How can the Humanities evolve to remain relevant?

Parents Forum
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I assure you teacher salaries are low, very low. I teach in a private school, so no pension. I took this job years ago honestly to get my kids free tuition. I have a masters degree. My 23 and 25 year old kids make more than I do. I am fortunate that my husband makes enough money that I can do something I love making less.

The average teacher salary in California is 62k a year. (Not starting teacher salary, average teacher salary.) A very small, old starter home costs over 600k. Two full time married teachers making an average salary couldn’t buy a starter house here.

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187

Efficiency is not the rationale for HBS. At a cost of$250k, it takes highly skilled well connected people and networks them with others just like them. The courses are hardly the point.

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Most teachers entering education no longer have a pension…most states are moving toward a fixed contributions model, as far as I know.

With respect to income: https://www.nea.org/resource-library/teacher-salary-benchmarks, these are the US averages:

Beginning with a Bachelor’s: 41,770
Beginning with a Master’s: $45,391
Top salary with a Bachelor’s: $60,381
Top salary with a Master’s: $70,279
Top salary (assuming with a doctorate): $76,540

Here are some maximum salaries (which is usually at least 20-25 years…possibly up to 30 or 40 years, depending the state’s scale):

Arkansas: $54,163
Colorado: $64,646
Florida: $66,405
Idaho: $59,110
Louisiana: $58,470
Missouri: $56,552
North Carolina: $63,359
Oklahoma: $57,151
Tennessee: $63,967
Texas: $63,673

Who here wants to try and find safe housing in St. Louis, New Orleans, Nashville, Miami, with these incomes? And remember, this is after 20-40 years with a doctorate. In my state, the usually income bump is $500 per degree (so Master’s, Master’s + 30, education specialist, doctorate). And considering the stressors of being in the classroom and all the attendant unpaid time doing prep, grading, etc…there’s a reason why people are talking about teacher shortages.

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This is partly a problem with local zoning etc. Many other professions also find it a problem to buy housing in many parts of California. The way things are supposed to work is for you to walk out in a huff and find something better in the same industry different location, or same location different industry.

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190

They should just walk away from the industry. Why are people taking these jobs?

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What does a country without teachers look like? We may soon find out if there’s no remedy. Again, money isn’t everything, but making a living wage seems like a reasonable expectation for educating the next generation.

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We are in CA as well. At least among the people we know in our area, there seems to be a big difference between public and private school teacher salaries. Our friends who are public school teachers make a pretty good living once they have accumulated seniority. On the other hand the private school teachers that we know are hardly getting by at all, some schools have not raised salaries in many years, and some of the private schools only hire speciality teachers on a part-time basis.

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I could make more teaching in a public school, but again I have the benefit of being comped my kids tuition. Even if I jumped to a public school with my level of experience and education, it’s not a living wage.

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So implicitly the pay is good for teachers that have kids and bad for teachers that don’t have kids … That’s a tradeoff you are making. Until recently we paid 80k a year post tax (think of it as 120k or more pre tax) for the two kids. So I consider that a good benefit.

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Being comped tuition is a big benefit. Will this job make financial sense for my family after my last kid graduated? Probably not. Will teaching in a public school make financial sense for my family? Also, probably not.

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196

So the kids who are majoring in undergrad business programs need to get that first degree, then that first fantastic job, then the opportunity cost AND tuition cost to network? Seems like the ROI on that allegedly useful undergrad business degree is pretty low.

I don’t dispute the ROI on a Harvard MBA. It’s the notion that so many allegedly rational and financially trained business undergrads feel the need for one. You majored in Art History and worked as a docent for two years ? Yup, the payout will likely be fast and furious. But you already did a business degree… which apparently did not pay out the way it was supposed to.

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Those incomes for MO, LA, TN, FL are above the median for those cities listed. Granted, for someone 20-40 years into a career with a doctorate, that does not look great. But if above median income people cannot find safe housing in those cities, does that mean that those cities are dangerous hellscapes of crime and other hazards (despite crime being significantly lower than in the early 1990s)? If so, perhaps that is another reason why there seems to be greater emphasis on trying for a top-end income level, rather than finding satisfaction at a more modest income level.

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The head of school at our (private) school probably makes 800k + a large house. Senior staff like dean of this or that make 250k+ I think. Senior teachers (30years at the school teaching math) probably make 150-200k. We are not in as expensive a place as California.

The superintendent of education of our public school district makes 200-250k. And I am not even sure it is such a busy job. There are some 600 school districts in our small state (NJ). And these jobs are seriously pensioned.

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That’s crazy. Our highest paid faculty are topping out at about 60k. New teachers are under 40k a year.

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200

I think you totally misunderstood the nature of the Harvard or any elite MBA

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Thank you, @neela1 for sharing this report.

The report posits that during times of good economic health, that there is increased risk-taking, and thus interest in the humanities, but that this pattern did not hold true after the Great Recession of 2008. If one takes this to be a correct correlation, then the question arises, what was different from previous times?

The magnification effects of social media/the internet

  • College students and recent grads when the 2008 recession hit were not just impacted by a recession and a hurting job market, but they were also coupled with student loan debt with higher tuition costs. Humanities graduates who hadn’t yet been able to establish their value were probably amongst the worst hit. The warnings to younger students/upcoming generations was about the weight of debt and being able to afford to pay it off, and because of social media, this likely spread much further and faster than it would have previously, particularly as social media is a medium of the young (vs. the nightly news or hourlong weekly new programs).
  • The rise of the tech sector really boomed during this period, and people were able to see young people earning huge sums of money that was previously pretty much unheard of. Thus, people thought this was a good field to go into.
  • Learning about the amount of wealth in other industries…like investment banking (how many high schoolers knew about investment banking 30 years ago? A lot fewer than now, I’m willing to bet.)
  • Not only are high-wealth fields getting added attention, but luxury goods/living are all over social media. Perhaps people before would have been happy with a more modest, “average” lifestyle somewhere, but in seeing posts from young people in urban centers (with high costs of living) with their expensive toys and lavish trips, and people were trying to figure out how to get into fields that paid money quickly (rather than having a slower start to higher wealth that is more common in the humanities).
  • In 2011 Barack Obama indicated that this was the US’ Sputnik moment and that a STEM focus was needed. Job outlook reports all pointed to STEM and the students deciding to major in STEM followed. There has been no such push back toward the humanities.

If the above is true, how can the humanities evolve to remain relevant?

  • Start campaigns to focus on the need for the humanities. One reason? How can we determine what’s “fake news?” How do we look at the validity of sources? How do we cross-reference information? How do we think critically to determine if there is an ulterior motive behind the delivery of the information? This is vital to our country’s future and to democracy worldwide, and it’s a skill that seems to be in short supply.

  • Highlight the benefits of studying the humanities. Have people talk about all the cool, wonderful, awesome things that they’re doing as they relate to the humanities (either while they’re in school or once they’ve graduated and are in jobs). There are many people who choose to do something that might involve financial sacrifices (teaching, buying organic and fair trade items, etc) because of their values. Show people why the humanities are valuable.

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203

To add to your list of reasons, the traditional grad school choices for humanity majors of journalism and law lost their luster at that time.
I am still asking why 200k humanities grad are not “enough”? To whom? Why? It is more than we had in 1990.

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Big finance was not as big a share of the US economy 30 years ago compared to now. Also, given how essential the finance industry is to the US economy, it is in a position where it can depend on its losses being socialized (bank bailouts) even while it privatizes its gains (and the money it has makes for good lobbying of politicians in its favor).

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How about:

  • students are bombarded with messaging that a college degree is need in today’s market

  • students see that loan money is easily available and may not even need to be repaid

  • students enter college but many are not prepared for higher paying STEM degrees

  • these students flock to humanity degrees

  • the quality of humanity degrees vary resulting in many degree holds that are not as educated as they really need to be

  • graduates find getting jobs that meet their inflated expectations impossible

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