This is a critical time in the history of American universities
March 4, 2015 9:29 PM Subscribe
Robert Pippin spoke at High Concept Labs for The Point Magazine's 'New Humanities' issue: Ways of Knowing
Lisa Ruddick, Inwardness - "Compounding this problem of scientism in English, where the digital humanities register as scientific (it probably shows how ignorant we are in English since it’s probably not that scientific), is the reaching for something new from the impressive, seemingly hard sciences to validate what you’re doing."
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Into Barbarism - "I can think of two parallels in film criticism to this issue of the kinds of disputes that my predecessors here have been discussing. There are whole studies of cognitive psychology in relation to film theory that have been done by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll, and frankly I’m quite bored by it."
We’re here because universities are experiencing a sense of crisis in the organization of knowledge. But it probably should be said just briefly, at the beginning, that this is also taking place within a crisis in the university system in the United States more generally. It’s been a long time building and it’s now rather critical. I mean, the indications of the crisis are well known to all of us: The figure that I heard is that in the last 25 years, there has been a 500 percent increase in tuition at private and public universities on average. There’s been massive defunding of state universities by state legislatures. When I began my career at the University of California at San Diego, 70 percent of the budget was funded by the state legislature. That’s down to under 20 percent, and students now have to pay $14,000 per year tuition if they’re in-state students, and in the twenties if they’re not. And they often leave college with debts totaling more than $50,000 or $60,000. This is the new way that universities are financed.
Lisa Ruddick, Inwardness - "Compounding this problem of scientism in English, where the digital humanities register as scientific (it probably shows how ignorant we are in English since it’s probably not that scientific), is the reaching for something new from the impressive, seemingly hard sciences to validate what you’re doing."
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Into Barbarism - "I can think of two parallels in film criticism to this issue of the kinds of disputes that my predecessors here have been discussing. There are whole studies of cognitive psychology in relation to film theory that have been done by David Bordwell and Noël Carroll, and frankly I’m quite bored by it."
We in philosophy are hemorrhaging majors, and we have to market ourselves as useful job training. Of course the higher ups are totally unsupportive, including those who are supposed to be advocating for us.
posted by persona au gratin at 11:35 PM on March 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by persona au gratin at 11:35 PM on March 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have to admit that if I were coming up with a list of what's fucked up with universities, epistemic concerns would have been fairly low.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:12 AM on March 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:12 AM on March 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Even though it's not exactly positive, I found the speech kind of comforting. I put off school for many years. I've just applied to nice schools to study in the humanities, and I've found myself questioning the utility of what I want to study. The fear at the back of my mind, always, is that I'm pursuing something that will only leave me broke and contribute nothing of substance to the world (I've even thought about changing my major to prepare myself to be an actuary, because at least I could make a lot of money). I guess it's always a relief to think that I might be thinking this way for reasons other than the inherent uselessness of musicology.
Also, it is worth mentioning that High Concept Labs is so named because they are, or used to be, across the street from an industrial company called Concept Labs. Heh heh.
posted by teponaztli at 12:53 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also, it is worth mentioning that High Concept Labs is so named because they are, or used to be, across the street from an industrial company called Concept Labs. Heh heh.
posted by teponaztli at 12:53 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
The whole thing is a fairly well-targeted and convincing set of takedowns of recent neuro- and computer-scientistic faddishness and science envy in the humanities,
I'm growing increasingly unconvinced by these laments about 'scientism' as the cause of the humanities' troubles, personally. Pippin does acknowledge that there is more to the story:
Secondly, we ought to remember that the so-called new humanities aren’t new. I mean, what’s new is the invocation of empirical science. But attacks on the autonomy of the discussion of meaning and value have been going on for forty years in the academy. The movements toward it, like semiotics, structuralism, structuralist Marxism, Althusserian Marxism, psychoanalysis, discourse theory—a variety of ways of essentially denying the phenomenon of human intentionality, another fancier word for meaning—have been going on for a long time.
So is he proposing a restoration of the kind of Matthew Arnold vision of the edifying nature of studying the great books, or something like that? Improving our gentlemen? His pious gesturing at the importance of the discussion of "meaning" and "value" might go over well in a room full of humanities professors, but that's not who needs to be persuaded.
posted by thelonius at 3:21 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm growing increasingly unconvinced by these laments about 'scientism' as the cause of the humanities' troubles, personally. Pippin does acknowledge that there is more to the story:
Secondly, we ought to remember that the so-called new humanities aren’t new. I mean, what’s new is the invocation of empirical science. But attacks on the autonomy of the discussion of meaning and value have been going on for forty years in the academy. The movements toward it, like semiotics, structuralism, structuralist Marxism, Althusserian Marxism, psychoanalysis, discourse theory—a variety of ways of essentially denying the phenomenon of human intentionality, another fancier word for meaning—have been going on for a long time.
So is he proposing a restoration of the kind of Matthew Arnold vision of the edifying nature of studying the great books, or something like that? Improving our gentlemen? His pious gesturing at the importance of the discussion of "meaning" and "value" might go over well in a room full of humanities professors, but that's not who needs to be persuaded.
posted by thelonius at 3:21 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
All this was, in part, probably sparked by Steven Pinker's piece in the New Republic in 2103: Science Is Not Your Enemy.
Previously on the blue: Reason is larger than science..
posted by huguini at 3:58 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Previously on the blue: Reason is larger than science..
posted by huguini at 3:58 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
We in philosophy are hemorrhaging majors, and we have to market ourselves as useful job training.
I majored in a similarly non-vocational subject in college, and I am now working in an exceedingly practical field. I use those liberal arts skills every day, but "job training" was not part of the reason for picking that major, nor should it have been. Writing well and critical thinking are inherently useful, for example; it's a pity that the humanities is having to market itself in this kind of way when all of the subjects have their own value and apply well to the work being done in the real world.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:15 AM on March 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
I majored in a similarly non-vocational subject in college, and I am now working in an exceedingly practical field. I use those liberal arts skills every day, but "job training" was not part of the reason for picking that major, nor should it have been. Writing well and critical thinking are inherently useful, for example; it's a pity that the humanities is having to market itself in this kind of way when all of the subjects have their own value and apply well to the work being done in the real world.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:15 AM on March 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
I majored in a similarly non-vocational subject in college, and I am now working in an exceedingly practical field. I use those liberal arts skills every day, but "job training" was not part of the reason for picking that major, nor should it have been. Writing well and critical thinking are inherently useful, for example; it's a pity that the humanities is having to market itself in this kind of way when all of the subjects have their own value and apply well to the work being done in the real world.
This. Same here.
Honestly, I think the Humanities do a much better job of training for the "real" world than many of the new career-oriented fields. I cannot emphasize how important writing and critical thinking skills are in the business world. Really, finance and high tech, for example, are just organized systems of language in a real-world application -- the Humanities do a pretty good job of preparing people for the complexities and dynamism of those fields.
The newly created career-oriented majors -- Business, say, or Communications -- are pretty much useless, as many of the classes that are designed for those majors simply provide rudimentary job-training. How to use a spreadsheet. How to use social media. How to draft a press release. Those are tasks any half-intelligent person could pick up on the job if they have -- you got it! -- writing and critical thinking skills. That, and universities are usually a few years behind the business world in technology. By the time the student graduates, much of the software or business theory she learned in her "career-oriented" studies is already obsolete.
No, if I'm hiring a technical writer, say, and I have to choose between an English major who wrote her thesis on Byron, and a Computer Science major who specialized in Technical Writing, I'm always taking the former, because I know she loves language, writing, and has higher aspirations than simply acquiring the basic skills to do a job. That kind of broad and creative thinking is always an asset.
So, yeah, the Humanities are terrible at selling themselves.
posted by touchstone033 at 5:51 AM on March 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
This. Same here.
Honestly, I think the Humanities do a much better job of training for the "real" world than many of the new career-oriented fields. I cannot emphasize how important writing and critical thinking skills are in the business world. Really, finance and high tech, for example, are just organized systems of language in a real-world application -- the Humanities do a pretty good job of preparing people for the complexities and dynamism of those fields.
The newly created career-oriented majors -- Business, say, or Communications -- are pretty much useless, as many of the classes that are designed for those majors simply provide rudimentary job-training. How to use a spreadsheet. How to use social media. How to draft a press release. Those are tasks any half-intelligent person could pick up on the job if they have -- you got it! -- writing and critical thinking skills. That, and universities are usually a few years behind the business world in technology. By the time the student graduates, much of the software or business theory she learned in her "career-oriented" studies is already obsolete.
No, if I'm hiring a technical writer, say, and I have to choose between an English major who wrote her thesis on Byron, and a Computer Science major who specialized in Technical Writing, I'm always taking the former, because I know she loves language, writing, and has higher aspirations than simply acquiring the basic skills to do a job. That kind of broad and creative thinking is always an asset.
So, yeah, the Humanities are terrible at selling themselves.
posted by touchstone033 at 5:51 AM on March 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
philosophy led to me studying logic, which has helped me enormously in work life
posted by thelonius at 5:55 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 5:55 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
It doesn't end up being the focus of his essay, but just because sloppy argument annoys me:
students now have to pay $14,000 per year tuition if they’re in-state students
The average net price for tuition at UCSD for in-state students is $137. The average net price for tuition for families earning less than $48000 is negative.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:17 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
students now have to pay $14,000 per year tuition if they’re in-state students
The average net price for tuition at UCSD for in-state students is $137. The average net price for tuition for families earning less than $48000 is negative.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:17 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
The essays are about fake "scientism" in humanities research, not really about the education system at all (even though the tuition quote is called out).
I wrote an essay in college where I looked at the "edit distance" (a computer science concept) between each of Shakespeare's quartos.
Does this contribute to the advancement of the humanities? Probably not. But I did get an A.
posted by miyabo at 6:26 AM on March 5, 2015
I wrote an essay in college where I looked at the "edit distance" (a computer science concept) between each of Shakespeare's quartos.
Does this contribute to the advancement of the humanities? Probably not. But I did get an A.
posted by miyabo at 6:26 AM on March 5, 2015
Honestly, I think the Humanities do a much better job of training for the "real" world than many of the new career-oriented fields. I cannot emphasize how important writing and critical thinking skills are in the business world. Really, finance and high tech, for example, are just organized systems of language in a real-world application -- the Humanities do a pretty good job of preparing people for the complexities and dynamism of those fields.
I am super happy I studied humanities. After college I got an entry level position in sales which led to working on the 2008 election which led to working for a NGO focused in water quality all because I was eloquent and had critical thinking skills.
But then I moved to Brazil and had to teach English, something I was very unprepared for. Luckily I knew enough about my own language to know right from wrong thanks to all the reading I had done in my life and had the interpersonal skills to make my classes work while I figured everything else out. And learning Portuguese also drew on critical thinking, making connections between English and Portuguese and linguistic systems. Basically Humanities taught me nothing specific but gave me the tools to do anything I put my mind to.
Now I am opening my own English School in São Paulo. So humanities is even good for business.
posted by Glibpaxman at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
I am super happy I studied humanities. After college I got an entry level position in sales which led to working on the 2008 election which led to working for a NGO focused in water quality all because I was eloquent and had critical thinking skills.
But then I moved to Brazil and had to teach English, something I was very unprepared for. Luckily I knew enough about my own language to know right from wrong thanks to all the reading I had done in my life and had the interpersonal skills to make my classes work while I figured everything else out. And learning Portuguese also drew on critical thinking, making connections between English and Portuguese and linguistic systems. Basically Humanities taught me nothing specific but gave me the tools to do anything I put my mind to.
Now I am opening my own English School in São Paulo. So humanities is even good for business.
posted by Glibpaxman at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
So background, I'm a professional software engineer with a CS degree from a tiny liberal arts college where I double-majored in CS and a social science, and I took a bunch of humanities classes for fun. I love the humanities. I'm a firm believer in their value. But I had to pump the breaks at:
Writing well and critical thinking are inherently useful, for example
This assumes that all, or even most, people with a humanities degree learn these things. I read a lot of people's papers in undergrad, and between the box-checkers who were just there for a credential and the obtuse philosophers who believed that the more dense their writing was the better their ideas were, the overwhelming majority of stuff I read - from graduating seniors, even! - was shit. And this was at one of the best liberal arts schools in the country. Writing and critical thinking are vital skills for pretty much any path in life, but at this point in time the humanities are doing a 100% garbage job of teaching them.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:11 AM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Writing well and critical thinking are inherently useful, for example
This assumes that all, or even most, people with a humanities degree learn these things. I read a lot of people's papers in undergrad, and between the box-checkers who were just there for a credential and the obtuse philosophers who believed that the more dense their writing was the better their ideas were, the overwhelming majority of stuff I read - from graduating seniors, even! - was shit. And this was at one of the best liberal arts schools in the country. Writing and critical thinking are vital skills for pretty much any path in life, but at this point in time the humanities are doing a 100% garbage job of teaching them.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:11 AM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Those are tasks any half-intelligent person could pick up on the job if they have -- you got it! -- writing and critical thinking skills.
And just imagine if there were on-the-job training! But companies have managed to successfully fob that off on colleges and universities (maybe they saw how well it worked for the NFL?), who, for god knows what reason, were totally happy to swallow the poison pill.
posted by kenko at 7:17 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
And just imagine if there were on-the-job training! But companies have managed to successfully fob that off on colleges and universities (maybe they saw how well it worked for the NFL?), who, for god knows what reason, were totally happy to swallow the poison pill.
posted by kenko at 7:17 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
There seems to be a weird presumption in this thread that science doesn't involve writing, logic or critical thinking.
posted by srboisvert at 7:51 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 7:51 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
The newly created career-oriented majors -- Business, say, or Communications -- are pretty much useless, as many of the classes that are designed for those majors simply provide rudimentary job-training. How to use a spreadsheet. How to use social media. How to draft a press release. Those are tasks any half-intelligent person could pick up on the job if they have -- you got it! -- writing and critical thinking skills. That, and universities are usually a few years behind the business world in technology. By the time the student graduates, much of the software or business theory she learned in her "career-oriented" studies is already obsolete.
Except that I've been job-searching lately - and employers prefer people with those degrees. I have a masters in a humanities subject, I am excellent with spreadsheets and databases, and have high level critical thinking skills.
But I don't have anything on paper that says that, and employers prefer the person just graduated with the applied degree - because they don't want to take the time to let you figure out how to write a press release.
posted by jb at 7:57 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Except that I've been job-searching lately - and employers prefer people with those degrees. I have a masters in a humanities subject, I am excellent with spreadsheets and databases, and have high level critical thinking skills.
But I don't have anything on paper that says that, and employers prefer the person just graduated with the applied degree - because they don't want to take the time to let you figure out how to write a press release.
posted by jb at 7:57 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
But I don't have anything on paper that says that, and employers prefer the person just graduated with the applied degree - because they don't want to take the time to let you figure out how to write a press release.
Yeah, it was easier back in the 90's when you could just be a 'geek' and 'know about that internet thing': I have personal knowledge of three people in my small (about 11 in my entry class) humanities MA program who left for tech because the tech field was looking for the kinds of people who would both find ansi-standard C and the writings of St. Anselm interesting. One went to edit manuals for MicroSoft, one became a bog-standard web monkey, and one programmed, then left for Europe to teach English and I lost contact with him.
But these were people who had done the math, weighed their own emotions and plans and opportunities and made the decisions to go for greener pastures. If you were the student for whom the humanities was a true passion, to whom research was a pleasure, for whom a paper assignment was a welcome time to shine and not a dreaded drudge, your future was more fraught. The market didn't look good, didn't look like it was going to get better, and if much time was spent thinking about it, looked like it would get considerably worse.
And that was the 90's.
posted by eclectist at 9:34 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, it was easier back in the 90's when you could just be a 'geek' and 'know about that internet thing': I have personal knowledge of three people in my small (about 11 in my entry class) humanities MA program who left for tech because the tech field was looking for the kinds of people who would both find ansi-standard C and the writings of St. Anselm interesting. One went to edit manuals for MicroSoft, one became a bog-standard web monkey, and one programmed, then left for Europe to teach English and I lost contact with him.
But these were people who had done the math, weighed their own emotions and plans and opportunities and made the decisions to go for greener pastures. If you were the student for whom the humanities was a true passion, to whom research was a pleasure, for whom a paper assignment was a welcome time to shine and not a dreaded drudge, your future was more fraught. The market didn't look good, didn't look like it was going to get better, and if much time was spent thinking about it, looked like it would get considerably worse.
And that was the 90's.
posted by eclectist at 9:34 AM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, it was easier back in the 90's when you could just be a 'geek' and 'know about that internet thing'
Oh God yes. People in my cohort with no particular skills or previous interest in non-slacker employment were very fortunate. Suddenly there was this huge demand for well-paying work, and no real credentialing institutions. Want to be a web designer instead of a waiter? Learn some HTML and make a little portfolio. Boom, you're a pro web designer.
posted by thelonius at 9:48 AM on March 5, 2015
Oh God yes. People in my cohort with no particular skills or previous interest in non-slacker employment were very fortunate. Suddenly there was this huge demand for well-paying work, and no real credentialing institutions. Want to be a web designer instead of a waiter? Learn some HTML and make a little portfolio. Boom, you're a pro web designer.
posted by thelonius at 9:48 AM on March 5, 2015
Scientists who don't appreciate the humanities for what they are, and try to turn them into science projects, aren't very good scientists. But I understand that Pippin is saying fiscal panic is driving such erasing of the boundaries currently. Nonetheless, at least on the science side of the aisle, this patronizing attitude toward the humanities has been going on longer than the current financial exigencies.
To put it in scientific language, all models and wrong, but some are useful. You just have to be clear about the use you intend for your model. For example, Evolution is a theory intended to understand how speciation came to be. It's useful, but it's wrong. God is a model intended not to understand how speciation came to be, but rather to make people behave and feel better (at least in some senses of "feel" and "better"). Yet many folks on both sides of the question conflate the purposes of evolution and of religion and spend their time bickering about it.
Casting all conceptualization as some form of "model" makes it quite clear that the "models" in the humanities do not have the same intent as those in science. Pippin puts it this way:
To put it in scientific language, all models and wrong, but some are useful. You just have to be clear about the use you intend for your model. For example, Evolution is a theory intended to understand how speciation came to be. It's useful, but it's wrong. God is a model intended not to understand how speciation came to be, but rather to make people behave and feel better (at least in some senses of "feel" and "better"). Yet many folks on both sides of the question conflate the purposes of evolution and of religion and spend their time bickering about it.
Casting all conceptualization as some form of "model" makes it quite clear that the "models" in the humanities do not have the same intent as those in science. Pippin puts it this way:
I’m not one of those who think they might not discover an enormous amount that is interesting about how people experience art objects neurologically and so forth. They haven’t yet, but they might. It’s just that the original premise of Humboldt’s organizational principle is that whatever they discover is a discovery in neuroscience. It’s not a discovery in the understanding of literary meaning.posted by Mental Wimp at 10:37 AM on March 5, 2015
Writing well and critical thinking are inherently useful, for example
Try telling that to David and Charles Koch. I'm sure you'll have a captive audience.
posted by blucevalo at 12:08 PM on March 5, 2015
Try telling that to David and Charles Koch. I'm sure you'll have a captive audience.
posted by blucevalo at 12:08 PM on March 5, 2015
The average net price for tuition at UCSD for in-state students is $137. The average net price for tuition for families earning less than $48000 is negative.
You're corecting him on a point he wasn't making and so far as I can tell you're wrong in your correction.
As taken from the UCSD financial aid office, in-state tuition (not fees; just tuition) at all UCs for undergrads was $12,192 and UCSD imposes a campus tuition fee of an additional $1264. Or, roughly $14,000/ year just in tuition for undergrad in-state students at a second tier UC.
I have no idea where you sourced the net price from, but if it's IPEDS data, let me suggest that you look again (IPEDS itself, if you prefer). In 2013, net price at UCSD for those making under $48,000/year was either $8861 or $10054 depending on which bracket they fell into.
posted by librarylis at 3:24 PM on March 5, 2015
You're corecting him on a point he wasn't making and so far as I can tell you're wrong in your correction.
As taken from the UCSD financial aid office, in-state tuition (not fees; just tuition) at all UCs for undergrads was $12,192 and UCSD imposes a campus tuition fee of an additional $1264. Or, roughly $14,000/ year just in tuition for undergrad in-state students at a second tier UC.
I have no idea where you sourced the net price from, but if it's IPEDS data, let me suggest that you look again (IPEDS itself, if you prefer). In 2013, net price at UCSD for those making under $48,000/year was either $8861 or $10054 depending on which bracket they fell into.
posted by librarylis at 3:24 PM on March 5, 2015
I thought the stuff about von Humbolt having a huge Kantian influence, which he expressed in his plan of organizing universities into sharply defined and separate spheres of activity, was very interesting. It's a good example of the kind of thing that critical theory people are always on about, ideology having actual clear consequences in social organization.
It makes sense. Kant just adores coming up with new 'faculties' - there's one for basically everything we can do, mentally. This begins right away in the CPR - he draws at the start a very sharp difference between sensation and judgement, I mean, it could be none more sharp. And most importantly he has the pure reason (science, logic and other austere philosophy) vs. practical reason (freedom, ethics, God etc), which is what the author talks about in the sciences vs. humanities context.
posted by thelonius at 4:01 PM on March 5, 2015
It makes sense. Kant just adores coming up with new 'faculties' - there's one for basically everything we can do, mentally. This begins right away in the CPR - he draws at the start a very sharp difference between sensation and judgement, I mean, it could be none more sharp. And most importantly he has the pure reason (science, logic and other austere philosophy) vs. practical reason (freedom, ethics, God etc), which is what the author talks about in the sciences vs. humanities context.
posted by thelonius at 4:01 PM on March 5, 2015
You're corecting him on a point he wasn't making
I've no idea why he started his essay with a digression about financing except as a "Universities sure suck these days" swipe, but he did.
I had mistakenly miscombined years before.
I have no idea where you sourced the net price from, but if it's IPEDS data, let me suggest that you look again (IPEDS itself, if you prefer). In 2013, net price at UCSD for those making under $48,000/year was either $8861 or $10054 depending on which bracket they fell into.
IPEDS net price is total cost of attendance including books, room and board, and other living expenses.
Just to pull IPEDS numbers, in 2012-2013, sticker price tuition was $13271 and living expenses were $14707 (on campus), $14281 (off campus), or $9056 (staying with family). Average net price at UCSD that year was $14329. Or, on average, total cost of attendance was $48 more than off-campus living expenses and less than on-campus living expenses. For families earning less than $48000, the TCA of $10059 implies that UCSD is charging those families a clearly negative amount for tuition.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:01 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've no idea why he started his essay with a digression about financing except as a "Universities sure suck these days" swipe, but he did.
I had mistakenly miscombined years before.
I have no idea where you sourced the net price from, but if it's IPEDS data, let me suggest that you look again (IPEDS itself, if you prefer). In 2013, net price at UCSD for those making under $48,000/year was either $8861 or $10054 depending on which bracket they fell into.
IPEDS net price is total cost of attendance including books, room and board, and other living expenses.
Just to pull IPEDS numbers, in 2012-2013, sticker price tuition was $13271 and living expenses were $14707 (on campus), $14281 (off campus), or $9056 (staying with family). Average net price at UCSD that year was $14329. Or, on average, total cost of attendance was $48 more than off-campus living expenses and less than on-campus living expenses. For families earning less than $48000, the TCA of $10059 implies that UCSD is charging those families a clearly negative amount for tuition.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:01 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've no idea why he started his essay with a digression about financing except as a "Universities sure suck these days" swipe, but he did.
I read that and the bit about student loan debt as the standard song and dance about the crisis of higher ed, liberal edition ('the state stopped paying for student education, so yeah tuition and fees went up and so did loan costs'-- the conservation edition is 'professors need to teach more, the slackers, and what about those climbing walls at the gym, wowza').
As for your numbers, thanks for the explanation. It's a bit of a sore point for me, as I've far more loan debt from two years of grad school at UCLA than four years at my fancy private undergrad. The UCs are expensive for public schools and UCSD is part of conservative San Diego, so normally the type of person making your initial comment is likely to follow it up with a joke about "illegals" getting in for free. In any case, it's a small part of the entire article.
posted by librarylis at 7:45 PM on March 8, 2015
I read that and the bit about student loan debt as the standard song and dance about the crisis of higher ed, liberal edition ('the state stopped paying for student education, so yeah tuition and fees went up and so did loan costs'-- the conservation edition is 'professors need to teach more, the slackers, and what about those climbing walls at the gym, wowza').
As for your numbers, thanks for the explanation. It's a bit of a sore point for me, as I've far more loan debt from two years of grad school at UCLA than four years at my fancy private undergrad. The UCs are expensive for public schools and UCSD is part of conservative San Diego, so normally the type of person making your initial comment is likely to follow it up with a joke about "illegals" getting in for free. In any case, it's a small part of the entire article.
posted by librarylis at 7:45 PM on March 8, 2015
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