Ken made his decision so it's water under the bridge now. Too bad it's the program's loss.
I have a feeling that Ken cares a lot about the students in that program and he feels a bit unease about his decision.
Ken obviously does not need me to tell him that this is all about business and it's not productive to work in an environment so constrained that one has to complain repeatedly.
One should not work in that circumstance even at a high-paying job, let alone in one that pay a symbolic amount of money. Many schools would pay their adjuncts a few thousand dollars per course, citing "university policy". Other programs would work around the system to pay substantivity more.
I met many "practitioners" teaching in various quant programs in NYC. It's often the case that the money they get paid for teaching is ridiculously little compared to at their day job.
Why do they do it then, you ask?
There are several reasons. At the risk of generalization, you can boil down the motivation of these practitioners into several groups.
One is to be associated with a brand name university. The schools know this as well. So you will see schools use this leverage to get people for a fraction of what they should be paying had they been less well-known names. You would see people come and go as if it's a revolving door. Judging by the amount of money each student pay these programs and pay these adjunct, it only makes sense that these people don't do it for the money aspect.
Another group of practitioners do it because they love interacting with the students and they help the program placing many students. These kind of practitioners keep coming back year after year because the students love them and the programs treat them like their valuable assets. Face it, you would be a fool to treat badly those that besides teaching, also hiring many of your students.
And then you have another group of practitioners who are alumni of the program or someone associated with the program trying to land a hand.
Like Bob mentioned, when you throw in the complex political system of academic, you have all kind of result, some turns out spectacularly bad for well known names or wonderfully good for others.
My personal judgment if a program is worth attending is that whether the administrator, the schools put their students' welfare or their interest first and foremost.
Some administrators will ask "what do I get if I do this", instead of "how do my students benefit if I do this". For many programs, the administrators gain nothing financially, politically, personally by making it better. It doesn't matter if their programs have 100 or 1000 applicants. The extra money goes to the coffer of the university without being channeled back to the programs so there is absolutely no incentive to improve your program for a fixed salary.
Are we surprised that this sounds just like the cold blood corp world? We should not. And for prospective students, this is not something they would expect to know.
As I said, this is how I personally judge a program, not by their acceptance rate, average salary, avg GRE but by their philosophy and how they treat their students and lecturers (by that extension, anyone that helps their program).
How do you know if a program cares about their students? Do the administrators put on extra work to get things done for their program? Do they spend after-office hours to email/call on your behalf? Are they willing to fight the school system on the program and your behalf? Are they spending most of their time promoting their own interest or yours?
Losing a valuable asset to the program over a parking lot is pathetic but this can be indication of deeper problems ahead.
