UCLA Professor 'Homeless', Can't Afford to Live Near Campus

The sad story illustrates the adjunctification in US academia, a warning to those considering a PhD.

Daniel McKeown’s viral TikTok has sparked considerable controversy, brewing beyond academic circles. He teaches Physics & Astronomy at UCLA, one of the world’s premier universities. The institution likes to brag about being ranked the #1 public university in US News.

UPDATE: Dr. McKeown has responded to this post to add clarification, saying that he is not an adjunct but a full-time lecturer on a 2-year contract.

Daniel McKeown making his case public, regrettably all too familiar in US academia.

Unfortunatly for McKeown, he can’t get paid in ranking accolades. Instead, he claimed in the viral video that he makes $70,000 per year. Some may feel offended at the notion that $70K is somehow low, but the state of California does designate anything under $70,650 as ‘low income’.

LA is simply expensive, especially around UCLA, where affluent residents have fought for years to keep housing from being built. There are often Town vs. Gown fights between locals who live near UCLA and the school, angry about the overflow of students and the possibility of building more dorms.

Lost in the fight is that there was nothing around UCLA when it was built, and it’s the community that sprang up around campus. Not the other way around.

UCLA then and now. From just the university to one of the most affluent neighborhoods in LA.

What all this means is that $70K is not a lot to live on around campus. This is even more true if someone is paying off student loans or has family commitments. Plus, LA is still mostly a car-centric city, so throw in those payments, too.

The PhD is the Problem

On my Twitter feed, where this video blew up, many commentators were unsympathetic. They said that he could get roommates, live in a dorm-like situation, or move to a cheaper part of LA. These are not bad options in a vacuum. Many of us have probably done a version of each of these to make it work in our own lives.

The problem is that Daniel is not in his early 20s, just out of school, beginning his adventure in the Big City. No, Daniel is Dr. McKeown. He just spent 10 years doing advanced research in astrophysics to become a world expert in a niche area of science. He finished graduate school, completed the doctoral journey.

When we complete our doctoral studies, many are expecting a decent job in academia. The expectation is not to get rich, but to at least be comfortable. The job Daniel McKeown got after getting his PhD and doing a post-doc did not bring this promised life.

After a long, grueling climb up the ladder, Daniel McKeown found that he was just at the bottom of the mountain.

Being a ‘professor’ at UCLA might seem pretty good to outsiders but not all ‘professor’ positions are created equally. In the US, we very casually throw around the word ‘professor (juxtaposed to Europe where the label is highly reserved and specific). His position is actually ‘lecturer’, which is part of a broad range of contingent positions in academia.

Adjuncts might just get one class, or even be full-time like the case here, but they are mostly continent, meaning unstable. The pay is relatively low, too. Universities use these cheap adjuncts to fill gaps in teaching, particularly in the UC system which UCLA is part of.

These aren’t the dream positions that many of us dreamed about in graduate school.

Contrary to other professions, being an adjunct often does not lead to a long-term stable position. A lot of PhDs get stuck in permanent adjunct roles, hoping each year that they can finally move up.

The r/professor subreddit is filled with stories just like Daniel Mckeown’s.

To find a better role, PhDs often have to move across the country to small college towns or rural places, and those positions may just be 1-2 year ‘visiting’ professorships. Challenging for anyone trying to put down roots, with spouses struggling to find jobs in these areas or children moved from friends or family.

In the end, it might just be better to give up on the dream and go do something else. But giving up a dream when you are so so close is incredibly challenging.

Is the PhD Worth It?

I often advise my students not to do a PhD and to go work for a few years first (I teach mostly MA students). Daniel McKeown’s story is a strong lesson for why I often offer this advice.

I should mention that I am in education and social science, so it may vary by field, but the viral video was about a position in the hard sciences. So I think these struggles are a reality for most fields today.

Doing a PhD is years and years worth of commitment with an uncertain payoff at the end. Sure, tenure positions are great, but they are fewer and rarer than before. Plus the competition has only grown, with more PhDs produced every year who are hoping for that lucky break.

Doing a PhD is basically like buying a lottery ticket but the cost is five good years of your youth.

Now, if after a person has some working experience and still wants to do PhD with the expectation that the main goal is to learn an incredible niche area over several years then I am all for it. This is fine, intrinsic education logic. Learning for the sake of learning.

Likewise, it may also be reasonable for international students who are trying to extend their stay in the US or are focusing on returning home to a different higher ed market after the PhD.

There are certainly exceptions, and everyone needs to contextualize their own situations and needs.

In general, we must temper the expectations that a tenure professor position in the US is waiting at the end of the doctoral journey. Daniel McKeown’s story is closer to the norm than being the exception. We should all take heed of this reality.