The Complex Reality of Academia: Examining the Case of Daniel McKeown at UCLA
The story of Daniel McKeown, a lecturer in astrophysics at UCLA, has brought to light the multifaceted challenges facing academia today. McKeown's situation, marked by financial struggles despite holding a full-time lecturing position, sparked widespread discussion about the realities of academic employment, the rising cost of living, and the priorities of universities. His experience serves as a case study for understanding broader systemic issues, from the challenges faced by adjunct professors to the growing economic disparity affecting many sectors of society.
McKeown's Story: A Passionate Educator Facing Financial Hardship
Daniel McKeown's story gained public attention when he revealed that he was experiencing homelessness due to the high cost of living in Los Angeles, despite earning approximately $70,000 annually. He criticized UCLA for not providing a sufficient wage to cover basic living expenses, such as his $2,500 monthly rent. This situation is particularly striking given McKeown's dedication to teaching, reflected in his 4.7/5 rating on RateMyProfessor. He embodies someone deeply passionate about physics, clearly knowledgeable, and enjoys teaching, yet he struggles to survive in an expensive city like Los Angeles.
McKeown had been placed on administrative leave for moving his classes online, a decision he made based on his personal circumstances. He claimed that his superior was making an example out of him for speaking out and getting out of line. He expressed that last year he was not homeless when he was getting paid around $50k and wasn’t struggling financially because his expenses weren’t as high, such as the cost of his rent. When he took a new job with a higher salary of $70k, and his rent increased, he quickly realized that his income wasn’t enough to cover his bills and financial obligations. This awareness came after starting the new job position, leaving him to grapple with the reality that his income wouldn’t meet the rising costs of living.
Beyond Adjunctification: A Full-Time Lecturer's Struggle
McKeown's case differs from the more commonly discussed struggles of adjunct professors. Unlike adjuncts, who often hold part-time, contract-based positions with low pay and limited benefits, McKeown was a full-time lecturer at UCLA. However, his financial difficulties highlight that even full-time academic positions may not guarantee a living wage, especially in high-cost areas. His story underscores the importance of recognizing that not every "professor" job is created equally.
Many universities are replacing tenured positions with low-paying, insecure, part-time jobs, a trend labeled as "adjunctification." This reflects a wider economic problem seen across many industries where wages haven’t kept pace with rising living costs, where jobs are increasingly being part-timed, outsourced, and automated; people taking on multiple jobs, and “side hustles” and the gig economy are becoming the new norm.
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An adjunct professor works for a college or university on a contract basis. Almost all of these professionals hold a graduate degree in their field, with many holding doctorates. Originally, adjunct professors were part-time faculty members who brought expertise from their professions to the classroom. Today, two-thirds of adjunct professors earn their living exclusively from contract college-level instruction. According to a 2018 report, around 25% of adjunct professors hold jobs outside academia, while 10% are retired tenured professors. Half of all adjunct professors say they would prefer a tenure-track position. Adjunct professor jobs generally pay lower salaries than tenured positions. In a 2020 survey, more than half of adjunct professors reported receiving less than $3,500 per course. Job security is another issue. Over 70% of adjunct professors work on a per-semester contract.
The Cost of Living Crisis and Academic Salaries
The high cost of living, particularly in cities like Los Angeles, plays a significant role in McKeown's situation. According to Visual Capitalist, you need to make roughly $114k to live comfortably in California. Other sources seem more accurate, saying roughly $80k - $120k is ideal for an individual living in LA. Even with a full-time salary of $70,000, McKeown struggled to afford basic necessities. This highlights the growing disconnect between academic salaries and the cost of living, especially in metropolitan areas.
Massachusetts, known for its distinguished universities like Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has the highest cost of living in the country (currently fluctuating #1 or #2 at $116k), with areas like Boston facing a significant exodus.
The rising cost of rent is a significant factor, and the trend does not appear to stop anytime soon. No amount of financial literacy, like how well you are budgeting, or how many roommates millennials can fit in an apartment will save us from this economic conundrum. There’s a big difference between the impact of individual financial literacy - personal responsibility versus fiscal/monetary policy - government’s responsibility.
Proposed Solutions and Systemic Challenges
McKeown has called for fairer wages in academia, suggesting significant pay cuts for administrators and sports coaches and even proposing a salary cap where no one at the university would earn more than $300,000 per year and no less than $100,000 per year. It seems like a reasonable proposal, given that a minimum salary of $100,000 a year would come close to the income needed to live comfortably in Los Angeles. This amount would help cover essential expenses like housing, transportation, and other necessities in an area where the cost of living is notoriously high. A salary floor of this nature could offer greater financial stability to workers in high-cost regions, ensuring that they aren’t perpetually struggling to make ends meet.
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However, some argue that setting a maximum and a minimum salary cap could do serious harm and advocate for greater flexibility in social and economic controls, particularly in economic structures that require adaptability. This would allow for more responsive and nuanced solutions to changing economic conditions.
While some blame corporate influences for corrupting higher education and point the finger at high-paid individuals (pocket-watching), the crisis isn’t isolated to universities. Meaning, it can’t be a corporate model or profit motive alone to blame for the issues afflicting academia. In my view, it reflects a broader systemic issue, the elephants in the room: the widening economic disparity and the higher cost of living. In other words, this illustrates a failure of government.
The debts largely relate to the public pension system, which provides lifetime benefits to state and local government employees. In other words, it all boils down to the state of the economy & money! Less well-known and smaller universities are first hit and suffer the most from budget cuts. The Law of Unintended Consequences: When we make generous promises that are difficult or unsure to meet like guaranteed pensions for government workers; when we culturally push students into STEM fields; when we subsidize higher education for some and it becomes out of reach for the many; when we place more value on the Ivy League schools and do not consider that all educational institutions are equally valuable when run effectively for the service they provide to their communities and society as a whole.
Since Ivy League universities are private schools with substantial endowments, diverse funding sources, and reduced reliance on state funding, they are generally more insulated from the financial struggles of federal and state governments. This makes them less vulnerable to budget constraints and economic hardships compared to public universities, though they may still face challenges in areas like federal research funding or market-driven endowment fluctuations. For example, Harvard’s endowment is over $50 billion (as of 2023-24), providing a significant financial cushion. This reduces their dependence on direct state funding, which public universities often rely on.
Student Perspectives on McKeown's Teaching
Student reviews of McKeown's teaching are mixed, with some praising his caring nature and passion for the material, while others criticize his disorganized lectures and unhelpful slides. Some students found his exams and homework to be fair and reflective of the lecture material, while others felt that the tests focused too much on unit conversion and calculation errors rather than conceptual understanding.
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Some students noted that McKeown is a kind professor who genuinely cares about his students. However, what frustrated me most about this class was the amount of time and effort it took to receive those accommodations. As someone who attended every lecture, went to office hours, completed all the homework, and studied for hours, this class was significantly harder than it needed to be. Although I ended up with an A, I wasn’t confident about my standing in the course until the very end. While he did compensate in the end, these issues should not have existed in the first place. At the core of any class should be clear instruction during lecture and the resources students need to succeed. Instead, much of the quarter felt like playing catch-up and hoping everything would work out in the end-even if it ultimately did.
At the beginning of the quarter, I thought McKeown's strengths included his willingness to listen to student feedback and his accommodating nature. However, I soon realized his weaknesses were significant. His slides were unhelpful, and they were not published until after the lectures at first, which made it difficult to follow along during class. I disliked how his slides were often just copied and pasted from the textbook and contained whole paragraphs without highlighting the key points we needed to focus on. I appreciated it when he wrote on the board, but his writing was often too small and messy to read clearly. Additionally, his slides were disorganized, making it challenging to identify the problems he presented.
McKeown often stresses that the average for the class should be around a B-, and his tests get him there but not in the way they should. Instead of making questions difficult and more physics-oriented, the points you lose seem to come from calculation mistakes and incorrect units. I don't think it makes sense if your class average is reached not because the concepts tested were hard but rather because your students made mistakes because the units given on a test were funky.
However, other students have said that McKeown is the best professor in the physics department. Professor McKeown genuinely cares about whether his students are understanding the material. Both midterms were exactly like the homework and his final was basically based off all of the homeworks completed. He is very understanding and listens to his students! I hated 1a and tolerated 1b but this professor made me actually interested in physics. McKeown is an amazing guy and a very fair professor. He makes physics accessible to everyone. His quizzes and exams are very fair and similar to both his lecture and the homework. He gives adequate homework to really help you understand the lecture material.
These mixed reviews suggest that while McKeown is a caring and passionate educator, there is room for improvement in his teaching methods and course organization.
The Broader Implications for Academia
McKeown's situation reflects broader systemic issues within academia, including:
- The undervaluation of teaching: Universities often prioritize research over teaching, leading to lower salaries and less job security for lecturers and instructors.
- The increasing reliance on adjuncts: The trend of replacing tenured positions with adjuncts creates a precarious workforce with limited benefits and job security.
- The rising cost of higher education: Increasing tuition fees and student loan debt make it more difficult for students to afford education, while also straining university budgets.
- The growing economic disparity: The gap between the highest and lowest earners in society continues to widen, impacting academic salaries and the cost of living.
UCLA’s 2023 public financial reports reveal university grant funding that’s grown exponentially in the past few years - even reaching a historic $1.72B last year - it’s impossible to argue that they’re incapable of paying their professors a living wage.
As the foundation of the university’s educational and research-backed successes, professors deserve the basic decency of a living wage, especially while working in one of the most expensive cities in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, McKeown isn’t the first UCLA worker to call out the university's insufficient wages and poor worker protection rights. In November 2022, UCLA graduate students orchestrated the largest strike in the history of higher education, with 48,000 participating members demanding better worker protections from the university. While their strike ended with a 50% raise to base pay, many of their other demands - such as free speech rights amidst the pro-Palestine protests and equitable professor wages - have not been met.
