So I want everybody to check out this post by Adjunct Nate Silver at Rebecca Schuman’s blog, because it is perfectly emblematic of everything wrong with how people talk about the adjunct  crisis. It presents a entirely convincing argument that the job market in German has been uniquely bad since 2008, despite some who say […]

The Atlantic publishes a lot of good stuff; I’ve linked to some of it, here. But it’s disappointing how poor their education coverage can be, and usually for the same reason: a failure to apply appropriate skepticism to self-interested actors making grand claims about the future of education. This interview with Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds is […]

It’s a frustrating fact of life that arguments that are most visible are always going to be, for most people, the arguments that define the truth. That’s certainly the case with Academically Adrift, the book by Richard Arum and Joseph Roksa that has done so much to set the conventional wisdom about the value of […]

So I hate to sound like a broken record with this stuff, but it keeps being necessary, so…. My argument about the current rage for essays decrying the working conditions of adjuncts has been consistent: I think it’s very necessary to be having a conversation about the plight of adjuncts, which is immoral and untenable, […]

Since arguing against the notion of a STEM shortage is apparently something I’ll be doing either until there really is a shortage or until I’m dead, I’ll recommend this brief blog post by Beryl Lieff Benderly at ScienceCareers. …a drop in the average starting salaries of new college graduates with computer science, engineering, and chemistry […]

I don’t want to belabor this any more than I already have, especially because as I said then, I counsel people against going to graduate school constantly. But Megan McArdle responded, and I just want to make a simple point. Megan argues that the problem with going to graduate school, rather than with trying to […]

I’ve been told that I’m burying the lead too much here, or that I risk obscuring my core beliefs about the broader situation, so I just want to clear that up here. This will probably be my last on this subject for awhile. The American university system has been guilty of many historical crimes. Perhaps […]

There’s another argument between Rebecca Schuman and the Tenured Radical. You could check it out, although it’s pretty much the same themes we’ve read before. Once again, I feel conflicted: there’s little question that Schuman’s voice needs to be drilled into the heads of out-of-touch faculty and that there are prospective grad students who need […]

As you’re aware, I’m someone who often counsels people against getting a PhD, because the academic job market is so brutal and tenure track jobs so scarce. It’s how I start and end the conversation. It’s a reflexive, constant reminder I make: you are far, far more likely to end up without a tenure track […]