Another philosopher

Congratulations Ingrid!

Congratulations Ingrid (on the degree — I already congratulated on the pregnancy). I shouldn’t name him, because I heard this second hand, but I’ve heard of one Oxford Professor in a social science subject that throughout his adult life he has never not been enrolled in a higher degree course — he keeps taking higher degrees in different subjects because he’s interested in them. My own university, furthermore, has competitive fellowships for faculty members who want to pursue higher degrees in subjects other than those they teach in. SO my guess is that what you have done isn’t so unusual, and certainly isn’t something to keep quiet about.

Cool! Couldn’t agree more, and nice to know that it is possible. Would like to do the same thing some day, but it is also hard to see such an possibility arising…

Congratulations! If you want another example of such polymathy, consider Giuseppe Sinopoli, who apart from his career as a conductor and composer was a doctor of medicine, and at the time of his death was studying archaeology.

Peter Weller played Robocop and is now getting his PhD in History. WOW!

rickm — if we’re getting silly, Robert Vaughn (The Man from UNCLE) has a PhD in Communications — a serious one, which he published as a book: Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting. He wrote it while he was The Man from UNCLE.

Congratulations on both, Ingrid. I think it’s great. One of the more interesting cases like this I’ve seen was with Joan Weiner, professor of philosophy at Indiana University and expert on Frege who, while a professor a Wisconsin-Milwaukee in philosophy got an MS in biostatistics and epidemiology from the same university, 10 years after getting her PhD in philosophy from Harvard. As far as I can tell she did it mostly just because it interested her. I really admire such things.

Congratulations!

To come out as the lone voice against…

As admirable as it is for working academics to wish to expand the breadth of their studies, isn’t it at least a little troubling that such people are taking the places which would have gone to students? I’m particularly troubled by the advantage they would have during the application process.

Congratulations! I entirely agree, of course, having done something similar myself in law. I found I was a much better student as a professor– I knew what I was there to learn, and knew how to appreciate and take advantage of excellent teaching!

“To come out as the lone voice against…

As admirable as it is for working academics to wish to expand the breadth of their studies, isn’t it at least a little troubling that such people are taking the places which would have gone to students? I’m particularly troubled by the advantage they would have during the application process.”

It’s true that places are lost for others. On the other hand it’s in societies best interests for it’s academics to be as broadly informed as possible. I think these benefits outweight the losses.

Actually, places are not lost that would’ve gone to others. Grad schools for medicine, law, and business have limited enrollments and admissions is a zero sum game.

Other graduate schools, however, don’t have limited enrollments as much as limited finances. They can only give fellowships to a small number of grad students, and that itself limits how many they have. As long as a student is not getting a fellowship, they are most likely not taking a spot from another student at all. They are simply studying in a space that would otherwise be empty.

In the case of the Open University, of course, this isn’t even an issue. As far as I know, it has no cap on enrollment and will accept anyone who can pay the fee and handle the coursework.

Congratulations, Ingrid! And I second Aulus’ questions, for such time as you have some free time to ramble about it all.

Congratulations on both! Like others, I’d be curious to hear details about your experiences in the classroom as a student while a prof outside of that particular classroom.

Law schools that hire folks with a PhD in some field, but without a JD sometimes give these people time (as in time off from their own teaching) to take classes. While it may not lead to an actual degree, it does lead to a lot of knowledge. And talk about getting paid for learning. A friend of mine is doing this now (an economist) and seems to be loving it.

Is that the Milo I used to meet at department parties?

Frank Thompson has Phds in Economics and Philosophy, both, I think, from Harvard. He was also one of the founders of Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

When I received my MBA at the University of Toronto in 2004, I was the 60th person to receive a third Master’s degree from that institution.

I am now working on a thesis in partial fulfillment of my PhD requirements. It’s my second run at a doctorate.

I can’t really imagine a life away from learning.

In response to greg — it really does depend on the structure of the program, and on the interaction between the students. If Ingrid had sought to do a PhD in my department I’d have seen her presence as adding to the educational experience of others, regardless of the teaching resources she would have, technically, used. But the more general point seems right.

Ingrid – did you have feelings you were doing work which was beneath you? You’re in a position where your able enough to add new knowledge to economics, I’m just wondering if you felt you weren’t being productive just learning stuff at a lower level.

UK students are subsidised by the taxpayer. And because of the common market EU students are treated on the same basis and subsidized to the same extent that UK students are subsidised by UK taxpayers. It’s not really that scandalous and worth getting worked up about compared to other things that go on though. If I remember correctly the big problem with EU students is that lots of those resident in the UK take out loans funded by the UK government and then leave and can’t be forced to pay the money back.

leederick, both EU and overseas students provide a substantial financial net benefit to the UK

‘As for the course fees – non-UK European Students pay much more than UK students (the difference is something like 1200 vs 2000 UK Pounds), so I take it the non-UK European students are not subsidized.’

This is the reason. I am right that thanks to the common market EU citizens are all treated the same. So why the difference in fees? The difference is based upon residence (which is a bit odd for a distance learning course). The OU is subsidised per se, so all EU students are subsidised. However, one component of HE funding attachs specifically to students and only goes to those resident in the UK. The difference in fees is to make up this difference, and also to pay for things like extra postage and administration costs. This is in distinction to extra-EU students who are run at a profit and used to subsidise those inside the EU.

‘leederick, both EU and overseas students provide a substantial financial net benefit to the UK’

So what? What’s important is not whether they provide a financial net benefit, but whether a greater financial net benefit could provided by using the funding for other purposes (such as supporting students who are liable to pay their debts).

So what?

Well, firstly you would have to provide us with some hard data on exactly how many foreign students never pay back their subsidies and what that amounts to financially. While I’m sure that there are such cases I highly doubt that this is the norm and without such data your generalization amounts to a slur.

Then some countries provide students who study abroad and couldn’t otherwise afford it with financial assistance for both living expenses and tuition fees. Whether it’s paid by the government or the parents this money that goes directly into the UK economy and via taxation the budget. Also a lot of EU countries don’t have such high tuition fees and for UK students can study, for instance, in Germany basically for free.

The UK not actually manufacturing and exporting all that much is highly dependent on the influx of foreign money and foreign students are just part of that equation, which highly benefits the UK. Many of those decide to stay, start or are employed by UK companies and thus further benefit the UK economy.

Finally, the common market is indeed designed to level the differences between the EU member states and to give every EU citizen a fair shot at succeeding. The rich countries have been subsidizing countries like Ireland or Spain for decades without a lot of complaining and these now have taken off economically. Taking the long view this was to the benefit of everybody involved.

As Leederick pointed out the difference in fees is based on where the student is resident not their nationality. So a student from another EU country resident in the UK would pay the same fees as a UK student. And it would seem that a UK student resident in another EU country would have to pay the extra costs also.

Greg – As admirable as it is for working academics to wish to expand the breadth of their studies, isn’t it at least a little troubling that such people are taking the places which would have gone to students?

On the other hand, a working academic may well add far more in terms of skills to their fellow students’ experience of the course.

When I did my engineering degree there were several people there who had done their New Zealand Certificate in Engineering (the technicians’ course) and we learnt to grab them for labs and study groups due to their practical knowledge.

Regarding leederrick’s comment (#35):

“The OU is subsidised per se, so all EU students are subsidised. However, one component of HE funding attachs specifically to students and only goes to those resident in the UK.”

Unfortunately the OU’s subsidy is under threat. Under current government proposals, those students who already have a qualification at the same or lower level to one they already hold, won’t be subsidised by the UK government. So someone (a UK resident) in Ingrid’s position of having a PhD and then doing an MA have to pay the unsubsidised fee. If the policy goes through unchanged – there is still scope for modification – this will hit the OU very hard.

The OU (along with other affected institutions) has started a campaign against this policy. Details at http://www.backtheou.com. (I work at the OU so I’m not entirely disinterested in this matter!)

It’s about funding, not fees.