There will be a panel on student debt at MLA sponsored by the MLA's DAOC
(Delegate Assembly Organizing Committee) at the upcoming MLA conference;
I will give you all the details later. It'd be great if those of you who
plan to attend the MLA could attend the panel b/c your collective
insights and information on this subject have already enlightened me,
and it would be wonderful to have a well-informed audience so that the
discussion afterwards can be lively and engaging, (perhaps even leading
to new ideas, imagine that). The speakers will be Marc Bousquet and
Richard Dienst.
On 11/24/12 9:19 AM, Annie McClanahan wrote:
I think the point about salaries is well-taken. I do think our health
insurance plans and our pensions (to the extent we have them) are
arguably "paid" with student debt (in the sense that those are the
only fixed costs that have increased at anywhere near the same rate as
tuition in the last 2 decades). Certainly the insanely rapid growth of
the uni administrative class--presently in a 1:1 ratio to full-time
faculty in the UC system--is being paid for with debt; ditto almost
any new construction projects (student debt typically is often used as
financing collateral for bonds on these projects, since it constitutes
unrestricted income for state schools and they can promise their own
lenders that they can raise it infinitely!). If you're interested, Bob
Meister has absolutely amazing essay that really gets into the
nitty-gritty of student debt as a form of financing the public
university in /Representations/ from a couple issues back: it's
hair-raising and radicalizing.
Annie
On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Susan E Ryan <far...@lsu.edu
<mailto:far...@lsu.edu>> wrote:
As a member of a faculty this idea that I'm paid with student debt
appalls me. However, I think it was not always that way.
Also I know that in the long term (going back to when that wasn't
the case so much) faculty salaries haven't risen in an exponential
way. I haven't had a raise in 4 years, and our raises before that
were about 2% every 2 to 3 years. However, I have witnessed the
escalation of university administration, both in the number of
administrative positions and in the rather breathtaking salaries
that I have heard
quoted to me. These are elite corporate executives. I assume this
is part of the corporatization of the university, and that that is
the real culprit. I wonder how many university
presidents, provosts, and chancellors and their associates,
assistants, and deans, have signed the pledge. Certainly, collectively
they have the real agency.
Perhaps there are other faculty that have different experiences
from mine, but I found out recently that as a tenured professor,
at an accredited, research-level public university, I make on
average the same $ as a dental hygienist. Also, the growth of
adjunct teaching has skyrocketed.
We have lost tenured salary lines to adjunct professors, in our
university's "cost cutting" efforts, efforts that seem like part
of some ruse, as the cost of education never recedes.
I'm not sure the salaries of our actual educators are responsible
for the costs that demand ever mounting student debt.
Susan Ryan
Begin forwarded message:
*From: *Deena Larsen <deenalar...@yahoo.com
<mailto:deenalar...@yahoo.com>>
*Date: *November 23, 2012 9:21:20 AM CST
*To: *"bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com
<mailto:bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com>"
<bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com
<mailto:bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com>>,
"empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
<mailto:empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>"
<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
<mailto:empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>>, soft_skinned_space
<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
<mailto:empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>>
*Subject: **Re: [-empyre-] Debt Culture--types of debt*
*Reply-To: *Deena Larsen <deenalar...@yahoo.com
<mailto:deenalar...@yahoo.com>>, soft_skinned_space
<empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
<mailto:empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>>
I agree with Brian's discourse, and it is a complicated problem:
>How can crippling debt become an issue on campus, given that the students
have yet to be affected by
it, while the faculty are actually paid with student debt? How to
break the status quo of isolation and corruption? What can we do
to transform the basis of social solidarity that Annie talks
about in her post?
Thanks to the "truth in lending" credit cards now calculate the
amount of interest paid and the amount of time if you pay the
minimum payment. The difficulty is that this does not translate
well to student loans. Putting a price on an education as a
"cost" and showing the only "benefit" as a potentially higher
salary is a lousy way of doing a cost /benefit analysis--kind of
like saying the only "benefit" worth mentioning in the Grand
Canyon is the ability to channel water (fish, beauty, etc. don't
count).
So...either you find a way to calculate non-use values, and the
risks of not having an educated populace or individual, or you
completley revamp the school system.
I wonder how students/faculty/society would react to a proposal
along the lines of:
The state provides 4 years worth of academic credit tuition for
each student. Students would still have to pay for books, living
expenses, etc. Then, in return, students' future wages are
garnished at 10 percent for their lifetime...
Some would manage to repay that "loan" a hundred fold, while
others would never repay it at all.
There are other educational-fudning methods out there.
Deena Larsen
http://www.deenalarsen.net/
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http://www.subtle.net/empyre
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