If the current economic state of academia seems grim, well, it is.
In an essay for Dissent, Claire Goldstene plumbs the ins and outs of student-loan debt, the exploitation of adjunct professors, and what it all means for the country at large (hint: bad stuff):
This connection between a more egalitarian politics and a liberal arts education that disrupts the status quo animates the continued assault by conservative forces against higher education, one manifested in reduced public funding for universities, a business-like insistence on quantifiable outcomes, and greater numbers of contingent faculty.