Dr. Amy B Hollingsworth Berkhouse
  • Home
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • The Seven Minute Scientist
  • About Me
  • Biology With Technology
  • Free Biology Resources for High School Teachers
  • Technology Tools for Graduate Students
  • Amy on The Web
  • Getting Organized as a Grad Student
  • Nerdy Inspiration
  • Blog
  • Five Ways to Get a Busy Professor to Answer Your Emails, That Don't Involve a Bribe
  • 3 Ways to Get or Give a Great Letter of Recommendation
  • The 13 Things That Motivated Me to Get A PhD

Is the Path Out of Poverty the Path Right Back Into Poverty? Is Pushing For "Diversity in STEM Education" a Bad Idea?

4/4/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
STEM education is in the news, and is often touted as the best college career path ANY student can take. STEM is also criticized for not having enough minority student interest. Historically, STEM is very white, and very Asian. Pushing low-income, first-generation minorities into STEM fields may not be the “great idea” that it appears to be, from the outside. The headline on The Inside Higher Education blog reads:

New Push to Boost Numbers of Minority STEM Ph.D.s

California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles jointly announced a new effort Thursday to increase the number of minority Ph.D.s in science, mathematics and technology fields. The four universities will create "a unique, cross-institutional community of underrepresented minority Ph.D. students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty members in the targeted fields; developing faculty training to better recognize and help these students thrive and advance; and conducting research that includes annual surveys of Ph.D. students about what factors impact their attitudes, experiences and preparation for the future," the announcement said.

On the surface, this seems like a noble goal. Get more minority students into STEM. Exciting! But, on the same website, is this headline about how blacks and Latinos are taking on more debt than their white counterparts:

Debt, Race and Ph.D.s

Colleges and universities -- not to mention many businesses -- have been pushing for gains in the numbers of black and Latino students who earn doctorates, especially in STEM or social science fields.

A new study may point to one hindrance in making progress toward this goal. Black and Latino graduate students are more likely to borrow and more likely to borrow larger sums to earn a Ph.D. than are white or Asian graduate students. The figures are particularly striking for African Americans and for STEM fields.


And in light of the reoccurring theme on The Chronicle of Higher Education, Insider Higher Ed, The Huffington Post, and countless other websites, it is becoming almost impossible to find a tenure-track, high paying job. One article talks about rejection, frustration, giving up searching, and living in despair. Here, a report from Congress about adjuncts, and the lower compensation and unpredictable schedules they face:

The median respondent salary was $22,041, below the federal poverty line for a family of four ($23,550), although the typical course load was difficult to ascertain from the online forum (with adjuncts reporting as many as 10 courses per semester). Some 89 percent of respondents teach at two or more institutions, and most can’t depend on assignments from semester to semester. Many also said they relied on help from family members and government assistance to survive, despite having advanced degrees. More than 50 percent of respondents had Ph.D.s and 30 percent held master’s degrees.

Respondents also reported low prospects for advancement to tenure-line or full-time jobs, and 89 percent said they received no professional support for teaching or research from their institutions. The average length of time respondents said they’d worked as an adjunct was 10 years. The median length of time was four years.


“Growing up in a poor neighborhood … I believed earning several college degrees would be my path out of poverty, but that is no longer the case,” one adjunct said.


So, is the path out of poverty a path right back into poverty? The likelihood of achieving the tenure-track dream is so small and wrought with emotional turmoil and anxiety, is it worth it to push minority students down this path? They may end up in a worse place – saddled with student loan debt, stuck in an adjuncting position that pays below the poverty level, and without the necessary skills to advance in a non-academic position – than they were before they began “pursuing their dreams.” Is higher education the path out of poverty, or the dream-crusher that mounts added liabilities and wastes precious time? How do you know when higher education is the problem, or the solution?

1 Comment
    Picture
    Dr. Amy B. Hollingsworth

    Author

    Dr. Amy B Hollingsworth has worked in education for over 20 years. Most recently, she was a Learning Coach at the NIHF STEM School in Akron. She served as the Executive Director of Massillon Digital Academy. She was the District Technology Specialist at Massillon. She also was the Natural Science Biology Lab Coordinator at The University of Akron. She specializes in Biology Curriculum and Instruction, STEM education, and technology integration. She has written six lab manuals, and an interactive biology ebook. She has dedicated her life to teaching and learning, her children - Matthew, Lilly, and Joey, her husband Ryan, and her NewfiePoo Bailey.

    What's Amy Reading?

    • College Insurrection
    • The Chronicle of Higher Education
    • Digital Learning in Higher Ed
    • HuffPo College
    • Girls in STEM
    • The Simple Dollar
    • Tim Ferriss
    • Edudemic
    • Mashable
    • Inside Higher Ed
    • Gawker
    • io9

    Archives

    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2012

    Categories

    All
    Academia
    Adjuncting
    Adjuncts
    AIDS
    Animal Research
    Animal Testing
    Being In Pain
    Best Ideas
    Big Data
    Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation
    Bill Gates
    Biology
    Blogging
    Brainstorming
    Budgets
    Bullying
    Career Paths
    Challenges
    Charter Schools
    Choices
    Civilization
    College Ready
    Common Core
    Community Colleges
    Creation
    Creativity
    Critics
    Cruelty
    Culture
    Debt
    Degrees
    Democracy
    Discipline
    Discrimination
    Diversity
    Dream Big
    Easy Courses
    Ed Tech
    Education
    Engaged
    Engineering
    Evaluation
    Evolution
    Experiments
    Facebook
    Facebook Memes
    Faculty
    Failure
    Finance
    First Generation
    Flexibility
    Flipping Classes
    Fluff Majors
    For-profit Institutions
    Free Apps
    Gender
    Global Education
    Goals
    Good Habits
    Google Docs
    Google Scholar
    Government
    Grad School
    Guppy
    Hard Courses
    Higher Ed
    Humble
    Inequality
    Inside Higher Education
    Inspiration
    Low Income
    Majors
    Minorities
    Money
    Motivation
    My Faith
    Natural Sciences
    NCLB
    Negative Talk
    Pedagogy
    PhDs
    Politics
    Positive Attitudes
    Poverty
    Professional Development
    Professionals
    Professional Teaching Model
    Psychology
    Q Methodology
    Racism
    Religion
    Rigor
    Rules
    Science
    Scientists
    Social Media
    Social Sciences
    Society
    STEM
    Strength
    Stress
    Students
    Student Success
    Success
    Support
    Syllabi
    Teaching
    Technology
    TED Talks
    Tenure-Track
    Test Bashing
    Testing
    The Game
    The Humanities
    Time Management
    Universities
    U Of Akron
    Vaccines
    Value
    Videos
    Vocational Classes
    Web 2.0
    What Is Education Worth?
    Women
    Writing
    Youtube

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.