That was my initial thought. A couple things, based on my own personal experience:
(1) I live in an area with a high cost of living, and I really would prefer to live in a less populated area. But I stay here because I think the job market is better. It’s not just about my ability to get a job, it’s about my ability to get another job if I lose the one I have now. My guess is that if I were in a job that wasn’t paying enough for me to afford a house, and I were to consider moving somewhere cheaper, I would be scared that I would buy a house, lose my job, and then be saddled with the debt of paying off a house while struggling to acquire any sort of income at all.
(2) I volunteer with the rescue squad, and I have talked to people who work as career firefighters or EMTs in the area. These people do not earn enough money to live in the area, so they just live in a cheaper area and have long commutes. Of course, longer commutes are more manageable when you (a) don’t have to commute during peak traffic hours, and (b) have an irregular work schedule (i.e., you don’t typically work M-F with Sat. and Sun. off). Even so, I do wonder if living in a cheaper area and having a long commute would be a more workable solution than trying to find a job in a cheaper area.
This just sounds like a person with absolutely no common sense.
…James-Penney used to be an admin in high tech, but was laid off in the dot-com bust and was forced to live on her savings.
She went back to school and paid tuition with student loans.
“I’m $143,000 in debt. And I’m in my 50s. But I pay that loan back every month,” said James-Penney. “That is mandatory for me. But that chunk I pay also affects how much I can afford in rent.”…
OK, it’s stupid to take on an extreme level of student loan in your 40s or so. Second, it’s incredibly stupid to live in your car and not forbear the loan payments.
So, I don’t think this is an epidemic. This is just one woman with NO common sense.
Having lived in Missouri and Kansas for many years, I can affirm that. There are more miserable places to live–Florida exists solely to demonstrate that wherever you are, there is someplace worse–but unless you have family connections or some kind of career-improving job, Kansas City wouldn’t even be on anyones’ list of voluntary options, hence the almost negligible growth rate over the last decade. And if you are non-white, Kansas City in particular is not an appealing place to live, as it is one of the most segregated cities in the United States, notwithstanding that the opportunities to pursue in a career in higher education are limited to say the least given its single third tier state university and handful of small liberal arts schools. Places with a low cost of living are that way for a reason; few people want to live there.
San Jose is emblematic of the problem of unrestricted tech industry growth without adequate city planning or development of mixed income housing; as a result, a city that was once relatively inexpensive (compared to the San Francisco Bay Area proper) has seen massive inflation of housing and other living costs, with average rents having increased from between 50% to 80% in just the last seven or eight years. In theory, the growing wealth should translate into wage increases for hourly workers commiserate with the increase in costs, but when your rent goes from $1200 a month to $2000 a month and you have to pay for previously free employee parking and other fees associated with increasing population density, a 10% or 20% bump in hourly rate doesn’t cut it.
Sorry to tell you this but you really do NOT know Kansas and especially Lawrence. Often nicknamed the “San Fransisco of the midwest” because its a major liberal stronghold.HEREis a link to their own Pride events and gay newspaper.
Why would she worry about needing an abortion at her age?
You are correct though in there is no guarantee of a job if she moves. BUT. if she does move to a less expensive area she could at least get started on the process even if she is waiting tables for money. Has to beat living out of her car.
She might not personally, but if she is someone who feels that reproductive rights are important, generally, she might well not be happy living in an extremely conservative state (whether or not Lawrence is a liberal town).
As already noted, this is completely and utterly false. “Adjunct” merely means you are not a regular member of the faculty. You are working for short periods of time (a term or a year). You are not tenure track or otherwise.
Some places also use “Adjunct” for positions that are “Visiting” in most other places. I think the deal is if you have a position somewhere else you can go back to you’re “Visiting”. If you’re not going back you might be labeled “Adjunct”.
They can be full time positions, no problem. But like Home Depot and a lot of other places, there are cost savings in having them part time. This doesn’t make all Home Depot “associates” part timers.
I’ve known quite a few full time adjunct professors at the universities I’ve worked at. (Lucky for me, padding out the ranks with a ton of underpaid adjuncts didn’t start until I got tenure-and then left academia.)
I do know Kansas, and you’ve posted nothing to dispute the truth of what I stated. There is no anti-discrimination law in the state, and there is a law to protect people who discriminate as long as they say it’s for religious beliefs. Moving into a small gay-friendly enclave in a state that is extremely LGBT hostile, especially with multiple right-wing appointees to the Supreme court that might reverse recent rulings, is not a generally attractive prospect.
Because the law in the state treats her as an incubator instead of a full human being, and is a good barometer of the level of hostility towards women in the state. That’s the real problem with both sets of laws; even if the actual law doesn’t affect you, it’s a good barometer of what kinds of laws to expect and what the general climate is towards you.particular groups, and people outside the norm in general.
According to you. But I know a lot of people who’d rather work in their chosen field and live out of their car than wait tables indefinitely. The “has to beat” is not true - it may be your preference, but your preferences are not universal as you should realize after your years on this board.
So $2800-$3400 per 3-credit course, depending on experience and degrees. If you teach 4 classes a semester, that’s $25K a year.
At least when I was earning that money for that (quite exhausting) teaching load, I was teaching in northeast Tennessee which has a really low cost of living. And also that was >20 years ago.
If you look on the glassdoor page, it says: “This estimate is based upon 1 University of Missouri Adjunct Assistant Professor salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical methods.” So that number doesn’t come from a solid examination of salaries, it comes from one person self-reporting a position and salary.
If one did a Venn diagram of part-time faculty on the one hand, and adjunct faculty on the other, it wouldn’t quite be a single circle, but it would be pretty damn close.
At least one other consideration: climate. Even if the cheap parts of Kansas magically became minority-friendly cultural meccas, they’d still be in Kansas! Maybe you dont’ like mountains, maybe you aren’t scared of tornadoes, but Wikipedia tells me average January low temperature in Lawrence, Kansas, is 18.3F.
Living literally on the streets in San Francisco does not involve the possibility of freezing to death.