Mastodawn

Half of all science publishers quit within 10 years. Women quit more than men. Bunch of quitters!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03222-7

🤔Quit? Or were driven out?

My favorite* part is that women in CompSci, Engineering, Math, and Physics, are less likely to stop publishing than women in less sexist academic fields. Possibly because we run young girls in Math/CS/Eng/Physics through a sexism gauntlet from day 1, so by the time they're grown women the survivors cope with gendered hostility better.😮

(*Least)

Nearly 50% of researchers quit science within a decade, huge study reveals

Twenty years of publishing data across many countries and disciplines show women are more likely than men to leave research.

This is EU data, but speaking of math: US people, don't do the math on being a poor Black girl with straight As, who takes out loans for 4 years of undergraduate tuition + 5 years of grad school tuition to get a PhD, and then only being able to use it for under 9 years. 🤡

Brilliant Black girls tend to have much poorer parents than the average American, and so need to borrow more for college. They're also more likely to excel in school and complete more levels than Black boys.

1/N

20 years after the first year of college, the typical white student has paid down 94% of their borrowed amount.👍🏻

20 years after the first year of college, the typical Black student still owes 95% of their initial borrowed amount.😮

So US college education and loans *increase* the racial wealth gap, not reduce it🙂🙃

https://dfpi.ca.gov/2023/02/13/student-loan-debt-a-disproportionate-burden-on-black-and-latino-borrowers/

Which is the real reason that some US folk are so against student loan forgiveness: much of that *$2 trillion* in debt, is held by educated Black women.

2/N

And for my European friends that are struggling to understand the economics of this:

Most of the Black women that still owe 95% of the original loan amount, have been making the required payment amounts, every month, for 20 years.

Imagine I clone you 3 times, making clone1, clone2, and clone3 of you.

Clone1 I lend €1,000.00

Clone2 I lend €100,000.00

Clone3 I lend €1,000,000,000.00

All at 6% interest.

Based on income, I set the monthly repayment amount to be €200.00. I am so kind!🤡

3/N

craignicol Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke is the root problem the salary gap (and likely the mortgage gap, in that black workers are far less likely to have the inherited wealth required to get a mortgage) which means lower payments and therefore more interest, or is there extra racism built in to student loans on top of that?

1. Lots of stuff. In the 80s, a Reagan advisor said that if college was affordable, that we would create an "educated proletariat." So they made college more expensive for most Black people.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/110794448767679670

2. Black families have less wealth (because racism), so need to borrow more just to attend college. Then, they can't earn enough to pay it back, because they're paid less for doing the same job (more racism).

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Not just "seem to exist" College used to be cheap. Then Roger Freeman (worked for Nixon and Reagan) said “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].” Reagan agreed. So they changed state college tuition structure to what it is today. And now here we are. 🤷🏿‍♂️ https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/

Hachyderm.io

craignicol Oct 5, 2024

@mekkaokereke thanks. 2 was what I expected, but 1 is new to me. It took until Blair for college to be paid for over here, which is still shit, bit a lot less baggage coming from the socialist side of the aisle. Far more of a betrayal though.

craignicol Oct 5, 2024

@mekkaokereke but that's before Blair was busy running defence for Bush and everyone saw who he really was.

Pete Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke Holy crap, 95% after 20 years! That statistic really deserves the 😮

isotope239 🥸💻🇺🇦😣Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke I might add that "some US folk" (cough cough, REPUBLICANS) specifically don't like educated Black women because people like Jasmine Crockett, Fani Willis, and Letitia James are extremely competent and never hesitate to speak truth to power.

Venita Oct 4, 2024

@isotope239 @mekkaokereke It's not only Republicans. The biggest pushback I received during my work life was from women White and Black. There were the benevolent White women benefactors who let you know your place, and the Black women fighting for ever shrinking slice of promotion pie.

mattg Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke I imagine there was a brief time when Sallie Mae actually made college more affordable, but at this point, it's just rocket fuel for university greedflation.

Sheeb Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke always loved this graph demonstrating how wealthy, 'bad' students are for more likely to graduate from college than non-wealthy, 'good' students.

Ben Ramsey Oct 4, 2024

@Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke Do you have a link to the source for this graph? I’d like to share the source.

Sheeb Oct 4, 2024

@ramsey @mekkaokereke I'm actually looking for it... I'll let you know

Sheeb Oct 4, 2024

@ramsey @mekkaokereke I think this is it...

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html?_r=0

Who Gets to Graduate?

Rich students complete their college degrees; working-class students like Vanessa Brewer usually don’t. Can the University of Texas change her chances of success?

The New York Times

Darrin West Oct 4, 2024

@Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke This makes a great case for free education (even give it to the rich, I don’t care). Look at all those lost opportunities for our society in the lower line. They could have been helped (by normalizing the income gap), then we would all have been better off (by having more smart citizens with degrees). Instead, the arrogance of the bootstraps view is hurting us all.

Sheeb Oct 4, 2024

@obviousdwest 100%. We don't need means testing. We just need services.

Jürgen Hubert Oct 4, 2024

@obviousdwest @Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke

Speaking as a German from a working class family, American-style tuition fees certainly would have scared me away from studying.

In fact, during my studies of physics, I did contemplate going to the USA as an exchange student. But then I took a look at the tuition fees they charged(*) at the American university that my own was partnered with, thought: "Are these guys NUTS?", and decided to go to Scotland instead.

And I am very glad that public German universities _still_ don't charge any tuition fees.

(*) That was $8000 per term, back in the late 1990s. I gather that tuition fees at American universities have increased a tad since then.

Jürgen Hubert Oct 4, 2024

@obviousdwest @Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke

Mind you, there's of course still racism and sexism in the German education system. Just not in _this_ part.

@juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

But why is US education so expensive? By now, y'all already know.

Why is everything that's weird and self-destructive in the US that way? The answer is of course racism.

Eg, in the 80s, an advisor to Ronald Reagan warned that cheap college tuition leads to "an educated proletariat," which he didn't want. So to prevent this, they intentionally made college education unaffordable for most. Seriously.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/110794448767679670

1/N

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Not just "seem to exist" College used to be cheap. Then Roger Freeman (worked for Nixon and Reagan) said “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].” Reagan agreed. So they changed state college tuition structure to what it is today. And now here we are. 🤷🏿‍♂️ https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/

Hachyderm.io

@juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

And again, Black folk are *disproportionally* impacted, because we are *more likely* to be poor. But there are many times more white folk than Black folk in the US. There are so many of you!

👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻🧔🏿‍♂️👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻👴🏻

What this means, is that there are a lot of poor white people. And a system designed like this *hurts white people the most*.

Let me say it again more directly: poor white kids get hurt most by the anti-Black racism of US college financing.🙂🙃

Grassroots Joe Oct 5, 2024

@mekkaokereke @juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

If you don't believe Mekka, go read Heather McGhee's great book on the subject, The Sum of Us.

In fact go read it even if you do believe him. It's a great book.

BenCgva Oct 5, 2024

@joeinwynnewood @mekkaokereke @juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter
The Sum of Us really is a great book.

I'm an American living in Europe for the last 7 years. There is plenty of racism over here, but it has never distorted society like it has in the USA. Indeed, America is so racist, when you criticize racism they think you're criticizing America.

Jürgen Hubert Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter

In #Germany, the proletariat is kept away from universities in a different manner.

While this varies by region, many of the German states channel kids into three different school types after fourth grade (around the age of 10 or so):

- Gymnasium (grammar school): Students who complete the Gymnasium get the "Abitur", which is the primary entrance requirement for universities. (Some particularly popular fields of study such as Law or Medicine require high grade averages, but less popular ones like Physics do not)

- Realschule: Children who go there tend to go to trade schools after finishing Realschule. This doesn't have as much negative status in Germany in the USA - the German trade school system is top notch. Still, university degrees have a higher social status.

- Hauptschule: Students who finish Hauptschule might be able to get some trade apprenticeship, but this school type has increasingly become the dumping ground for children the German education system has given up on.

So how do children get into one of these three school types? Well, their grades in 4th grade matter - but so do the recommendations of their primary teachers. Who might have a whole bunch of prejudices about children from nonwhite, working class, or immigrant backgrounds.

Parents who have an academic degree of their own tend to know what matters and how to ensure that their children get into the Gymnasium, but parents from poorer backgrounds often do not. It _is_ possible to get the Abitur later on, but that requires extra effort and more years of study, and many do not bother.

I came from a working class background and was lucky enough to get into the Gymnasium, study, and even get a PhD. But many other children in Germany from disadvantaged backgrounds aren't so lucky.

Alexandre Morin Oct 6, 2024

@obviousdwest @juergen_hubert @mekkaokereke @Shebeencounter educated working class is bad for rich people. The lack of empathy is eye-watering.
Nowadays, the owner class is trying to lock out the white collar upper-middle class from the means to join them. AI to the rescue of the billionaires, those struggling saps…

Veronika Cheplygina Oct 5, 2024

@juergen_hubert @obviousdwest @Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke I wanted to go the UK in the zeroes but the tuition fee without an EU passport was astronomical

And glad that the Netherlands based its tuition on citizenship status, rather than nationality

PJ "Vote Green" Coffey Oct 5, 2024

@Shebeencounter

Even a dumbass rich kid is more likely to graduate by about 8% points than the smartest poor kid?

That is quite a thing to see.

Brian Marick Oct 17, 2024

@Shebeencounter @mekkaokereke Thanks for the graph. For no good reason at all, I’m writing an essay on the various rhetorical tricks Dinesh D’Souza uses to put across his lies in /Illiberal Education/. Your graph helped illustrate a point.

mhoye Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke This is what makes "we'll fix this by recruiting underrepresented minorities into STEM" such a terrible idea.

If I went to an engineer and said "half of these widgets are silently and unaccountably falling out the side of this process", and their solution was "we just need to shove more widgets in the front", they'd be laughed out of their job.

But we said that about underrepresentation in STEM/FOSS for _years_. And all it did was let a bunch of awful people avoid accountability.

ShadSterling Oct 4, 2024

@mekkaokereke when I first learned what grad school was I also learned the adage that if they won’t pay you to do it you’re probably not good enough. I guess grad student stipends were enough to live on for my parents’ generation; I think we should go back to that and then some, in addition to being more inclusive both in school and out

Elizabeth Sudduth Oct 4, 2024

@ShadSterling @mekkaokereke Grad school stipends now are not terrible. Our alumni who go to grad school, who mostly grow up scraping by and then work throughout college, no loans, find their grad stipends adequate to live on.

Assuming the Black woman did her 5 years of PhD in a funded research position in a reasonable cost-of-living area with a general knowledge of how to get by with a lower income, she should be okay and not need loans. She definitely should have tuition waived.

@hydropsyche @ShadSterling

GA is the least bad state to go to college / grad school for Black woman.♥️ Which is part of why the *city* of Atlanta has more Black doctors than many other *entire states* in the US. Not kidding.

But it's still not great. By the time we even get to grad stipends, many Black women (~82%) are already an average of $35K in debt. And the amount that those women owe, goes up 4 years after graduation, not down.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/student-loan-debt-by-race/

2024 Student Loan Debt by Race | BestColleges

Student loan debt varies drastically by race. Find student loan demographics, Black student loan debt statistics, and debt by race and gender.

BestColleges.com

Michael Busch Oct 4, 2024

@ShadSterling @mekkaokereke In California as of 2022; graduate students were not getting paid much more than I got paid in Pasadena 15 years before that, while the cost of living was far higher.

It took unionization and strikes to get the current students the 50% raise they needed.

And, per earlier comments, there is systemic exclusion at the undergraduate level before that.