Academia is a cult

[Music]

hi

i want to talk to you today about a cult

that is recruiting some of america’s

best and brightest young people

this cult has centers in every major

city and many small towns

and it keeps its victims for years those

who get caught in its clutches end up

coming out years later unemployed deeply

in debt

sometimes even homeless and physically

and mentally battered

what am i talking about i’m talking

about universities

universities that dangle the dream of

advanced degrees in front of smart and

talented people

with the promise of illustrious and

secure careers in academia

at the end of it they extract years of

effort tens or hundreds of thousands of

dollars in payment

only to eject those masters and phds at

the end

with job prospects self-esteem sometimes

even physical health and certainly

credit rating

virtually shattered how do i know this

because i myself am an escapee from the

university cult i’m a former tenured

professor

and department headed a big tent

institution and i’m sharing what i

saw as a phd student a faculty member

department head

and then as someone who left 10 years

ago to start a business called the

professor is

in now let me hasten to add when i say

universities indoctrinate smart students

into a cult

i don’t mean the fox news claim that

so-called leftist professors are

imposing marxism feminism and black

lives matter on our vulnerable

youth no what i mean is the professors

are selling the lie

that pursuing an advanced degree will

lead to a prestigious and secure

academic career

academia has not been a secure and

viable career since about the 1980s

because of 40 years of systemic

disinvestment

and with covid it has gotten

exponentially worse

between 2009 and 2018 almost all states

cut funding drastically

arizona cut by 55 percent

universities are now run on a corporate

walmart basis

cutting costs is the name of the game

and cutting full-time employees with

benefits is

absolutely the bottom line and just like

that just like walmart at universities

76 percent of faculty

are hired on a contingent precarious

basis

without benefits without full-time

secure positions

right now only two to seven percent of

people entering phd programs

will go on to get a secure tenure track

or tenured position

and yet almost every one of them goes

into these programs

believing they’re going to be the

exception and they are allowed to

believe that by their faculty members

and their advisors

and yet this graph shows in the field of

history the vast mismatch

between the phd’s awarded and the jobs

available for them

this information is not secret it’s

shared in the chronicle of higher

education the new york times

it’s everywhere but professors don’t

tell the truth about it

instead they like to engage in arcane

arguments about

should this be called an undersupply of

jobs or an oversupply of phds

but the stakes are very high 25 percent

of adjuncts are paid so poorly they

qualify for food stamps and welfare and

all of this

is funded by catastrophic debt grad

students

only constitute 15 of students but make

up 40

of debt grad school debt is the fastest

growing debt

and 25 percent borrow more than a

hundred thousand dollars

and full funding is no protection these

quote-unquote full-funding packages that

you departments offer

especially in the humanities and social

sciences they don’t cover

actual costs they are not pegged to

actual cost of living

so even students with full funding

packages still have to take out loans to

make ends meet

and of course covet has now caused a

staggering and unprecedented contraction

the greatest since the 1950s when the

labor bureau started keeping data

and so this uh situation i’m describing

is going to get exponentially worse in

the coming years

now you might ask if these students are

so smart why do they allow this to

happen

why do they enter this cult and why do

they stay

well first of all they’re flattered and

groomed

by their undergraduate professors for

whom the absolute highest praise is you

are so smart

you should go to graduate school and so

starry eyed and filled with hero worship

young students believe them and why

wouldn’t they so they go on

into phd programs like lambs to the

slaughter

and then once in those programs they’re

encompassed in groupthink

which ties identity to academic

achievement

only academic accomplishments are

legitimate everything else

is a failure and in fact

prioritizing financial compensation or

job security

is a betrayal of the religious ideology

and those who leave or try to do

something else are shamed

your very identity your sense of self is

tied up with

academic accomplishment exclusively so

students enter their programs but

they’re programs of gaslighting and

delusion

and suffering in poverty is not a sign

of failure but a sign of moral

righteousness self-sacrifice is good

martyrdom

is even better the most famous case of

course is

the catastrophic case of margaret mary

voiko an

83 year old adjunct in the field of

french who in 1983

died of a heart attack on her lawn after

being abruptly let go by duquesne

university

ironically a catholic university in

pittsburgh after 25 years of adjuncting

she said teaching is not a profession or

a career it’s a devotion a dedication

it should not be looked on as a job or

source of income

she died destitute and just last year

someone said to me karen teachers good

teachers give to their students till it

hurts

good teachers don’t look at the clock or

the bottom line

adjuncts take miserably low wages

because they love their students

unquote so this way of thinking is alive

and well at the present day

now love has entered our conversation

and that’s because

do what you love is the most perfect

ideological tool of capitalism

when you do what you love it hides the

fact that if we acknowledged all of our

work as work

we would set appropriate limits for it

demanding fair compensation and humane

schedules

as mia tokumitsu said in her book about

the do what you love phenomenon

so martyrdom in fact proves your purity

and the greatest victims those who are

the most in depth with the least job

security

for them the delusion of spiritual

superiority is really the only thing

left to cling to

now how do i know that because when i

left my academic job to start the

professors in

my business coaching grad students and

faculty

in employability and how to move on and

do

in their careers well i was called many

things but most of all i was called a

grifter

because to apply careerist thinking to

the holy mother church of academia

could only be a lie a cheat and a con

as some as an adjunct said about me just

a few months ago

i do think my adjunct job is morally

superior

to kelski’s in short

by helping people with their careers i

am apparently the donald trump of

academia

so consequently for anyone who tries to

leave it does feel like being cast out

in deep space

all alone rejected by everyone but it

should be clear by now it’s academia

that’s the grift

so what to do if you are in a graduate

program right now please know that your

choice to

pursue advanced degrees was an honorable

thing we need

people with advanced degrees desperately

to solve the urgent problems we’re

confronted with like global climate

change

immigration the rise of the right wing

and so on

the grift is when the risks of this

pursuit are misrepresented

and programs and professors gaslight

their students

so if you are currently a graduate

student no you can do something else

you don’t need institutional validation

you are already entrepreneurial

you have countless skills that you have

mastered on your path

your worth is not tied to either a

degree or an institution

or a particular career outcome

prioritizing a livable

income is an honorable choice you are

not becoming a monk

you do not need to take a pal a vow

of poverty you can reclaim your own

priorities

vis-a-vis the cult and some of those

might include getting paid for your work

living in a place you love not applying

to academic jobs

and remembering that you are not alone

there is support

a lot of support out there for those of

you who are students undergrad

students or parents of students please

ask this who’s teaching

your classes and where is your tuition

money going

because it’s not going to the teaching

faculty and tell your legislators to

adequately fund

higher education so in conclusion

when the spoken and unspoken messages

for people and phd programs that your

entire worth is tied to a career that is

no longer viable

know that you are being

told a lie ask that

higher education is adequately funded at

the state and federal level

and for all of you who are near the

academic cult you can reclaim your

autonomy

you can decide to do something else you

can declare the freedom

to move on good luck

[Music]

you