Nowhere People: Working-Class Academics and the Changing Financial Landscape of Higher Education

Author

Anna Wilcoxen, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

12-1-2024

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Communication Studies

First Advisor

Pensoneau-Conway, Sandra

Abstract

Historically, attending college and pursuing a graduate degree has been associated with greater economic opportunity. However, research reveals that the relationship between higher education and social mobility has shifted over time. The current context of rising student loan debt, the higher cost of education, more tenuous job markets, and stagnating wages diminishes the association between higher education and economic advancement, particularly for students who come from a working-class background. The cost to attend state universities has risen over 200% since the 1980s (Collinge), while graduate assistant salaries and the federal minimum wage remain comparatively unchanged. Additionally, many with a graduate degree are increasingly left to piece together a living wage through multiple adjunct instructor positions or employment in the service industry. While attending graduate school can be seen as a transitional—and sometimes ambiguous—space between student and professor, if PhDs are not able to secure full-time, steady employment post-graduation, then their ambiguous existence becomes prolonged, creating both a financial crisis and crisis of identity. In the context of the shift in the relationship between social mobility and higher education, my research addresses class as an identity while also accounting for the complicated understandings of that identity during this historical shift. Thus, the dissertation responds to the following research questions: (1) How has the relationship between social mobility and higher education shifted over time? (2) How does this change in relationship systemically and philosophically impact those who earn graduate degrees? and (3) How can academics adapt our pedagogical practices and institutional policies to address this historical shift and its impact on graduates? Accounting for socioeconomic class more thoroughly and in a contemporary context, this research develops a theory of class identity that builds toward social justice praxis at the intersection of socioeconomic class and education, contributing both to the field of communication studies and to broader academic and social spheres. I develop and use collaborative autoethnographic interviewing (CAEI) as a dialogic method by which to gather the stories of working-class academics who have not achieved social mobility through attending graduate school. By seeking participants and gathering stories of graduate degree-holders who have experienced the shift in relationship between higher education and social mobility first-hand, this research provides a better understanding of coalitional opportunities that can be forged between upper, middle, and lower-classes; the educated and uneducated; and those invested in social justice who have not yet had the opportunity to expand their work to include economic equity.