What is the message from this Salon article about a grad student living in a van?
-Stunts pay, if not in cash long-term, in publicity short-term?
-People who claim, "Living in a van was my grand social experiment" should consider a reduction in adjectives? (Other people can call your choice to live in a van "grand." You, the van-dweller, do not have this privilege.)
-People who are "worried" that Facebook groups will form on the topic of their "grand social experiment" could try to sound a tiny bit more sincere?
-Men who pose shirtless online and offer up statements like "I had a penchant for rugged living" must appeal to someone, or else they would not do this?
-College graduates whose parents offer to pay their rent and who nevertheless go for something like living in a van are living in a van because they can leave said van at any time without getting a new job?
-Don't go to a humanities grad program that doesn't at least pay your tuition?
Monday, December 7, 2009
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College graduates whose parents offer to pay their rent and who nevertheless go for something like living in a van are living in a van because they can leave said van at any time without getting a new job?
"Because"? You'd claim that he wouldn't live in a van if he didn't have the option to live elsewhere? At any rate he might reasonably feel an ethical obligation not to accept unnecessary charity from his parents, in which case whether they offer to pay his rent isn't really relevant.
Don't go to a humanities grad program that doesn't at least pay your tuition?
He had a job that gave him sufficient disposable income to cover his tuition. If he wants to spend it on frivolous grad school instead of on a comfortable apartment, foreign travel, eating out, or new clothes that is simply a matter of his taste in luxuries.
Not that he isn't a wanker, for the other reasons you point out.
OK, I think there's a difference, a huge one, between van-because-of-no-other-options, and van-because-of-noble-choice-to-reject-parental-supplementation. In his case, if the van didn't work out, he had a back-up plan and would not need to drop out of school. Now, one way to address fear of eternal dependency, (more) loans, etc. is to look for post-college options that pay, rather than demand payment. Which brings us to...
With humanities grad school, they say, certain programs admit you but still send a message about whether this is the best thing for you via funding or lack thereof. If the van-dweller was so well-suited to grad school to begin with, and did not already have a day job he needed to work around that would require going the MA route, perhaps he'd have chosen a program that funded him, thereby making the van unnecessary. It seems a dramatic sacrifice for something potentially not the best idea in the first place.
(And remember, he chose the van not over a "comfortable" apartment, but over an apartment. Grad students, funded or otherwise, tend to have roofs over their heads but "comfortable" is often a stretch. The basement room with no door I lived in my first year was not a van, but nevertheless...)
He seems to believe a master's degree is a basic good to which he is entitled like food, and so should be as cheap as food. This is kind of odd. Also, his cheapness is all wrong. The point of going to a school which will require you to take out loans in the first place is qualify you for a job that allows you to pay them off plus have money to spare, without having to move to Alaska. None of the jobs he had seem to have required a college degree at all. The real solution might've been i-banking. Also, no thrift-minded person would do an MA in "liberal studies" with no savings in the bank. Finally, he conflates taking out educational loans and being a spendthrift all around--buying iphones, designer clothes, etc.
Also, how much more can you brag about your rough outdoorsiness? "On winter nights, when the windows were coated with a frosty glaze, I'd wish for a woman to share the warmth of my sleeping bag." Oh, and I bet the women long for you, grizzled smelly vanboy.
I second the wanker comment.
He did find a post-college option that paid; that's how he's able to cover his tuition without going into debt.
I am a funded grad student, and would not have gone to grad school if my university had not thought me worth funding. This is my basis for asserting that his spending money on tuition is frivolous (though as much might have been guessed from his enrolling in the "liberal studies" department). That said, if he has so much disposable income that he can cover his tuition without accepting charity or going into debt, then this seems no more unreasonable than any other way he might spend it. Thrift is a legitimate pursuit whether one is actually poor, stuffing a mattress, or simply prioritising an Idiotic Selfish Purchase.
His rant about student debt seems only tangentially related to the van story, as he only seems to be talking about undergrads. Perhaps people not intending to get high-paying jobs should not go into debt to attend the most expensive universities, but it is hard to blame 17-year-olds for not making the best decisions in this regard. Blind faith that education always leads to opportunity is too common in many parts of American culture; I have friends who are unable to believe that even debt-funded grad school is a bad idea.
I don't think anyone here claims that full-fare grad school should be as cheap as food, but it does seem to be vastly overpriced. I have observed classes at relatively cheap public universities where the lecturer makes under $5000 for the semester while the students, if all were paying full price, would together pay over $50000 in per-credit-hour tuition.
Many years ago I considered applying to a grad program at UC Riverside. One of the graduate student housing options was the graduate RV park. I'm not kidding. I thought that was pretty cool, though I would not have taken the option. On closer inspection, though, you had to have your own RV, so I wonder if many people at all used it. I was in grad school for quite a while and never yet met a grad student with an RV. Perhaps Van Guy would have qualified.
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