The unfolding battle between the California Faculty Association and California State University began as a blip in my peripheral vision last year. Now, as I continue to investigate the Fight for Five’s progress, the more I learn, the more I can’t keep my mouth shut.
When I first began field research on the Fight for Five campaign, I interviewed a class and was surprised to hear that most, if not all, of the students had barely heard of it. It was two months into the semester, and despite constant news coverage, the word still wasn’t out there.
As I dug further, I began to hear what seemed to be outlandish facts I had a hard time accepting as truth.
The CSU system is a $5 billion enterprise with $2 billion in reserves.
According to reports conducted by the CFA, while professors haven’t received a raise in nearly 10 years, students’ tuition has skyrocketed 283 percent since 2005. In fact, California faculty took a 10 percent pay cut in the 2009/2010 school year and lost $9,000 in purchasing power per faculty member.
While the average salary for a tenured professor is $85,000, administration, such as CSU presidents, get paid roughly $300,000 in addition to being allowed to live mortgage-free in a university-owned house or take a $50,000 annual housing allowance and a $1,000 per month car allowance.
CSU Chancellor Timothy White makes as much money as the president of the United States.
While the hiring of full-time professors has gradually decreased since 2004, the hiring of administration has significantly increased.
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I have no qualms with administration. I believe the university should be able to grow in the name of education. I do, however, take issue with a system that prioritizes bureaucracy over functionality.
It is fundamental that professors are able to retain a stable living wage, and not only that, but that they receive adequate compensation for the work that has so many lasting effects upon society. Their daily lives not only affect my life now, as a student, but are a glance into life after graduation.
If most of my professors are not able to make enough to be considered middle-class citizens, with master’s degrees and PhDs, how can I?
This question lends itself to even greater concerns and I’m left wondering why the CSU system considers my position as a student the last of its priorities, because if the value of professors is placed below that of administration, I, therefore, become lowest on the totem pole.
Some elders have said that perhaps it is that we, as the student body, have become somewhat passive, that we have become silent and complacent, only able to see what is directly in front of us, too stressed out to worry about anything else but what is due tomorrow.
But, this matter does concern us, and we have the capacity to react in a meaningful way. In recent weeks, I have seen this campus rise together and speak out against institutions that plague both our classrooms and our community. We should do the same to support our professors, our sources of learning, our confidants in pursuing higher education.
There is something wrong with a system that forces professors to split classes between multiple campuses in order to make a living wage. I’ve heard of a professor who splits his classes between five different campuses in the LA area. How is that acceptable?
Nearly 45 percent of the CSU faculty are adjunct professors who often make less than $55,000 a year. That is less than the average for community college professors and K-12 teachers. It is even less than a retail manager makes before a bonus — a profession which requires no degree.
What does that say about California, which continues to cut budgets to education every year?
The CSU is supposed to be the “People’s University,” but how can it hold such a name when it cannot properly uphold its mission statement, which is to provide “education [as] the means to expand minds and change lives [in order] to improve our communities” and “support the educational process?” All of these begin with professors.
If the CFA and CSU do not come to an agreement during the two-day blackout period, a temporary halt to public discussion as both parties attempt to draft a solution, I will take a stand in the picket line alongside Cal State Long Beach professors and use my presence to voice the importance of honoring California faculty.
As neither party has budged since the negotiations first began last year, it is difficult to say whether or not the discussion will be successful. When the fact-finding report was released on March 28, both parties claimed victory, even though the report clearly stated that the CSU should provide the CFA with the 5 percent salary increase.
I am holding out on some bit of hope, though. The chancellor’s first-time presence at the April 5 meeting, where he echoed many the CFA’s concerns, seems to be a step in the right direction.
But, if no deal is reached, you can find me at the picket line starting April 13.
I have a different perspective than you, Taryn Sauer. And tell me if you agree or not.
First of all, an adjunct professor is a professor who is either here temporary or part-time. If you pay me $55,000 to work part-time, I will consider myself — in this economy — well-paid.
But more important, when you receive a diploma from this university, you should also receive an apology from this university and it’s faculty — including the part-time, adjunct faculty. And a refund of a large portion of your tuition you have paid.
You have been cheated, bilked, propagandized by mainly leftwing professors — “adjunct” and otherwise — and badly educated. Your tuition has been much too costly, for which you can blame the federal government. And the avarice of the university.
Washington D.C. has produced a bubble in higher education just the way it produced the bubble in housing. Some government planners decided that too few people owned homes. So the planners decided to force an increase in home ownership. They lowered lending standards for people seeking a mortgage. This produced a glut of sub-prime loans. And sub-prime borrowers. And then a crash.
Next, some government geniuses decided that there were too few college students. So government made student loans and other tuition subsidies easier to get. Of course, colleges and universities responded by increasing tuition to capture these government subsidies. Which is why the cost of college has been rising 4 times faster than the rate of inflation.
The cost of college has increased faster than the cost of healthcare. There is now in excess of $1 TRILLION in student loan debt. There is more student loan debt than credit card debt. More than auto loan debt.
You want a state surplus to go to these well-paid beneficiaries of the university? What if we call them “co-conspirators” with the university in all things but their pay?
Taryn, you will likely graduate with debt. A lot of it. Unless you have rich parents — in which case, you have the luxury of worrying about well-paid professors and not your fellow student and their debt.
Your debt will be far in excess of any knowledge you have received. In effect, you will be graduating with a mortgage but with no house.
And what did you get for all of this expense? A sub-prime education.
Today’s students study many fewer hours a week than students a generation ago. But they are getting higher grades. This too is a result of government creating perverse incentives. The Government money gives colleges and universities a powerful incentive to admit more and more students. Inevitably this means more and more students who are marginally qualified — or unqualified, Many of these will pay tuition for a few semesters and then leave school with debt but no degree. Others will plod along, paying tuition, piling up debt, and eventually getting a degree, but not in four years.
If you major in gender studies, or women’s studies, or ethnicity studies, or cinema deconstruction, or any other of today’s fads, I have this advice:
When you take off your cap and gown at graduation, do not look for a job. Instead go straight to the unemployment office. This university did not equip you to add value to the American economy.
Soon, this university ‘s office in charge of alumni giving, will contact you and ask you for money. Your response should be, “Are you kidding?” Instead of sending money to this university, just send a schedule of your student loan repayments. If this campus is like most campuses, you have been living in a community of enforced conformity. When you leave and enter the real world, you are in for a shock.
This campus has a speech code. It has forbidden and punished speech that did not conform to fashionable political pieties.
You have been taught that you have a special entitlement — that you are entitled to pass through life without hearing any speech that annoys, depresses, confuses, offends, or otherwise distresses you.
This campus has a “free speech zone” I believe, a space where students are allowed to exercise First Amendment rights. But guess what? Off campus, out in reality, nobody recognizes this entitlement. You will find that the US Constitution makes the rest of America – all of it –a free speech zone.
This school has restricted free speech in order to protect your tender sensitivities and to protect your feelings from being hurt. When you leave this campus, you will have to “un-learn” the silliness that you have been taught here. The idea that you deserve to be treated as a frail flower.
So you have been saddled with debt and bad ideas.. Good luck. You’re going to need it.
Why you choose to reward professors — so many with “tenure” (guaranteed employment forever even if they become lazy, corrupt, skills or commit acts of moral turpitude) instead of advocating for that state surplus to help lower the exorbitant student debt through a decrease in tuition and fees, I haven’t the foggiest idea.
Maybe you can explain it to me.