Coming out of my self-imposed hiatus long enough to say: this is best damn idea I’ve heard in a long time!
From Dr. Curmudgeon:
“One of the things I’m going to start asking about in interviews – just so someone starts thinking about it as a possibility since I’ve not encountered it anywhere else – is whether the university in question offers any sort of student loan assistance. I continue to think that schools are going to have to figure out ways to support junior faculty with mounting loan debts, and maybe if enough people ask, it’ll become an option. I actually floated a proposal to our union rep here (as I was trying to guard him in ultimate frisbee), and he seemed to think my idea was both and good and doable: that universities could offer a percent of salary each year to faculty towards their student loan debts the same way they towards 401k’s.” [Read the whole post.]
(Dr. C, if I could leave comments on your blog I would have said, “Right on!”)
Of course, considering the crumbling economy, I fear that we will see more cutbacks on faculty pay and “perks” (what are those?) rather than an increase … but a cranky, disillusioned academic can dream, can’t she?
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October 10, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Notorious Ph.D.
I liked this suggestion of his, too. In my case (and for my whole Uni), the “perk” that has been cut back on is two of of the four years of contractually-negotiated raises that we almost went on strike to get: poof! Gone…
October 13, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Dr. Curmudgeon
Sorry to hear you can’t post over there. I’ll take a look at my settings to see what’s what (I’m guessing though that it is probably because I’ve got posting security maxed out).
Interestingly, I also spoke with the dean of my college about it, and again the idea was well received (to the point that I was asked to find some articles to support the idea). So we’ll see how it goes.