Jacob Bard-Rosenberg

Teach theory and Director of Research for Art at Edinburgh College of Art. PhD 2021 on Adorno and Benjamin.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

I recorded a version of the guest lecture I gave to art students at Edinburgh last week. I hope you all enjoy it. Includes all sorts of fun stuff about rats, Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, arte povera, Otto Rene Castillo, and more! https://t.co/4OeGaQkbS8

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@spiralunbound per year with a research element of their contract. The issue is, in places like this, that this money isn't ringfenced and is instead spent on whatever the senior managers want. Alongside this is a problem that richer unis do better out of QR grant.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

THREAD: The collapse of higher education in the UK is misunderstood by almost everyone involved. We are told it is because of volatile international student markets. The truth is more to do with real estate and capital investment. Here is what is going on: in places like the US

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@spiralunbound It is, but it also makes mistakes (I really like Lorna's work, but she isn't accurate here.) There is still research funding independent of tuition fees to the tune of £10bn a year, of which about £2bn is QR grants. At Essex, where Lorna works, this is about £15k per academic

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@copperchunk Obviously senior managers have made a lot of this small correction as though it is a new trend but this isn’t what the data shows beyond the South Asian and Nigerian examples I already give in the thread.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@copperchunk You need to use a slightly longer set of data for internationals. 22/23 and 23/24 is a post-Covid blip. If you look at, for example, 10 year data the trend is highly positive with about twice as many internationals as there were and we are still well above pre-Covid levels.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

Yes, I would like more funding in the sector. And more than this, direct funding is cheaper for the government than the student loan book since 50% isn’t getting paid and interest is often a lot higher than national bonds.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

I also think fees are high. Average staff-student ratio is 17:1. Even without internationals that means each staff member is bringing in £160k in fees. If they can’t afford our modest wages with that + research income, something is going very wrong.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@AutomatedAgile My wage as a university teacher isn't that expensive given the training I have, and it is far exceeded by the amount of value I produce. This suggests the market should work fine, if it had fewer parasites attached.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@AutomatedAgile the product. The real question is whether industry would benefit *more* from having employees who don't have a good education. But I don't see many jobs going to people because they watched some youtube videos or were on a MOOC. That's partly because outcomes are bad.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@AutomatedAgile I literally teach with Teams half the time. I am telling you what I and all my colleagues observe. It is not adequate and it ultimately costs more.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@AutomatedAgile Indeed, a lot of what we spend our time doing now is getting rid of bad ideas that students arrive with because they have spent too much time chatting to AI or watching videos.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@AutomatedAgile and watch the video recordings instead. They just end up with worse understanding and less developed skills. I wish everyone just watching videos worked, but it doesn't. Nor does chatting to AI bots.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@Liberty_Egality peak of 2022-24, which was high because of post-COVID, but we're still above pre-covid levels by some way. Slightly longer term view of the data is necessary to see this.

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@Liberty_Egality where there has been increase in size is often in layers of 'academic management' and other bits of corporate structure. Student numbers are up, inc. internationals, which are double what they were 10-15 years back. i.e. this is a functional export market. Yes, they are below the

[Jacob Bard-Rosenberg @Prolapsarian]

@andrewhistorian Mainly historical: we have lower wages and higher taxation, with universities long understood to be part of a big state (and therefore funded by government.) I actually don’t think universities should have to rely on philanthropic funding.