From an initial loan payoff of $75,000 per year, my debt rose to $300,000.’
But then that’s a Guardian arts graduate trying to do a picture caption. The mistake is the “per year” of course – if there are any arts graduates who read this.
Ah, no, I’m wrong. This is actually the woman with a doctorate in human resources management:
From an initial loan payoff of $75,000 per year, my debt rose to $300,000.
Well, yes, that was a mistake, yes. Going and getting that degree. And another little thing. It would appear she was 53 when she completed this doctorate. That’s not a terribly long time to earn back the cost of the degree, is it? Amortising it over that few working years. Not a good decision at all.
The actual claim here is “I made a booboo, someone else must pay!”
The actual claim everywhere is “I made a booboo, someone else must pay!”
“The administrators changed the length of my program from three to six years.”
A clearer example of breach of contract does not exist. A strong and independent womxn, sufficiently versed in business administration to be pursuing a PhD in it, would surely not simply accept this?
“They actively steered me away from my research interest in the effects of slavery and globalization, adding more time to my program of study. ”
Any doctoral programme that has a study programme beyond the mandatory onboarding training is not worth shit. The whole point is the research! To be left to your own devices for three years, availing yourself of training and tutoring on an ad-hoc, as-needed basis, not to be sat in expensive lectures.
300 grand and not even getting what it said on the tin (3 years of sitting in the library and occasionally talking to a tutor). One born every minute.
Lystra Small-Clouden
There’s your problem.
tl;dr, black woman f**ks up, White people must pay!
As a single, Black, immigrant woman, I always told my four kids that education was the most important part of their upbringing
Well, that was a fucking lie.
I was not comfortable advising my children to achieve the highest level of education when I myself didn’t.
Well, that was fucking stupid.
I wanted my mentorship and advice to be built on a strong educational and intellectual foundation.
But it turns out she’s a moron who makes terrible choices. Many such cases!
Because of my own debt, I was unable to qualify for parent loans to help my younger two children pay for their undergraduate studies.
You have to laugh!
She expects she should be able to pay for her kids’ education, so clearly she should be calling on her parents to pay for her education.
And I see parthenogenesis is alive and well.
If someone takes out a mortgage for a house they only get it if the building society’s surveyor certifies that the house is worth the money loaned.
If the student loan company were to institute a similar system whereby an independent assessor had to certify that the course was worth the loan much of this pain could be avoided.
I understand that this complainant was past 18 when she took out her loans, but the vast majority of student loans go to 18 year olds who have no life experience at all.
Single mother with 4 kids. Not divorced woman with 4 kids, or separated woman with 4 kids. She set out to have 4 kids with no intention of bringing them up in a stable household with a good father and she talks about wanting to help her kids.
White, middle class progressives did this. Telling everyone that marriage and stable relationships aren’t necessary whilst at the same time ensuring they had a stable family environment for their own kids.
Rob Henderson, who coined the term luxury beliefs, is worth a listen on this subject on the Triggernometry podcast.
You don’t need a doctorate to do Human Resources Management.
Christ, you don’t need a college degree to Human Resources Management, to be honest.
“I began a doctoral degree program in human resources management. (…)
The administrators (…) actively steered me away from my research interest in the effects of slavery and globalization, adding more time to my program of study. “
So she signed up to do HR managment, then wasted several years dicking about with slavery and globalization. Now she wonders why the time and expense increased.
“The administrators changed the length of my program from three to six years.” I don’t think I’ve ever met a USian who got a PhD in three years unless they’d moved abroad to do it. Their PhDs take forever and it’s only partly because they finish first degrees a year or more behind the academic level of many other countries.
Pat,
“If the student loan company were to institute a similar system whereby an independent assessor had to certify that the course was worth the loan much of this pain could be avoided.”
The simple answer is to make the universities investors in the loan (even if that’s only 50%). Run lots of wanky degrees that don’t raise people’s incomes? You lose money. That’ll soon get them to think about what courses are worth running.
There is no reason why the state should be subsidising history of art. We don’t need armies of people with 3 years of study of this and there are plenty of rich Jocastas who can pay the fees with daddy’s money to get museum curators.
Underlying this is that a lot of student loans, perhaps almost all, are guaranteed by the Federal Student Loan Program. So, if the loan is guaranteed by the feds, banks will have few qualms about lending to someone who’ll never be able to pay it off.
When I read the headline, my first reaction was another person who doesn’t understand the time value of money. Second, was that’s what happens with loan forbearances.
As she admits, her first mistake was going to a for-profit (probably online) university. Often, at most traditional universities, the number of Ph.D. students is determined by the number of undergraduate classes needing instructors. One gets tuition waived for teaching a couple of classes.
But yes, what all the others have said.
If she did her research before starting, she would have known that most PhDs take longer than 3 years to complete.
She’d know that “the best dissertation is a done dissertation.” Research what you want after you finish the degree, do what the professors want for the dissertation.
She’d know that HR is the wrong degree to research slavery and globalisation. HR is all about pushing paperwork (though I have no idea what is included in HR research). Especially at a for-profit school. Who did she expect to hire her? Did she not consider age discrimination?
A few thoughts:
What is the jobs market like for experts on slavery and globalisation? Granted, there are over 40 million slaves currently in the world,but most jobs that require such expertise are in NGOs, supranational agencies like the UN and think tanks. All of which offer jobs that require you to be politically well connected to get and be a success in. Single mothers with 4 sprogs will not even get an interview, let alone the job.
This is also the reason why we need to start being honest about the fact that not all school leavers need under graduate degrees let alone post graduate degrees. In fact a lot of liberal art degrees could be done part time and using an online/correspondence model to deliver.
When my father was living in America he refused to do a PHd at an American university as it would take too long. He found out that a London University would allow him to do the PHd remotely. He stayed in the USA and did the field work and lab work in the there. He wrote it up and presented it in London and received his PHd in a fraction of the time. And this was back in the 1970s when there was no internet, email or fax machines. All done using the postal service and a BA flight to London.
I wonder if the Open University should start advertising in the USA and offer British degrees to the yanks. Sounds like we could undercut the on line American universities and offer a better service.
“What is the jobs market like for experts on slavery and globalisation? ”
I wonder whether there would be any takers for a degree in “GET OVER IT!”
Their PhDs take forever and it’s only partly because they finish first degrees a year or more behind the academic level of many other countries.
Their PhDs take forever IF the candidate is paying his/her own way. If they’re on a scholarship they move right through in three years.
Incentives matter.
AS someone who hasn’t a clue about university education, can someone explain this to me?
Research what you want after you finish the degree, do what the professors want for the dissertation.
If one wants to do research why get a PhD? Why not just research? If the PhD is the benefit, that presumably leads to employment. In which case, what you research is what you’re told to.
Or do PhD’s expect to be paid for their hobbies?
BiS: you need a PhD if you want to move up the academic greasy pole. Some employers will look more favourably on a PhD as opposed to a first degree or MA/MSc for new hires from college. After that experience is/should be much more valued but HR are often/mostly stupid in this respect.
As for being paid for indulging in hobbies, I managed it fairly successfully for all of my working life, even without a higher degree.
As for being paid for indulging in hobbies, I managed it fairly successfully for all of my working life
Yeah I think like that. I’ve never done anything I didn’t thoroughly enjoy doing. Even things were thoroughly unpleasant. There’s a sense of triumph in hacking them outweighs the discomfort. Life lived as a hobby. Still is.
BiS
Yep 🙂
BiS,
What TG said. I was assuming that by getting a Ph.D the lady was looking to do research. At least in the business field, like Human Resources, a Ph.D. generally teaches one how to do research in the field. If all one wants to do is teach, one doesn’t need to a Ph.D. Though without it she’d most likely wouldn’t be at a “good university” which requires a doctorate (and usually in the field, not in education or leadership) but at a “teaching school.” So my point is just get the degree then do what you want.
Though in my anecdotal experience, people in the 50’s aren’t interested in research but want a good gig while they’re semi-retired. And those in the 50’s who get a phd just want a vanity degree – usually willing to waste their funds. In this case she wants to waste other people’s funds.