Ever since I saw Jimmy Stewart in The Rare Breed as a kid, I've always wanted to be described in those same words. Now, if Melanie Benson is right about the current state of the professoriate, I may have finally achieved my goal: I'm a midcareer associate professor who makes a decent living, owns a home, and has never had any student-loan debt.
Benson, an assistant professor of Native American studies at Dartmouth College, published an essay in The Chronicle in November ("At What Cost?") lamenting the fact that her professional accomplishments have not led to commensurate financial success. Even with an Ivy League salary, she finds the cost of living in her part of the country oppressive. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to afford a home. The monthly payments on the debt she accumulated as a student are bleeding her dry.
I sympathize with Benson, partly because she reminds me of friends of mine who borrowed heavily to finance careers in fields that are not particularly high-paying. But I'd like to point out—and I don't mean this unkindly—that her predicament is largely of her own creation, the result of choices she made.
I'm not saying they were bad choices or that she was wrong to make them. That's not for me to judge. I'm just stating the obvious: They were choices, and she made them. And choices have consequences, both positive and negative. On the plus side, Benson has an enviable position at one of the world's great colleges, a result of having attended all the right institutions and done extraordinarily well. On the down side, the cost of all that prestige has been a crippling student-loan debt that will likely weigh on her for years.
To those who read Benson's essay and wondered if a career in academe was really worth the cost, I would suggest that there is another way to go about it. I'm not saying it's a better way, just different. And I can vouch for it because it's the route to the professoriate that I took.
I began my career on a partial academic and athletic scholarship—"partial" meaning that it covered less than half of my expenses—at a small but prestigious liberal-arts college. My parents couldn't really afford to help me out much, but that first year I was able to make up the difference with some cash I had saved. It seemed like a great situation: I was at a good college, receiving a "quality education," playing a sport I loved.
During my second semester, though, reality began to intrude on my idyllic fantasy. After a season of competing against college-level athletes, I realized I didn't have much future in that arena (pardon the bad pun). It also became clear that, in order to return for the next three or four years, I was going to have to borrow money. A lot of money.
It didn't seem worth it.
So I transferred to a nearby midsize state university, where I could afford the tuition and living expenses through a combination of financial aid and part-time jobs. Neither the institution nor the English department at the university was highly regarded (the campus itself was actually a notorious "party school"), but I studied hard, got to know my professors, and learned everything I could from them. When it came time to apply for graduate school, I had high grades, solid GRE scores, and stellar recommendations.
On the advice of my major adviser, I applied to five graduate programs: three top-tier programs and two fallback ones. I was accepted at all five. But none of the top-tier departments offered me any financial assistance, while both of the fallback ones did. Clearly, I had another decision to make.
I say that now but, looking back, I don't think I ever seriously considered borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to get a graduate degree in English, even from a top-tier university. It just didn't seem to make much sense. If I'd been going to law school (which I briefly considered), I might have done that. At least as a lawyer, I could reasonably expect to make enough money to pay off them loans without having to live on oatmeal and ramen noodles. But as an English teacher? No way. I would barely be able to afford a used copy of 101 Ways to Make Ramen Taste Like Something Else.
So off I went to Fallback U. It awarded me a fellowship and, later, an graduate assistantship that paid all my tuition and provided a small stipend to boot.
Once there, I learned a couple of interesting things. One was that my undergraduate "party school" had actually prepared me pretty well for graduate study. I was at least as well prepared as any of my classmates, including a few who came from top-tier undergraduate institutions. I also learned that Fallback U. had a pretty good graduate program in its own right. I enjoyed the professors, the environment, and my fellow students. Best of all, although I was certainly poor at that time, I wasn't overly burdened by debt. I had made the right choice.
As my studies continued, however, another choice began to loom. I was close to finishing the Ph.D. course work when my wife and I discovered she was pregnant. I could stay in school another three or four years, finish the Ph.D., and borrow money to live on, or I could get a job. I elected to get a job.
Of course the only teaching job I could get in my field without a Ph.D. wasn't exactly at Dartmouth. It was at a community college. And even back then, in the mid-1980s, I was fortunate to get it. (I was also offered a job writing reports for a government agency that actually paid better than the teaching gig. I passed.)
That was 23 years ago. As I look back, I can honestly find little to regret, even though my choices, like Benson's, have let to some negative consequences—or at least to what some people might regard as negative.
For one thing, I've been "stuck" in community colleges my entire career. That has meant heavy teaching loads, comparatively low pay (compared to Dartmouth, at least), and virtually no professional prestige within the higher-education community. In fact, I bet some of you reading this are saying to yourselves, "Well, he's not a real professor." That's why many academics would rather sell their souls than teach at a community college, and quite a few probably have.
My decision to leave graduate school without finishing the Ph.D. isn't something I would necessarily recommend to anyone else—although, as I've written before, if what you want to do is teach at a community college, you don't really need a doctorate. Still, I've been limited somewhat by that decision, in that I'll probably never be able to hold a permanent high-level administrative post (even though I served as interim academic dean for a year) or teach at a four-year college. Fortunately, I don't really care to do either of those things.
Also on the bright side is the fact that I get to do what I love every day: interact with students, teach writing, and engage in stimulating conversations with my colleagues. Those are the things I envisioned myself doing when I set out to become a college professor nearly 30 years ago. Moreover, my job offers great benefits and a decent salary that, if not up to Ivy League standards, at least allows me to own a nice home in a pleasant suburb with good schools, parks, and libraries—a circumstance that is also due, in large part, to the region of the country where I've chosen to live (hint: not the Northeast or the West Coast).
So there is a less-expensive path to the professoriate, yet, given the state of the job market in the humanities, I wouldn't encourage students to follow even the cheaper route at this time. The reality is that many of you reading this are unable to find any kind of full-time teaching job in academe. Others, just as capable and at least as well educated as I, teach part time at two or three different campuses, trying to cobble together a meager living. Believe me, I know how blessed I am. I have a son in college now, and I advised him not to pursue a faculty career in higher education, despite the satisfaction that it has brought me.
But if you know those truths and you still want to pursue a faculty career in academe, all I'm saying is, you don't have to mortgage your future to do so. You can if you want, and it may work out for you, as it has (to some extent) for Melanie Benson. But if the cost of a professorship seems too high, just remember: You can probably get it at a discount.
Comments
1. roboprof - January 20, 2010 at 08:53 am
I appreciate your story, as it tells about a career path that R1 grad programs usually leave out of the narrative of professional life.
However, I'd have to say that it reads like a pie-in-the-sky dream for someone like me, struggling to find any sort of permanent (or even multi-year) job with an R1 degree. If I could have found work at a community college on a permanent basis, I would have. All I found were temporary positions for one or two classes.
I'm getting into a situation where I can't afford to continue an academic career. And I don't have loans! My husband and I work at academic jobs in two different states, and maintaining two households on meager salaries with occasional travel has left us, comparatively, poorer than we were on our grad school stipends. I figure we could live like kings (comparatively) if I taught high school in the town where his tenure track job is located.
I feel like I've done everything "right"--down to not taking many loans for grad or undergrad. But I still end up paying them--as my husband borrowed more money than I'd care to say for an expensive undergrad.
There's no safe way to do a PhD these days, even if you don't borrow. Just don't go to grad school, I think, is the only message we should put out there.
However, for anyone reading this column it's probably too late for that, and maybe even too late to reduce the amount of dependence on loans.
2. ralphmelnick - January 20, 2010 at 09:16 am
I'm sure it's not a function of the schools he attended, but I hope that Jenkins is more careful in reading his students' work than his own. I counted a minimum of three typos, inexcusable in a published piece by a teacher of writing.
As for the problem of unemployment among PhDs, it is in part a moral issue of overpaid and underworking fulltime faculty (a significant cause of the overpricing of later education, in addition to the syndromes of edific envy and administrative bloat) who depend upon graduate students enrolling in their programs in order to keep their own cushy "jobs" while knowing that far too many of their students have little to no chance of ever getting the jobs that they are falsely promised by those offering the programs and accepting students into them.
3. roro1618 - January 20, 2010 at 09:46 am
I thought that the article was presented well from the economists' rational model perspective, up until he chose to drop out of school and never finish the PhD. Clearly, the PhD was not an important goal at all because many people have changes in their life circumstances that necessitate getting a job, but if he had been serious about getting the PhD, he would have done it (eventually). By choosing not to earn the PhD, he chose to limit his academic career options.
4. roro1618 - January 20, 2010 at 09:49 am
Also, the comments about not going to graduate school are very discipline-related. I encourage anyone who is serious and has the temperament to earn a PhD in a business discipline, particularly accounting or finance.
5. hoffpeter - January 20, 2010 at 10:29 am
I for one am long tired of articles that use the phrase "worth it" along with the word "degree," and then start discussing money. No degree on earth is worth the money (or the time) if you don't find something else of greater worth in it.
6. madamesmartypants - January 20, 2010 at 11:20 am
I really enjoyed reading roboprof's comment (#1)--nice counterbalance to the article. I especially agree with the point about high school teaching--university pay for adjuncts has, amazingly, failed even to keep up with increases in K-12 teachers' pay, and when you consider the fact that you don't need to take on additional debt and can start earning a decent salary much sooner than you would if you went on to get a PhD, high school teaching turns out to be a pretty good job. I'd add that even Mr. Jenkins admits that he probably couldn't get as far as he has in the current academic climate.
7. bevaconme - January 20, 2010 at 11:38 am
yeah, well, then there are those of us who never found a position, enviable or otherwise.
8. mothergrogan - January 20, 2010 at 03:01 pm
In this case I think the tuition bill is sending what economists would call a very accurate price signal. I tell my own students in anthropology not to even consider a Ph.D. unless they get a free ride at a good university, unless they are planning on a non-academic track. These days, unlike in the 1980s when I was in graduate school, universities will fund those they really want (we, and many other departments around the country, fully fund all admitted Ph.D. students). So accepting a department that doesn't fund you is a losing proposition from more than a financial perspective. You will always be seen as a second-tier student. If the schools that offer money have a good track record of placing their graduates, then fine. The social cachet of one's Ph.D. institution is not that important. If they do not, then I would reconsider the whole Ph.D. plan.
9. viscommprof - January 20, 2010 at 03:27 pm
There is at least a touch of cognitive dissonance in Jenkins' column, a little "oh, who needs a PhD and up-east cachet, anyway?"
The chip-on-the shoulder subtext undercuts some very strong points. But only a little. Indeed, academics and potential academics need to make choices, and they need to make them with eyes and hearts and brains open wide.
Jenkins' community-college defensiveness and Benson's Ivy-League lament represent two poles of academic angst. Most of us are in the middle.
I felt the tug of red brick and ivy in my own career, but followed the path of least economic resistance. I was accepted at top-tier programs in my field on both coasts but I accepted an assitantship at a mid-tier school in the midwest. While I have no regrets and I know I did the right thing, I do have a certain wistfulness. At my mid-tier midwestern state university, I received a great deal of personal and professional support. I got a tenure-track job at another state university, and I was eventually tenured. I have a lot of support, a nice house, a happy marriage and a child and little debt.
But the orbit of my career has also taken me away from my native New England. I am a cultural fish out of water in the south. I am very unbcomfortable with the dominance of Bible Belt intolerance that surrounds me. On the other hand, I have had professional, personal and financial opportunities in the midwest and south that I would have never had back east.
And I make a difference by confronting intolerant attitudes. Back home, I'd be just another bearded guy in a tweed jacket.
On balance, I do not regret my choices. But I wonder if ..... and I "wonder if" often.
I guess that's human nature.
Anyway, as I tell my friends, if your problems are existential ones, you're not doing badly.
I thank both Jenkins and Benson for sharing their worlds. At the very least, by living vicariously through them we can make better sense of our own choices.
10. civilwarrior - January 20, 2010 at 08:07 pm
This is an interesting perspective with a huge caveat; Jenkins and Benson have the "same" job in name only. A professor at an R-1 has one job, a community college profesor another. Benson understood what she needed to do for that job, it was not the financially sane choices Jenkins made. Also, today is NOT the mid 1980's. The world he descibes, like the antebellum South, is "Gone with the Wind."
11. 11180655 - January 21, 2010 at 11:28 am
It is intersting to note that based on the Department of Education's formula under regulatory consideration right now, a program isn't worth investing in if the annual debt payments to pay for the program are more than 8% of the 25th percentile wage for the career the degree prepares you for.
This would 'currently' be applicable only for programs at a privately capitalized institution. But isn't the Department of Education saying that pretty much any private education is not a good value? That isn't right.
12. tolerantly - January 21, 2010 at 11:55 am
No, it sounds reasonable to me, 11180655. It's why I hope my daughter will stay far away from any private college that doesn't pay her way. I certainly have no intention of sending her to my alma mater, where COA now runs over $200K for a 4-year degree. That's not a good value, particularly when she can get most of the benefit for less than half at the local public R1.
Civilwarrior, I rather think that as the budgets shrink, most R1 professors will be doing community-college work. 5/5 loads, maybe not, but I think that 3/3 and even 3/4 will get more common, with large advising loads, and research and teaching separated further.
13. observer001 - January 21, 2010 at 04:25 pm
'tolerantly': that indeed might happen, but only at failing R1s without a sizeable endowment or support from their state legislatures. Those schools who force what productive faculty they have to slow down or abandon their research to teach more sections would no doubt be kicked out of the AAU, if there at all, or even lose the R1 designation.
Some say this might not be a bad thing since there are many universities that really bear no resemblance to a R1 except in marketing literature. These are also the ones responsible for churning out much the present overabundance of unemployable PhDs.
But if such a loss of R1's occured, it would negatively impact the (mostly plains and southeastern) states where access to the big 'state-U' is the closest thing that many will ever have to a research institution. That bodes ill for the recovery of those regions from the recession and and possiblity that that they can stall the braindrain that is plaguing rural America. I would hope that such states can see the wisdome in supporting community colleges and masters I U's to take over the undergraduate teaching and leave the public R1s with perhaps a smaller instate student body, but intact.
14. rneedles - January 21, 2010 at 05:43 pm
Quite an interesting article from both perspectives. Being an adjunct business professor teaching online and on ground classes for the past six years has been the most worst career move for me in aspect to advancement and wages. Presently, I am a Ph.D candidate writing my dissertation. I have taken the last two semesters off to reflect on what this advanced degree will accomplish for my career. As of right now, nothing. I quit a job making $60,000 ten years (Physical labor) ago to pursue a MBA and Ph.D in Business. Well, it has been the biggest financial disaster of my life. It is atrocious and appalling what you are paid to teach as an adjunct.
How can you make more money working in a factory which requires a GED, than teaching in higher eduction which requires an advanced degree and about 7-10 years of your life invested in your education? The higher education business model purports hiring adjuncts to fill tenured postions. Most of the hiring practices at the Universities are predicated on your life experience, current carerer and education level. You are viewed as a scholary practionier and are teaching for the "supplemental income" or because of the admiration you have to the teaching profession. The current higher acadmeic job market is stagnate because there is a plethora of underemployed individuals with MBA's looking for gainfull employment. Usually, you can find an opportunity to teach a class or two at the local College instituition.
Currently, this is not a profession that looks to have substantial job growth for the next five years. I know what my plan is; go back to school for a medical degree (getting sick is a given) or work in the trades (welder, boilermaker, or machinist) for a union company. Remember a mind is a terible thing to waste, especially in a career without hope.
15. fortysomethingprof - January 22, 2010 at 12:08 am
Wasn't there an article, maybe a year ago, in the Chronicle entitled "Just Don't Go" referring to gradaute school in the humanities?
The big unanswered question left hanging in Jenkins's essay is what kind of job he'd have now if he had finished his PhD at Fallback U. Could well have been the same job.
Professors or would-be professors who complain about the availability of positions, the salaries they earn when they get there, the cost of a marketable education in their fields ... why didn't they look into that [before] paying for 8-10 years of schooling?
Student: "I am going to major in English and become a college professor."
High School Guidance Counselor: "Good idea, but which branch of Engineering?"
16. fruupp - January 22, 2010 at 01:15 pm
"The big unanswered question left hanging in Jenkins's essay is what kind of job he'd have now if he had finished his PhD at Fallback U. Could well have been the same job."
Very likely. At the community college where I teach he'd need a Ph.D. to get hired, no ifs, ands, or buts. This ain't the 80s.
17. drsam - January 23, 2010 at 02:11 pm
I went on to get my Ph.D. for professional reasons and not necessarily because I wanted to shine in writing journal articles that very few read. If I were to depend on what I make teaching at a local (former community) college which has about 770,000 students and 2/3 faculty are adjunct, I would be begging as a homeless person. I am fortunate that I also have income from a good counseling practice that took years to develop. I have tried to become a full professor. Though I get to the last interviews, I always see some other soul grab the position. I have fulltime Ph.D. colleagues who have taught for years as adjuncts and lived on their limited spousal work income. Already into their 40's and 50's they probably can only see a limited retirement.
I told my Chairperson that we adjuncts are at the bottom of the feeding chain. She denied it, sharing that we are the backbone of the school. I reluctantly agreed because it comes at a price... hunger, disappointment, and feeling like a little cog in a machine. I enjoy teaching despite these sad outcomes. For many, I see no solution other than to start taking medication or totally changing careers.
Samuel Lopez De Victoria
http://www.DrSam.tv
18. californiabruce - January 23, 2010 at 08:11 pm
The misery is certainly out there. It's a wonder that ANYONE teaches in higher education in this country.
19. tom_washingtondc - January 23, 2010 at 08:35 pm
You stood at the punch bowl and drank way too much academic koolaid. The promises of studying hard with genuine dedication and getting a decent high ed job, never came true. The American Dream is dead on arrival. They pulled a fast one on you. If you are sour grapes about it, then choose a different career and remember this as an important learning lesson. Adjunct pay and working conditions won't change because the world is the way it is and tomorrow will be just another damn day.
What about teaching abroad?
20. mjelly33 - January 24, 2010 at 09:27 am
Don't forget the sharks in the pool (several of them here), circling, waiting to vent their own frustrations on you as soon as there's a sign of real flesh and blood beneath the veneer of so-called academic professionalism. Thank you for the article and for the civil comments posted here. The rest of you can go bite yourselves.
21. gengidashiell - January 27, 2010 at 10:00 am
I have to say the comments are way more interesting than the article (not that the article was uninteresting). This is all a wonderment to me because I'm in a strange position in life: I'm 35, I finished my Master's last year, I've been adjuncting for nearly two years, and I am about to (next year) quit my job, move cross country, and start a PhD program.
I have to say the Chronicle forums turned me off about six months ago because it seemed like a bunch of high nosed academics who had been teaching since fire was found talking down to anyone who was interested in getting a PhD. It's understandable now; when you finish something that takes a lot of time, effort, and tears, and you encounter a minimal (or in fields like business and the humanities, nonexistent) job market, you're bound to get crabby. I gave a lot of thought to doing what I'm doing (working full time and adjuncting on the side), not quitting, and banking the supplemental adjunct cash.
The comments here have been probably some of the most even handed I've seen on the Chronicle, ever. This has made me really consider whether going 3000 miles away for a PhD is what I want to do, even though I *want* to be a professor full time.
In all seriousness, thanks for these honest comments.
22. robjenkins - January 28, 2010 at 11:41 pm
I thought the comments were more interesting than the article, too.
23. tookt - February 02, 2010 at 11:47 am
I finished a PhD from State U about 10 years ago. I did find full-time employment (it really can be had) at a community college with decent salary and benefits and some support for professional development. However, I had to move to less desirable area of the country (to most folks, at least) to get it. I have found a number of PhD's won't or can't do this.
24. shanna123 - February 15, 2010 at 12:43 am
Two thoughts/comments came to mind as I read the article and associated comments... (1) people need to really investigate things before signing on to academic programs and subsequent goals, to assess how realistic they are, and (2) part of this is knowing that even when they "do everything right" (good school, publications, teaching, etc.), in oversupplied fields (e.g., English) they will be up against hundreds of other candidates who have also "done everything right". I'm always stunned by comments such as "really good people will always find a place somewhere". Again, these days in particular fields and parts of the country this is simply a falsehood.