That does reference this NBER working paper at https://www.nber.org/papers/w25314 . Note that math is cheaper than English to teach, which is not that surprising, but does suggest that (once again) the “STEM” label may be an overgeneralization.
But it is true that subjects with expensive labs or other equipment, or which have to compete with non-academic employers to hire faculty, will generally be more expensive to teach than those subjects which do not.
Perhaps a student shift to more expensive subjects is a less-recognized factor in college cost growth. Some schools do charge different tuition levels by major, but that is not that common. Some do charge upper division students higher tuition, reflecting the higher cost to teach upper division courses, but that is also not that common.
Regarding University of Washington in particular, note that the list of majors at http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/degree-overview/majors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/ shows which majors are capacity limited (i.e. more interested students than the department can teach). The arts, natural sciences, and all of the more pre-professional divisions except for the College of the Environment tend to have more capacity limited majors, while humanities (non-arts) has none, and social sciences has a few (including economics, the usual substitute for business).
Who writes some of these job descriptions? We are a cutting edge company developing a cutting edge technology in an emerging field. We are looking for someone with at least 10 years of experience in project management in this field. Hello? If your tech is so hot and new, and the field is also new, would you expect that there is anyone -anyone! - out there with 10 years of experience in it? Duh! Keep on looking for the purple squirrel. Lol.
I often see ads for attorneys that want litigation, securities, contracts, negotiation, mediation, oil and gas, and six other things. 0-2 years experience. I know attorneys with 30 yrs of experience that haven’t done half of those thing.
@twoinanddone : Interesting post. Although I rarely look, I have never seen any advertised attorney position seeking anything like that. Most of the 0-2 years of experience postings just require a specific state or jurisdiction (DC) bar membership & one other quality.
@twoinanddone, yup, I have seen lots of similar stuff! For example, those recruiters want 0-3 years out of law school, but! PhD in something plus M&A, contracts, and Hatch-Waxman, PTAB, etc. litigation experience. Plus top 10% at a T14 school. Do they really know where those top grads end up? Not at a run of the mill law firm or some crappy startup.
A recruiter hunted me down… after she listed the requirements, I silently laughed and told her that she would be lucky to find anyone with a quarter of those qualifications.
I think the “years of experience” is often indicative of what they are willing to pay more than the qualifications that are being sought. Definitely a red flag.
@BunsenBurner and @twoinanddone: Curious as to where you are seeing attorney ads seeking these type of excessive laundry list requirements.
Thank you in advance !
P.S. The reason that I am curious is that it would be ridiculous for one to be expected to have such lengthy credentials with zero years experience, or even 0-2 years, or even 0-3 years of experience.
I have seen very detailed & somewhat lengthy experience requirements for attorneys with a minimum of about 8 years experience, but not for 0-2 or 0-3 years. If these are postings or listings from recruiters, I wonder if it is just a way to build up their files of candidates seeking positions with some of these credentials.
If the firm is specified, then client may have written ad. But were you serious that you saw or read ads for attorneys with zero to three years experience requiring or desiring such requirements ?
I do know one specialty area which has a substantial number of openings nationwide which is open to those with zero experience in that practice area & just basic requirements, but few receive offers due to the years long training required. I guess that they are looking for a certain personality type in addition to bar membership & an interest in that practice area.
Those are in our Bar Magazine every single month, and yes, for known firms. They most like just want the person to have SOME experience in one of those areas, but that is not how they write the ads. Agree that they are looking for an attorney 0-3 years out of school because that’s what they want to pay.
It sometimes backfires. A government agency I worked for wrote a description for a job that someone had been filling temporarily and they wanted her to become permanent to that section of the agency. They wrote the job description so specifically that we all said “Oh, that’s M’s job” and no one applied. Well, they didn’t get enough applications to proceed (there is a requirement to have a competitive pool) and they had to rewrite it and repost it several times, and open it to the public which is another whole process.
Employer who requires A, B and desires C, D, E, F, G, H will write "required: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H".
Applicants who have any subset of A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H will apply, since they know that most "required" listings in job ads really mean "some of these are required, but the others are just nice to have".
Why can’t employers write “required: A, B; desired: C, D, E, F, G, H” to make it more clear which are required and which are just nice to have?
