A Wall Street Journal Article shines a lens on a Columbia MFA where half of the students go into ill-paid jobs mired in debt--but it isn't the whole story
This is excellently argued. One more added point is that in European social democracies the idea that the state pays to train and educate the work force (and for universities as a whole) seems rational as this makes society work in an orderly rather than chaotic fashion. In America, home of chaotic capitalism, by contrast individuals pay for their own training in order to then be exploited. A double exploitation, as you show, for those not from the well to do elite. Ultimately then this is a matter of class and reproduction of labor power. But also of the draining of resources from public education. This nightmare can be dated to some turning point in neoliberal evolution I suppose. In the 70s many New Yorkers without wealth could work their way thru grad school. All the evening classes at NYU and New School were filled with such students.
Columbia, Exhibit A in the WSJ article, is terrible in its exploitation of MA students. A university spokesperson openly states in the article that the MA programs are a cash cow for the university. The article does not address how universities use MA programs to get tuition from international students. Columbia's MA in Statistics enrolls over 100 students a year, most of them from China, and is taught by adjuncts. There is an MA called "Quantitative Methods for the Social Scientists," again mostly international students. The proliferation of MA programs also makes PhD programs more competitive and advantages those from wealthier families (or with greater debt). The University also pushed Departments to create MA programs, with the promise that the revenue from tuition would be shared with the Departments, but during the late financial crisis, they took all this money back.
This is excellently argued. One more added point is that in European social democracies the idea that the state pays to train and educate the work force (and for universities as a whole) seems rational as this makes society work in an orderly rather than chaotic fashion. In America, home of chaotic capitalism, by contrast individuals pay for their own training in order to then be exploited. A double exploitation, as you show, for those not from the well to do elite. Ultimately then this is a matter of class and reproduction of labor power. But also of the draining of resources from public education. This nightmare can be dated to some turning point in neoliberal evolution I suppose. In the 70s many New Yorkers without wealth could work their way thru grad school. All the evening classes at NYU and New School were filled with such students.
Columbia, Exhibit A in the WSJ article, is terrible in its exploitation of MA students. A university spokesperson openly states in the article that the MA programs are a cash cow for the university. The article does not address how universities use MA programs to get tuition from international students. Columbia's MA in Statistics enrolls over 100 students a year, most of them from China, and is taught by adjuncts. There is an MA called "Quantitative Methods for the Social Scientists," again mostly international students. The proliferation of MA programs also makes PhD programs more competitive and advantages those from wealthier families (or with greater debt). The University also pushed Departments to create MA programs, with the promise that the revenue from tuition would be shared with the Departments, but during the late financial crisis, they took all this money back.