University aiming for mediocrity with graduate student benefits

Well, in the bigger scheme of things, the advice to you would be go to U of M…bye.

Nice!
Bye perfectly exemplifies the non-“winning” attitude that not only accepts mediocrity, but happily aims for it.
However, when you are as ambitious as most graduate students are, you don’t think that way.

“We’re MSU and we’re #6 or #7, depending upon how you look at the numbers maybe #8 or #9 and slipping back more each year!” This not exactly a chant that graduate students can be thrilled with any more than any of us would be thrilled to chant at a football, basketball, or other sporting event on campus.

Actually, Ted, it’s more like “We’re #8, or maybe #9 or #10”. #6 is the University’s goal. Even they don’t pretend we’re anywhere near that.

The compensation discussed in this article is but one factor of an overall environment for a graduate student at MSU or another school. It is a false argument to compare the goal of pegging compensation in the middle of the pack to our sports teams having a goal to finish 5th or 6th. The latter is a result, while the former is an attribute that influences a result (whatever that is). Obviously, graduate student compensation has an influence on results, but it is indirect and it is just one factor.

I worked for a company whose compensation structure was generally as follows: we don’t pay at the highest level and we don’t pay at the lowest. People who were solely focused on compensation did not work there. Others who looked at the broader picture (of which compensation was a part), found it to be a place at which they wanted to work due largely to other factors. And so it goes at MSU — the compensation is but one factor to be considered.

Bye, while expressing his point a bit curtly, is more right than wrong on this. If the overall mix of factors at MSU is not desirable to a graduate student, then look at alternatives.

If you tell athletic recruits you’re aiming to have the 6th best locker rooms in the Big Ten, or the 6th best attendance level at games, or the 6th best training staff, or the 6th best graduation rate, do you think the best athletes will want to come play for you? It’s not necessarily a direct causal relationship, but you can bet there’s a strong correlation between the level of support a university affords its programs and how successful they are, whether we’re talking about athletes, undergrads, graduate students, professors, etc. There’s obviously more to it than stipend levels, just like there’s more to it than the quality of the sod on the football field, but the whole point of this article is that it makes a difference — especially when the attitude is one of not just accepting but expecting mediocrity.

KJ and Bye, you are right as a matter of the choice of the prospective student. But, as President Simon has herself said, you have to pay well to recruit the best. From an institutional perspective, Bye’s don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out is a terrible policy.

I can guarantee you that nobody becomes a graduate student solely on the basis of the compensation they’re going to get while studying (or probably even for the compensation they’ll get after degree). We’re engaged in graduate study because we love our fields, and we want to contribute to human advancement. But that doesn’t mean we’re willing, or should be asked to, work for peanuts. Forcing a prospective student to choose between being able to afford to go to a reasonable dentist (for example) and coming to our remarkable institution is a mistake.

So, pay isn’t what it really should be, and neither is insurance, benefits….And the university isn’t aiming for number one. Guess what, they are a business and welcome to the real world!

“they are a business”? Are you serious?

When tuition increases another 7% next year, I’m guessing the “university as business” model won’t be quite so popular.

Mmmm, I’ve run business for a living, worked as a business manager for nearly two decades in fact.
I am here to tell you that anyone who thinks MSU is a business is simple wrong.

There is no discernible product in what MSU or any educational facility does. Sure such institutions credential and provide skills, sure such skills are marketable, sure people are willing to pay to learn skills, etc. However, the credentials that denote the “education” of those skills are merely a sign of the education that has occurred, they are not that education.

Education isn’t in a capitalist economy but a gift economy. It isn’t a business. It is a charity; or, it should be. It was for the better part of two centuries in this country.

Which leads us to tuition and the student’s comment:
The state used to subsidize higher education based upon the model that more college graduates meant a more educated population, which meant higher wages and thus more taxes to pay for things like, low cost higher education. For years this gift economy model worked. The state funded 80-90% of tuition at public institutions. More and more people from each generation got a college degree and paid more taxes, essentially subsidizing the education of the next generation. The initial investment had been very small and the policy was a huge success as America become a modern industrial super power during the 20th century and American research universities were very nearly without equal.
Then about 15-20 years ago things began to slip.
This last generation, the baby boomers, changed the rules of the game. They caused the state’s higher education subsidies to disappear in their made, spoiled grab for infinite wealth and prosperity that their parents had coddled them on. They created the first generation of Americans who will not do as well as their parents. A major part of that is because this generation will also be the first generation of Americans responsible for paying nearly all of their college education—unless their parents are well off.
(Once the poor could go to college with relative ease. Now, poverty isn’t a bar from higher education but it is a ticket to a $50,000 student loan debt upon graduation with a degree that has less earning power than ever, in part because the US education system has begun its slow waddle towards collapse.)

The state used to fund higher education as a gift that gave back to the community, to the polity.
Now, look at the mess we’ve been given.

re: Ted Turner. I agree with you completely – maybe the brevity of my response indicated otherwise. Thanks for your post. Mine was simply indicating that the rhetoric of higher education as “business” (aside from the for-profit universities) gets trotted out as an excuse for the atrocious labor policies of all colleges and universities – and yes, I have yet to find one that isn’t complicit in a system that relies on cheap labor and underpaid workers to function. But when students realize that they, too, are the victims of that rhetoric, suddenly it doesn’t seem so appealing.

The thing these graduate students tend to forget is that they’re still students and are students by choice. As a former graduate student, I know what the conditions are like. I fail to understand the tuition waiver argument. Stephen, you get 9 credits per semester, that’s 27 credits per year or 102 credits total when you include the summer. So for a Ph.D., you need about 25-30 credits worth of classes and the rest are thesis hours right? You also have to remember who pays for your tuition. (Hint..it’s not just given to you.) Your professors and department pay for it. So if you want to complain about the tuition waiver start there first.

But when regarding compensation, look at your overall package. You’re getting compensated roughly $30,000 a year to go to school, maybe do a bit of teaching and do research. Upon exiting, you’re more likely to land a lucrative job making significantly more than those with just a bachelor’s. It’s a price you pay to get those additional letters behind your name. (Plus you have it much easier than those who go to med school.)

But I will readily admit that the health care/dental plans leave a lot to be desired. They weren’t any better 8-10 years ago. But unfortunately, the University is going to assume you’re young, single, and in pretty good health or if you are married, your spouse will have a job that also provides medical coverage. So in their eyes, the spouse should be able to take care of their own medical insurance.

I read MSUAlum2001’s comment over three or four times, and for the life of me I really can’t detect much of an argument.

MSUAlum2001,

As I mentioned in the letter, my personal experience has been very positive — there’s no need for me to take more than 9 hrs/semester to finish in a reasonable time, so this has not been an issue for me. However, there are some departments that essentially require 10-12 hrs/semester, and those are the students whose situation I was trying to highlight.

Similarly, I am fortunate to be young, single, and healthy, so I haven’t had to tap into the health care plan (knock on wood). It’s the people with a spouse and/or children who have to fork over 10%-20% of their salary just to cover their insurance premium on whose behalf I was complaining.

As a side note, your math doesn’t add up — nobody takes 9 hrs in the summer, whether you have a tuition waiver or not. With a summer waiver, it’s more like 22-24 hrs/year.

And yes, our total compensation includes the tuition waiver, health care, and stipend. Like many of my peers, however, this is peanuts compared to what I’d be making if I was out using my bachelor’s (and/or master’s) to go get a “regular” job. In that sense, I am taking a huge pay cut being in grad school, with idea that it’ll be worth it in the long run after I finish my PhD. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not here to get rich — but I feel like that counterpoint needed to be made.

Regardless, by subsidizing grad student education, the state of Michigan is making an investment in a future generation of leaders and thinkers that can’t be put into dollars and cents. If you attract young, energetic, intelligent people to this state with your universities, it’s much likelier that some of them will stick around to start business, create jobs, and pay taxes. So why not do everything you can to attract the best students to MSU? Purposely aiming for the middle of the Big Ten is an attitude that doesn’t make any sense to me, and I cringe when I hear it.

grad…what exactly do you mean? I wasn’t arguing anything. Just pointing out a few things. For those who complain about the tuition waiver, they need to start with their departments as it is them and the professors/advisers in the department who pay that tuition. Going directly to the administration and bitching hasn’t helped things in how many years? Try a different approach.

And I readily admit the health plan packages suck but they’ve sucked for years.

MSUAlum2001, I think you are mistaken about how the system works. The tuition waiver is a standard waiver across the entire university.

No tuition waiver. No health program. No pay check. But it costs 50k per year.

How many classes does your average law student teach? How much research do they do for the University? How about grant writing?

about 80 hours of work per week.