Sure, I wouldn't start a family on that, but it far surpasses what I lived off of right after college.
EDIT: It looks like the article was about people late in their careers. I was assuming that adjunct faculty positions were only entry level or for grad students.
They do currently include decent health insurance, at least. No dental/vision, obviously.
Nope, still gotta pay rent. Attended Columbia for grad school, had to compete in the Manhattan real estate market on < 30k a year for an apartment.
> They do currently include decent health insurance, at least.
Ehhhh, it was of the 'if I get hit by a car and I am in the hospital for two months, I won't go bankrupt' variety. Better than nothing, at least.
Probably school-dependent -- I'm aware of one that does have dental at least (I forget about vision but I think it has that too).
> It's pretty screwed up. It's a privilege to be in higher education but it is also pretty crushing and you've got to be a soldier to deal with it. The worst part is I've almost never met anything but great people who willingly put themselves through it.
Isn't that selecting for exactly the kind of people they want in academia though? Great people who would willingly put themselves through pain just for the sake of advancing knowledge? I'm not actually convinced that if they paid a better salary it would necessarily end up selecting for people better suited for academia -- not saying this because of lack of skills, but because if you're worried about making money the moment you start, it seems pretty plausible that you (or far people in your shoes than would feel so otherwise) would be distracted by it the whole time and not working purely for the sake of advancing your science.
Surely there's some middle ground between incentives that attract too many people and underpaying dedicated talent? Even if you were to get paid more, the work is so intense and extended (grinding for years), those just attracted by money would have more attractive alternatives.
That being said, with the nature of being a graduate student and being on campus always, if it was "20 hours" a week it was really 30+. I do have a separate university related job now and the hours are anything but consistent. But you may be correct.
I've got friends who are working on their PhDs while teaching 4-5 classes (at other locations). I considered being a TA a few years ago, but you couldn't have a second job. The stipend as a TA was $1300 a month + tuition for 40 hour weeks (may have actually been "20" hour weeks, not certain). Yeah, right.
It's pretty screwed up. It's a privilege to be in higher education but it is also pretty crushing and you've got to be a soldier to deal with it. The worst part is I've almost never met anything but great people who willingly put themselves through it.
It's why as an overeducated graduate student, I'm against expanding education more and more (like free community college for all). The incentives are way off currently, not sure what the solution is, but it has to change.