Vinay Prasad on cancer screening; Timothy Taylor on new business formation; Erik Hoel on consciousness; Paul Weinstein, Jr. on college administrative bloat
“...treating the mind as a ghost in the machine is the practical thing to do.” Oh? Why? What makes that position more practical than assuming - either is an assumption after all - that it nothing more or less than a manifestation of physical processes that we do not understand: We don’t know and perhaps, as Hoel suggests, never will. Starting with either assumption has consequences. I would argue that humility in the face of ignorance is the practical thing to do.
Is it possible that China is more free market at the local level than you’re implying? I think Keyu Jin made this point in her podcast with Coleman Hughes
Check out the inspiring story of Tao Huabi, creator of the most popular brand of "chili crisp" in the world. A surprising number of successful capitalist entrepreneurs in the "communist" party. I've done some small business in Chinese markets, and indeed, in many ways they are freer than those in America.
"He says that Isaac Newton would have been able to define “water,” even though he did not know the chemical formula for water that we use today."
No, he couldn't.* And this particular example weighs against Hoel's point. Definitions are merely rough and often clumsy and error-prone conventions, and can't do the hard lifting of sifting complicated objective facts from messy reality.
All such attempts to assign words to natural phenomena are prone to all kinds of problems deriving from one's ignorance. The use of the word across a time of rapid learning is not one of describing the same thing, with the earlier user of the word merely being ignorant of certain precise details. The very idea of -the nature- of thing Newton thought he was calling 'water' is quite different from a modern scientist's much more accurate idea.
The way all the top minds tried to use their definition of "water" at that time in fact had little relationship to what we know water to actually be today.
Why would future researchers into "consciousness" not laugh at the equal folly of anyone today trying to reason from the "expert consensus" use of current terminology, when the experts aren't able to do or prove very much with it? That would be much in the same way that Newton wasn't able to do much chemically with water. An appeal to authority now is no better than the appeal today, as we seem to know about as much about consciousness today as was known about water in Newton's day.
There are subtle yet critical distinctions between linguistic words like "define", "denote", "describe", "signify", and so forth. One gets accused of nitpicking when one points this out, but the differences are big and important, and the success or failure of an argument can hinge on whether one can used the right term the right way.
We use noun words like names of places on a map of the world of things and ideas. But that map is blurry with fuzzy and overlapping borders between territories, and often simply wrong in many places - like those ancient maps with islands that don't exist - depending on our background knowledge, assumptions, and understanding. The fact that Newton's map - his "definition" - of 'water' merely existed doesn't mean it was worth anything.
*When he attempted to 'define' "water" (and many other substances, often with fanciful occult names like "the green lion" for Lead Acetate) with greater precision than the scope of his actual knowledge, he did so inaccurately in ways that resulted in consistent failures in his lifelong fascination with Alchemy.
Like Keynes said in "Newton, The Man," after reading material which had been kept unpublished for over 200 years (!), "Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians ... "
He made himself sick with mercury poisoning from too much playing around with "the caducean rod" trying to 'ferment' it (in 'water'!) to make "philosophical mercury" which was an ingredient in the receipe for, you guessed it, "the philosopher's stone". That was according to the book by George Starkey, who attended Harvard in its first decade! The History of this stuff is fascinating.
This is one of the few areas Newton pursued with passion and vigor and with prolific correspondence over decades, and yet, in which he did not make any notable advances - let alone those at the level of his usual incredible genius - and where he went off in bad directions (e.g., the erroneous theory of chemical affinities) only plausible when one -doesn't- know things like modern chemical formulae.
And all this despite working on these matters at the dawn of modern scientific chemistry when great strides were being made by his contemporaries like Boyle. Bottom line is that Newton's definition of water didn't amount to much. Likewise, the current expert consensus definition of consciousness doesn't either.
"many of these administrators have to justify their existence by creating more regulations and processes." Fed loans to college students, the future elite, need to reduced.
For first year, Fed loans 80% (school the other 20%);
2nd year Fed loans 20%, all later years the school loans the full amount.
Colleges need a LOT more skin in the game of college loans.
The issue more autocratic systems have with business growth really stems from the fact that all business entities are also political entities in themselves. Creating a business is in effect creating a small, local, and limited subsidiary governmental unit. If you just allow people to create political-economic associations at will, it could threaten the state or its various means of extracting value. Economic dynamism requires at least some individual and corporate freedom.
There's a really easy solution that I'm surprised hasn't been suggested. Every admin except 1 has to occasionally do the job and substitute if they cannot find someone else to do it.
I can only speak to K-8, (I teach remedial reading), and I totally agree about the admin bloat.
The excuse is that now special needs kids are in school, and need more support. This works to an extent but as the parent of a special needs kid, the ones actually doing the work are never the administrative people, who view themselves as above.
I think there is a K-12 difference between private and public school, with the latter having more administrative bloat. But I like your idea about admin teaching--although I suspect you just need decision makers to know the difference between necessary and unnecessary admin.
The instant a school can afford an administrator, one is hired. It's such an easy way to provide a job, whether for nepotism or because the school cannot get rid of someone but doesn't want them to teach.
Ah, good point. If only there was a better way to allocate that money, ie to good teachers or for necessary student resources. Do you notice that special education is underfunded and understaffed where you live?
The bigger problem is incompetence. I literally had to make a system from scratch for my kid to be assured of competent, non abusive care. Things like trainings (on handling behaviors or educational techniques) are skimped on.
Admin tells the parents they can't find anyone. Well, no one can find someone if you're trying to pay 15/hour and Target pays 17. But they're not held accountable.
The problem is not being underfunded. The problem is administration being terrible at using the money.
Paras get paid about 17/hr. Paras do ALL the work. There is no incentive for them to do a good job, and there's every incentive for them to leave when someone offers them a better job.
I go to school myself with my son when we can't find him a para. But very few people can do that, or are willing.
So no. I think throwing more money at this problem is making it worse, not better. Cut an admin position and add a para job.
Good to know and thanks for sharing! The more I hear about sped in the US more disappointed and angered I become. Wish there was more being done about this on a systematic level. And a lot of things in education seem to be less about throwing money at things.
"I mean, even the proponents think it only lowers cancer death by 20%."
Harvard suggests it lowers cancer deaths by as much as 88%. Only one study I'm aware of suggested a value near 20% (it was actually an 18% reduction in deaths), and that was a study of the benefit of recommending screening to one set of patients, and not to another set - where only 42% of the patients who received the recommendation actually had the colonoscopy. I didn't see whether any of the non-recommendation patients independently had one anyway. But, an 18% reduction in overall deaths in the screening group suggests it may have been a 43% benefit among the sub-group who actually had the screening, which is much lower than the Harvard estimate but nowhere near 20%.
FWIW, recently met a dentist who described how he was not diagnosed with prostate cancer until it was already stage 4. How did this happen when his PSA number was "normal"? He claimed that his doctor noticed that his number had been at the upper limit of normal, but had climbed to meet the upper limit over time as he moved to older age brackets. So, suggested MRI might be a good idea...it revealed stage 4. The dentist is convinced an earlier MRI would've caught it much earlier, so now tells everyone to get the MRI.
I agree there is far more admin. Also likely more staff to support student life. How does one determine this addition is "bloat"? And what makes your opinion on what is needed better than those who made the decisions?
I'm kind of curious whether student workers are counted in those numbers and how the percent of students working on campus has changed.
The steelman argument for college admin bloat would be that they represent marketing expenditures. The "best" students are worth many multiples of what the weakest students are worth. You cannot even maintain some advanced programs with certain levels of student. The best way to attract students is to have rich, luxurious, and fulfilling student life, which requires a lot of administration and ongoing construction projects. The admins are then really more like an elite hotel's hospitality workers.
But no, they're really just there to embezzle government money for themselves like most of what goes on in higher education.
I agree that some portion of the added staff is much like hotel (or resort) staff in order to compete for students.
I think it is debatable whether this added staff is bloat. I have no clue how it constitutes embezzlement. Are they breaking any laws? Is it being done surreptitiously? Has the government expressed any displeasure regarding these expenditures?
I get that it makes college more expensive and this is bad for some. But one could argue the same for sports and numerous other extra activities that date back long before we were born. Why do you see this as less ok?
College is too affordable and should be far less subsidized by the government. They can start by dismantling the loan programs and finish off by eliminating its tax deductions.
The fraud is more metaphorical than actual because the government is happy to be stolen from: the universities are representing to the government that they are there to educate the population, which is why they qualify for a wide swath of tax breaks, but they are really just there to line their own pockets despite their many failures to educate the populace. When the government is all too happy allow the continual pillage of the taxpayer, you can wind up with very ugly situations.
My college, the one I have a degree from, of about 2000 students at the time (1985-88) had exactly one admin office with less than 10 people in it- the rest of the building was classrooms. The only time I ever dealt with any of them was in bringing the check for tuition. None of my professors had administrative assistants, and this was in the days before personal computers for the most part. The cafeteria as I remember it was run by a contract firm (Sysco, maybe), and the physical plant stuff was probably handled the same way. There were work-study students (I was one of them), but I am not really sure we did anything truly useful outside of the ones who aided in the cafeteria. I honestly don't know what that college is like today- it is much larger than it was 35 years ago, with a significantly larger footprint on the town itself- that is all I know about it. It would surprise me if the student/staff ratios are much smaller today, by like a magnitude or more.
I went to a university with 2,400 undergrads in the early 80s. 4,000 in the 2010's. I don't know how many staff there were but surely the number was many times bigger than you suggest. I have a hard time believing you included everything.
Head shed
Admissions office
Financial aid office
Student housing office
Student health clinic
Bursar (that you mention)
Physical infrastructure staff (that you mention)
Cafeteria staff (that you mention)
Student recreation
Intercollegiate athletics (coaches, trainers, other staff)
Lab staff
Every academic dept had at least one secretary/admin.
The administration staff was in an office suite- there were 8 people in it that I ever counted- the President, the Dean, Finance head, etc. As far I know in the 3 years I spent there, that was the only staff management staff at the college. There was no student recreation services- no gym, no pool nothing, there were only a few intercollegiate teams of any kind- men and womens basketball, and I think tennis was it. If my professors had a secretary admin, I never once saw them (perhaps handled by the main office for all I know)- I know the sciences building had none at all. No snack bars, newspaper stand etc. My college had none of the amenities yours seemed to have- it was mostly a commuter college that calls itself a university today.
And how many people does it take handle mail, Stu? One person should be able to do it for the entire staff and student body.
Like I wrote- it definitely wasn't 8 people, but most of the services maintenance stuff was done by contract employers as far as I could tell- the college didn't hire individuals to do those jobs. Pretty much all of the college's direct employees were the instructors.
Here is the Wiki for the school as of today- not really much of an increase in the student body, but now has post-graduates- something it didn't have when I was student. In my time was mostly a teacher's and nursing college- those were the divisions that had the majority of the students who trended older.
Until the US Feds reduce their "Fed cash loans for admin bloat" programs, the admin bloat won't go away.
But the Feds should be reducing their loans, anyway, and transferring the lending to the colleges-who are far more likely to improve their real education if repayment of the loans they give out goes to their own budget, which they'll be depending upon.
While I can't comment on any particular study without reading it, colleges almost never report student workers as employees unless they are semi-permanent. That is to say, semester long grader or TA/RA positions don't show up. Sometimes you see student held positions if the students are part time secretary type jobs, even if the students in the job change over time, but it is very rare. Rare in the "All the student age workers you see reported represent maybe 5% of the total students working."
There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but the two that come to mind for me:
The short term nature of the roles, which means they largely get ignored as a budgetary issue since a head count won't show most depending on the time (gather data in June and miss all of them).
The adhoc "hiring" process. In my experience faculty members are given a budget of sorts for assistants from the school (which is outside of money from grants or other work with outside groups, which is a whole other source of student worker funding). When I taught and wanted to find a grader for my class I just found a person, sent an email saying "Hey, So and So is my grader now. Please set them up to get paid." and they did and were. I doubt that information ever went much above the level of the department, despite being in the university SAP system. I have checked to see if I ever showed up as a listed employee in reports to the state when I taught as a grad student, for instance, and didn't see my name.
So, yea, if your role, position or tenure isn't sufficient to show up on an org chart, you aren't listed, and students thus almost never are.
Maybe so. I have no evidence you are wrong. That said I'm skeptical of the big picture. In an era of increasing contract work, being an RA or TA seems pretty permanent to me. At the schools I'm aware of they get decent benefits including health insurance that seems pretty good, especially for an early career worker. At the extreme, my younger family member just finished a PhD with a 5 year funding guarantee.
TAs in my day were the masters and doctoral students when I was in graduate school (Northwestern in chemistry). I was a TA for 3 years- I definitely was not an employee- it was part of my responsibilities in return for the right to study there. I was on a stipend with free tuition for the 4 years it took me to get my doctorate. I don't know what Hammer meant by RA (research assistant or resident assistant), but also in my day neither was considered an employee. My days as a post-doctoral student (Emory) would be a true research assistant- I was paid out of my mentor's grant funding just a little bit more than I got as a stipend as doctoral student. Since I didn't really teach students any longer, I don't really consider that university employment. I don't remember if they deducted payroll taxes or not (probably did)
I am struck by the similarity of the "systemic" style of pessimistic economic commentary about China with, well, the same regarding the US anytime there is a downturn. Then it bounces back and the pessimists invent some new excuse why.
I keep hoping for the day that education at all levels faces real economic competition. I will probably die hoping that.
All that real economic competition would do in education is create more teachers.
I am hoping it will get rid of the non-teachers.
“...treating the mind as a ghost in the machine is the practical thing to do.” Oh? Why? What makes that position more practical than assuming - either is an assumption after all - that it nothing more or less than a manifestation of physical processes that we do not understand: We don’t know and perhaps, as Hoel suggests, never will. Starting with either assumption has consequences. I would argue that humility in the face of ignorance is the practical thing to do.
Is it possible that China is more free market at the local level than you’re implying? I think Keyu Jin made this point in her podcast with Coleman Hughes
Check out the inspiring story of Tao Huabi, creator of the most popular brand of "chili crisp" in the world. A surprising number of successful capitalist entrepreneurs in the "communist" party. I've done some small business in Chinese markets, and indeed, in many ways they are freer than those in America.
Interesting! Thanks so much for sharing! What type of business?
"He says that Isaac Newton would have been able to define “water,” even though he did not know the chemical formula for water that we use today."
No, he couldn't.* And this particular example weighs against Hoel's point. Definitions are merely rough and often clumsy and error-prone conventions, and can't do the hard lifting of sifting complicated objective facts from messy reality.
All such attempts to assign words to natural phenomena are prone to all kinds of problems deriving from one's ignorance. The use of the word across a time of rapid learning is not one of describing the same thing, with the earlier user of the word merely being ignorant of certain precise details. The very idea of -the nature- of thing Newton thought he was calling 'water' is quite different from a modern scientist's much more accurate idea.
The way all the top minds tried to use their definition of "water" at that time in fact had little relationship to what we know water to actually be today.
Why would future researchers into "consciousness" not laugh at the equal folly of anyone today trying to reason from the "expert consensus" use of current terminology, when the experts aren't able to do or prove very much with it? That would be much in the same way that Newton wasn't able to do much chemically with water. An appeal to authority now is no better than the appeal today, as we seem to know about as much about consciousness today as was known about water in Newton's day.
There are subtle yet critical distinctions between linguistic words like "define", "denote", "describe", "signify", and so forth. One gets accused of nitpicking when one points this out, but the differences are big and important, and the success or failure of an argument can hinge on whether one can used the right term the right way.
We use noun words like names of places on a map of the world of things and ideas. But that map is blurry with fuzzy and overlapping borders between territories, and often simply wrong in many places - like those ancient maps with islands that don't exist - depending on our background knowledge, assumptions, and understanding. The fact that Newton's map - his "definition" - of 'water' merely existed doesn't mean it was worth anything.
*When he attempted to 'define' "water" (and many other substances, often with fanciful occult names like "the green lion" for Lead Acetate) with greater precision than the scope of his actual knowledge, he did so inaccurately in ways that resulted in consistent failures in his lifelong fascination with Alchemy.
Like Keynes said in "Newton, The Man," after reading material which had been kept unpublished for over 200 years (!), "Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians ... "
He made himself sick with mercury poisoning from too much playing around with "the caducean rod" trying to 'ferment' it (in 'water'!) to make "philosophical mercury" which was an ingredient in the receipe for, you guessed it, "the philosopher's stone". That was according to the book by George Starkey, who attended Harvard in its first decade! The History of this stuff is fascinating.
This is one of the few areas Newton pursued with passion and vigor and with prolific correspondence over decades, and yet, in which he did not make any notable advances - let alone those at the level of his usual incredible genius - and where he went off in bad directions (e.g., the erroneous theory of chemical affinities) only plausible when one -doesn't- know things like modern chemical formulae.
And all this despite working on these matters at the dawn of modern scientific chemistry when great strides were being made by his contemporaries like Boyle. Bottom line is that Newton's definition of water didn't amount to much. Likewise, the current expert consensus definition of consciousness doesn't either.
"many of these administrators have to justify their existence by creating more regulations and processes." Fed loans to college students, the future elite, need to reduced.
For first year, Fed loans 80% (school the other 20%);
2nd year Fed loans 20%, all later years the school loans the full amount.
Colleges need a LOT more skin in the game of college loans.
The issue more autocratic systems have with business growth really stems from the fact that all business entities are also political entities in themselves. Creating a business is in effect creating a small, local, and limited subsidiary governmental unit. If you just allow people to create political-economic associations at will, it could threaten the state or its various means of extracting value. Economic dynamism requires at least some individual and corporate freedom.
There's a really easy solution that I'm surprised hasn't been suggested. Every admin except 1 has to occasionally do the job and substitute if they cannot find someone else to do it.
I can only speak to K-8, (I teach remedial reading), and I totally agree about the admin bloat.
The excuse is that now special needs kids are in school, and need more support. This works to an extent but as the parent of a special needs kid, the ones actually doing the work are never the administrative people, who view themselves as above.
I think there is a K-12 difference between private and public school, with the latter having more administrative bloat. But I like your idea about admin teaching--although I suspect you just need decision makers to know the difference between necessary and unnecessary admin.
The instant a school can afford an administrator, one is hired. It's such an easy way to provide a job, whether for nepotism or because the school cannot get rid of someone but doesn't want them to teach.
And once formed, the admin position lasts forever
Ah, good point. If only there was a better way to allocate that money, ie to good teachers or for necessary student resources. Do you notice that special education is underfunded and understaffed where you live?
The bigger problem is incompetence. I literally had to make a system from scratch for my kid to be assured of competent, non abusive care. Things like trainings (on handling behaviors or educational techniques) are skimped on.
Admin tells the parents they can't find anyone. Well, no one can find someone if you're trying to pay 15/hour and Target pays 17. But they're not held accountable.
The problem is not being underfunded. The problem is administration being terrible at using the money.
Paras get paid about 17/hr. Paras do ALL the work. There is no incentive for them to do a good job, and there's every incentive for them to leave when someone offers them a better job.
I go to school myself with my son when we can't find him a para. But very few people can do that, or are willing.
So no. I think throwing more money at this problem is making it worse, not better. Cut an admin position and add a para job.
Good to know and thanks for sharing! The more I hear about sped in the US more disappointed and angered I become. Wish there was more being done about this on a systematic level. And a lot of things in education seem to be less about throwing money at things.
There's spedwatch in Massachusetts, a worthy organization!
The real issue is that severely disabled children should not be the responsibility of public schools at all.
"I mean, even the proponents think it only lowers cancer death by 20%."
Harvard suggests it lowers cancer deaths by as much as 88%. Only one study I'm aware of suggested a value near 20% (it was actually an 18% reduction in deaths), and that was a study of the benefit of recommending screening to one set of patients, and not to another set - where only 42% of the patients who received the recommendation actually had the colonoscopy. I didn't see whether any of the non-recommendation patients independently had one anyway. But, an 18% reduction in overall deaths in the screening group suggests it may have been a 43% benefit among the sub-group who actually had the screening, which is much lower than the Harvard estimate but nowhere near 20%.
WSJ has an interesting column today about prostate cancer.https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/when-screening-for-prostate-cancer-comes-too-late-1e364678
FWIW, recently met a dentist who described how he was not diagnosed with prostate cancer until it was already stage 4. How did this happen when his PSA number was "normal"? He claimed that his doctor noticed that his number had been at the upper limit of normal, but had climbed to meet the upper limit over time as he moved to older age brackets. So, suggested MRI might be a good idea...it revealed stage 4. The dentist is convinced an earlier MRI would've caught it much earlier, so now tells everyone to get the MRI.
"college administrative bloat"
I agree there is far more admin. Also likely more staff to support student life. How does one determine this addition is "bloat"? And what makes your opinion on what is needed better than those who made the decisions?
I'm kind of curious whether student workers are counted in those numbers and how the percent of students working on campus has changed.
The steelman argument for college admin bloat would be that they represent marketing expenditures. The "best" students are worth many multiples of what the weakest students are worth. You cannot even maintain some advanced programs with certain levels of student. The best way to attract students is to have rich, luxurious, and fulfilling student life, which requires a lot of administration and ongoing construction projects. The admins are then really more like an elite hotel's hospitality workers.
But no, they're really just there to embezzle government money for themselves like most of what goes on in higher education.
I agree that some portion of the added staff is much like hotel (or resort) staff in order to compete for students.
I think it is debatable whether this added staff is bloat. I have no clue how it constitutes embezzlement. Are they breaking any laws? Is it being done surreptitiously? Has the government expressed any displeasure regarding these expenditures?
I get that it makes college more expensive and this is bad for some. But one could argue the same for sports and numerous other extra activities that date back long before we were born. Why do you see this as less ok?
College is too affordable and should be far less subsidized by the government. They can start by dismantling the loan programs and finish off by eliminating its tax deductions.
The fraud is more metaphorical than actual because the government is happy to be stolen from: the universities are representing to the government that they are there to educate the population, which is why they qualify for a wide swath of tax breaks, but they are really just there to line their own pockets despite their many failures to educate the populace. When the government is all too happy allow the continual pillage of the taxpayer, you can wind up with very ugly situations.
My college, the one I have a degree from, of about 2000 students at the time (1985-88) had exactly one admin office with less than 10 people in it- the rest of the building was classrooms. The only time I ever dealt with any of them was in bringing the check for tuition. None of my professors had administrative assistants, and this was in the days before personal computers for the most part. The cafeteria as I remember it was run by a contract firm (Sysco, maybe), and the physical plant stuff was probably handled the same way. There were work-study students (I was one of them), but I am not really sure we did anything truly useful outside of the ones who aided in the cafeteria. I honestly don't know what that college is like today- it is much larger than it was 35 years ago, with a significantly larger footprint on the town itself- that is all I know about it. It would surprise me if the student/staff ratios are much smaller today, by like a magnitude or more.
I went to a university with 2,400 undergrads in the early 80s. 4,000 in the 2010's. I don't know how many staff there were but surely the number was many times bigger than you suggest. I have a hard time believing you included everything.
Head shed
Admissions office
Financial aid office
Student housing office
Student health clinic
Bursar (that you mention)
Physical infrastructure staff (that you mention)
Cafeteria staff (that you mention)
Student recreation
Intercollegiate athletics (coaches, trainers, other staff)
Lab staff
Every academic dept had at least one secretary/admin.
Mail handling, snack bars, newspaper stand, etc.
I'm sure there are many others I'm still missing.
The administration staff was in an office suite- there were 8 people in it that I ever counted- the President, the Dean, Finance head, etc. As far I know in the 3 years I spent there, that was the only staff management staff at the college. There was no student recreation services- no gym, no pool nothing, there were only a few intercollegiate teams of any kind- men and womens basketball, and I think tennis was it. If my professors had a secretary admin, I never once saw them (perhaps handled by the main office for all I know)- I know the sciences building had none at all. No snack bars, newspaper stand etc. My college had none of the amenities yours seemed to have- it was mostly a commuter college that calls itself a university today.
And how many people does it take handle mail, Stu? One person should be able to do it for the entire staff and student body.
Like I wrote- it definitely wasn't 8 people, but most of the services maintenance stuff was done by contract employers as far as I could tell- the college didn't hire individuals to do those jobs. Pretty much all of the college's direct employees were the instructors.
Here is the Wiki for the school as of today- not really much of an increase in the student body, but now has post-graduates- something it didn't have when I was student. In my time was mostly a teacher's and nursing college- those were the divisions that had the majority of the students who trended older.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pikeville
Until the US Feds reduce their "Fed cash loans for admin bloat" programs, the admin bloat won't go away.
But the Feds should be reducing their loans, anyway, and transferring the lending to the colleges-who are far more likely to improve their real education if repayment of the loans they give out goes to their own budget, which they'll be depending upon.
That at the end should have read "It wouldn't surprise me".
you can click on the 3 dots (ellipsis) to allow you to edit / correct the comment. I do that a lot.
... and just now tested it for this comment.
I know that, but usually forget it when it is needed.
While I can't comment on any particular study without reading it, colleges almost never report student workers as employees unless they are semi-permanent. That is to say, semester long grader or TA/RA positions don't show up. Sometimes you see student held positions if the students are part time secretary type jobs, even if the students in the job change over time, but it is very rare. Rare in the "All the student age workers you see reported represent maybe 5% of the total students working."
There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but the two that come to mind for me:
The short term nature of the roles, which means they largely get ignored as a budgetary issue since a head count won't show most depending on the time (gather data in June and miss all of them).
The adhoc "hiring" process. In my experience faculty members are given a budget of sorts for assistants from the school (which is outside of money from grants or other work with outside groups, which is a whole other source of student worker funding). When I taught and wanted to find a grader for my class I just found a person, sent an email saying "Hey, So and So is my grader now. Please set them up to get paid." and they did and were. I doubt that information ever went much above the level of the department, despite being in the university SAP system. I have checked to see if I ever showed up as a listed employee in reports to the state when I taught as a grad student, for instance, and didn't see my name.
So, yea, if your role, position or tenure isn't sufficient to show up on an org chart, you aren't listed, and students thus almost never are.
Maybe so. I have no evidence you are wrong. That said I'm skeptical of the big picture. In an era of increasing contract work, being an RA or TA seems pretty permanent to me. At the schools I'm aware of they get decent benefits including health insurance that seems pretty good, especially for an early career worker. At the extreme, my younger family member just finished a PhD with a 5 year funding guarantee.
TAs in my day were the masters and doctoral students when I was in graduate school (Northwestern in chemistry). I was a TA for 3 years- I definitely was not an employee- it was part of my responsibilities in return for the right to study there. I was on a stipend with free tuition for the 4 years it took me to get my doctorate. I don't know what Hammer meant by RA (research assistant or resident assistant), but also in my day neither was considered an employee. My days as a post-doctoral student (Emory) would be a true research assistant- I was paid out of my mentor's grant funding just a little bit more than I got as a stipend as doctoral student. Since I didn't really teach students any longer, I don't really consider that university employment. I don't remember if they deducted payroll taxes or not (probably did)
I am struck by the similarity of the "systemic" style of pessimistic economic commentary about China with, well, the same regarding the US anytime there is a downturn. Then it bounces back and the pessimists invent some new excuse why.