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AbsentEmpire t1_j9l2f5w wrote

Reply to comment by Scumandvillany in Striking Temple University graduate students overwhelming vote down proposed contract by diatriose

I don't see why you're being downvoted.

Presenting a contract you know won't be approved is a pretty normal and part of the negotiation process.

Additionally Temple is vulnerable to all the problems and headwinds that are coming at the higher education system in general, in addition to location specific issues they have. Cost containment is absolutely an issue the school faces.

However they're looking at it wrong, the grad students produce actual value for the school, and they should be paid for it.

Where the school can look to cut costs is the bloated administration, which is full of bullshit jobs that should be eliminated. College administration bloat is a well known phenomenon, and adds a significant cost to tuition.

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Scumandvillany t1_j9lhray wrote

I obviously offended some art history graduates working in the nonprofit space and juggling high debts while having to endure their plumber cousin at Christmas busting out the biggest wad of cash they'd ever seen to pay for fireworks for all the kids

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AbsentEmpire t1_j9m7paw wrote

Ya probably the same people who get upset at me pointing out the reason housing costs have gone up in Philly isn't because cApiTAliSm bAd, it's directly because of NIMBY zoning policies restricting new housing creation for all the people who moved here.

But that would mean acknowledging that their misguided opposition to development has directly resulted in pricing them out of the location they would like to be in.

Plenty of cheap housing in the badlands, yet these people bitching about lack of cheap housing in Fishtown or Rittenhouse don't consider living there.

In addition most people don't need to go to college, if they do it should be local community college or state schools if what they're doing isn't STEM related. Most degrees are useless debt traps, and unnecessary in the real world. Many companies and municipalities are finally rolling back degree requirements for jobs that only need a high school education and Microsoft Office training.

In addition one of the primary drivers for the increasing cost of colleges is administrative bloat and useless highly expensive infrastructure projects like luxury dorms, which basically treat colleges as an extended adolescence.

All of that can and should be cut and the funds redirected to the core function of academia, research and education. Which means firing whole departments of useless administrators and taking that money to pay grad students, researchers, and TAs.

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