird. Here I thought having to work a full time job came at the expense of education. I have coworkers who only take once course per semester, because they literally have no time for more.
Then again, our mistake was being born into the working class. We should’ve tried being born into rich families that could provide for us during school instead.
There's plenty of working class families that have and continue to put their children through college. If you select with respect to cost, it is especially not hard.
That's not to say college isn't incredibly overpriced these days, but 2 year community colleges offer a great budget pathway
There's a vast difference between trajectory of life of someone who has graduated 2 years CC vs Stanford
Ah, you sinned the original sin.
Born broke.
I finished my Biochem PhD in 2023 and the only way I survived the 6 years of indentured servitude was by working from 2014 to mid 2017 in the pharmaceutical industry. I saved and invested every penny I could, then moved to Pittsburgh where the $23,500 pre tax stipend went a bit further. Also, graduate student in my department were banned from having any other jobs, and yes it was enforced. One of my cohort had got in serious trouble working at the museum and one had minor issues when they picked up a faculty member while driving Uber.
Wait, PhD students still pay a tuition?
He's arguing that the tuition waiver is their income and they're choosing to spend it in tuition. It's an idiotic argument.
Let him know what you think about it: [email protected]
Several generations were sold a lie about college being a necessity to move ahead in the world. Now people are calling these guys out on it and they're all surprised Pikachu face.
Hazing is the reason I decided not to become a doctor or an academic or a frat bro. Well, that and bad grades.
I agree that there's no right to a living wage, or any job at all. What there is a right to is basic income, whether it's in the form of negative taxes, jobs programs, or other means.
Universally even.
I think you may be taking this wrong. The problem is that universities are severely underfunded and always have been. They simply don't have the money to pay a living wage to grad students. When forced to do so, some universities have simply dissolved student positions as a response.
The problem isn't the university or this professor. The problem is why we aren't funding these better so that they can pay a reasonable wage.
Stanford is private with an endowment over $35 billion and charges $25 grand per semester for graduate programs. I'm not interested in my tax dollars funding a private college primarily for rich assholes.
Billions of your tax dollars already go there to fund research. That is how universities work, public or private.
I'm aware, that doesn't mean I agree with it or support more money being siphoned from the working class to the elite.
lol elite. Most students are just surviving
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/stanford-university
Lol, please do tell me more about Stanford's lack of money.
It’s an endowment, they can’t just empty that pool of money they take around 4% of the money each year that they get from investments which ends up being around 10% of their budget
That's still 1.4B a year. They get $1.1 B in tuition a year. That's $2.5B. They have 2300 professors. At $200k salary that's only $0.4B of the $2.5B.
They also have 12.8 square miles of campus to maintain… which requires a lot more than just the 2300 professors. They also have adjunct professors, lab managers, researcher techs, facilities, and a ton of other expenses that are required from an R1 research university.
The grad students while they don’t get a “livable wage” do get their tuition comped and get a housing stipend. Like we can always do better but undergrad students are being done much dirtier than grad students as they are going into huge amounts of debt to try and even afford tuition
Those all fall into the underpaid category too. Adjunct professor is particularly abused.
$2.5B from tuition and endowment, $2.2B in sponsors and $1.6B in donations. $6.3B a year income. 27.4k total employees. If each and every employee was paid $100k, that's $2.7B for salaries.
You know you can just look at their budget right?
https://budget.stanford.edu/budget-plans
Great link. Thanks!
There are interesting expenses in there. Like $178M spent for travel and food. I wonder how many teaching assistants and adjunct professors get private jets and private chefs like the President and his executive staff and all the Deans and their staff. I had a friend 10 ago who applied for the job to be the private chef for a dean in a medium college.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Stanford_Research_Scandal
Those perks didn't end when the scandal was exposed. They only changed to take the money for perks from tuition instead of the government.
You and I are the only people in this thread with actual experience at a university. The rest are just looking for places to project their anger and general malaise.
I worked at a university, did research at a university and was a student. There is obviously waste and definitely some amount of grift but the auditing requirements in place to prevent grift are arguably so strict that they cause as much or more waste as they save in grift.
That's great, these sound like basic details that their budget should take into account when considering how many people they can employ!
You're right, we need to continue concentrating the salaries in the administration department!
You have to understand that the teaching assistants can't teach effectively unless the Dean gets his $50k/year mortgage paid for by the university along with a new car.
https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/05/25/examination-growing-number-perks-and-bonuses-college-presidents-essay
Good point!!
This statement is not based on any facts.