Adjunct professor with PhD relies on food stamps

The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps

Cryptogon,

17 May, 2012

Via: The Chronicle of Higher Education:

“I am not a welfare queen,” says Melissa Bruninga-Matteau.

That’s how she feels compelled to start a conversation about how she, a white woman with a Ph.D. in medieval history and an adjunct professor, came to rely on food stamps and Medicaid. Ms. Bruninga-Matteau, a 43-year-old single mother who teaches two humanities courses at Yavapai College, in Prescott, Ariz., says the stereotype of the people receiving such aid does not reflect reality. Recipients include growing numbers of people like her, the highly educated, whose advanced degrees have not insulated them from financial hardship.

“I find it horrifying that someone who stands in front of college classes and teaches is on welfare,” she says.

Ms. Bruninga-Matteau grew up in an upper-middle class family in Montana that valued hard work and saw educational achievement as the pathway to a successful career and a prosperous life. She entered graduate school at the University of California at Irvine in 2002, idealistic about landing a tenure-track job in her field. She never imagined that she’d end up trying to eke out a living, teaching college for poverty wages, with no benefits or job security.

…

A record number of people are depending on federally financed food assistance. Food-stamp use increased from an average monthly caseload of 17 million in 2000 to 44 million people in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Web site. Last year, one in six people—almost 50 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population—received food stamps.

Ms. Bruninga-Matteau is part of an often overlooked, and growing, subgroup of Ph.D. recipients, adjunct professors, and other Americans with advanced degrees who have had to apply for food stamps or some other form of government aid since late 2007.

Some are struggling to pay back student loans and cover basic living expenses as they submit scores of applications for a limited pool of full-time academic positions. Others are trying to raise families or pay for their children’s college expenses on the low and fluctuating pay they receive as professors off the tenure track, a group that now makes up 70 percent of faculties. Many bounce on and off unemployment or welfare during semester breaks. And some adjuncts have found themselves trying to make ends meet by waiting tables or bagging groceries alongside their students.

Research Credit: ottilie

First Time Ever - Majority of Unemployed Have Some College Education

Mish's Global Economic Analysis,

20 May, 2012

Those who think the answer to the unemployment problem is more education might be surprised to learn the Majority of Unemployed Attended College.

 For the first time in history, the number of jobless workers age 25 and up who have attended some college now exceeds the ranks of those who settled for a high school diploma or less.

Out of 9 million unemployed in April, 4.7 million had gone to college or graduated and 4.3 million had not, seasonally adjusted Labor Department data show.




In 2011, 57% of those 25 and up had attended some college vs. 43% in 1992. Those without a high school diploma fell from 21% to 12% over that span.

But along with the increasing prevalence of college attendance has come a growing number of dropouts, who have left school burdened by student loan debt but without much to kick-start their careers.

Among everyone up to age 24 who has left college or earned a two-year degree — including those not actively searching — the full-time employment-to-population ratio has plummeted from 69% in 2000 to 62% in 2003 to 54%.

This has occurred even as student lending and enrollment at community colleges has soared, elevating the student loan crisis to the center of political debate and a rallying cry for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Those who graduated with a four-year degree fared better employment-wise but many of those still struggle with student loans. Many other end up underemployed in retail sector jobs as opposed to the curriculum they studied. 

Student loans are a trillion dollar problem, and growing every quarter. President Obama wants more student loans, but all that does is make many graduates debt slaves for the rest of their lives.

The cost of education is preposterous and the solutions are easy to describe.

Five Solutions

1. Kill federally funded student loan program entirely. Student loans do nothing but drive up the cost of education. Anyone can get a student loan because the loans are guaranteed and cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. The beneficiaries of this horrendous setup are teachers and administrators, not the kids receiving loans.
2. Kill state aid to colleges as well
3. Increase competition by accrediting more online universities, even foreign universities. This will drive down costs immensely.
4. Public unions are a huge part of the reason for driving up teacher salaries, so collective bargaining (collective coercion actually), must end.
5. High school counselors and parents must educate kids that there simply are no realistic chances for those graduating with degrees in political science, history, English, art, and literally dozens of other useless or nearly-useless majors.

The deflationary overhang of student debt is enormous. Those in debt will postpone buying homes, getting married, starting families, and spending money in general.

The only solution is to ensure kids to not get into massive debt in the first place. The way to achieve that is to drive down the cost of education.

Sadly the Obama administration (like many before it and many at the state level as well) has done nothing but throw money at the problem, rewarding unions and administrators while making debt slaves of kids as education costs spiral out of control.