Hi Katie and others,

I am a doctoral student on scholarship and find that there is so little empathy amongst academic staff for students who are in my position. The nature of the scholarship limits how much i am able to work and even with some resources behind me, I am looking at having to switch to part-time because the scholarship is barely enough to live on. I think the system is geared towards young, affluent school leavers who don't have responsibilities like a mortgage, elderly relatives to take care of etc. I struggle away and get very little support or even a respectful hearing. This coupled with the push for students to complete in three years irrespective of their actual circumstances creates a really hostile study environment in which those who should be the most supported are the ones who get punished. If this is my experience I can only wonder how other students whose situation is worse than mine are faring. Neo-liberalism has clearly colonised academia in Australia. I've looked at changing universities but where on Earth can I go?

Kia ora Katie

I can identify with the above comments.  I am a doctoral student also and completed my masters in New Zealand but felt I needed to go to USA to undertake my PhD.  I had great support from staff and students in NZ but there was no financial support that would make my PhD happen.  I receive both financial support and great mentoring here in USA even though in community psychology my specialty is indigenous psychology (I feel that I am very much the minority in this).  To the question at hand, the cohort that I grew up with (I am a very mature student now and came out of the heavy gate keeping process of the past).   University was never provided as an option to students at high school (I was at a predominantly Maori school) but in retrospect I can see that a few (very few) students were taken aside and told that they “were good enough” to move on to higher learning.   I was effectively expelled from school in my senior year as my grades were so low they needed me “out” to raise the average grade of that cohort in the school (a process of the gate keeping that precluded me from attending University at that time even if I knew about it) but now some 40 years on despite the obstacles and because of the Maori support that has grown within the NZ university system, I am in my final stage of completing my PhD. – Obstacles - marginalization, institutionalized racism, poverty, alienation of indigenous pedagogy and indigenous ways of knowing.

kia kaha

Hi Sydney and Katie,

So we are looking at a range of structural barriers which are functioning to exclude those who aren't in a privileged or wealthy layer of the social strata. Acts of commission (limiting work options/inadequate funding/racism/classism) and omission (lack of encouragement, appropriate institutional support etc). Carving out sites of resistance in a hostile environment is a great feat but the national barriers you both describe are a real barrier. Sydney, you had to go to the States and Katie, it sounds as though you are also considering international options. In other words, the structural and institutional barriers posed in Australia and NZ mean that good scholars may choose other bases to flourish.  I am impressed by the willingness and tenacity you both express to find these spaces and think that the search for such sites is, in fact, part of the challenge we face in the 21st century. Finding and creating spaces of resistance.  Thank you for your comments.

Katie 

As an adjunct to this discussion, I find the value of higher education in federal Australian priorities is wanting. It amazes me how little financial support there is from Centrelink for higher education, and particularly for post-graduate  studies.

In my undergraduate degree I was shocked to learn that my centrelink benefit quadrupled if I was "unemployed" comapred to "tertiary student". THere is even less support (if any) for post grads. From an economic viewpoint it is a false saving to assist those trying to earn now, and neglect those who are not earning now but will have much greater spending power in a coupole of years. From a global village viewpoint it represents an impediment to Australia (and probably New Zealand's) ability to compete on the world stage.

Finally, I offer the case of Finland. It is common there for women to have children while at university. While I am not deeply familiar with their policies, my friend's uni has a child care centre, and two preschools, plus a primary school nearby. This is common. 

The idea of false savings is an important point and links to a deeper point of the myopia and temporal disconnect of 21st century perspective, not to mention the boundaried and limited perspective taken by Australia, the US and other similar democracies which seem to steadfastly ignore the global evidence base of laws, systems and policies that work!  Scandinavia feel free to hoe in on the discussion! Please do! 

Yes please Scandinavia! It would be good to have more alternate realities to engage with. I agree Katie and Kendra, it is shortsighted. When those who make it through the gatekeeping process Sydney described, survive the forced impoverishment Kendra wrote about, only to get through to doctoral level and end up with $10 an hour to live on, it's no wonder students give up, get fed up, or don't show up at all.  What I have found most problematic is when those who write about transformative process completely ignore the suffering right in front of them, as though it were merely an intellectual exercise to be drafted up in the third person about people 'out there'. By no means does this apply to all those in academia, because I think this is the exception rather than the rule, and reflexive praxis is partly a process of falling over our mistakes then getting up with genuine redress to those we hurt, a mental note to self and a concerted effort to change. However I think a blast of cold air and some consolidated & supported resistance would go a long way to blowing some cobwebs out of the ivory tower and the national system. Academics must stand beside students when oppression is overt to effect meaningful, systemic change. I'm really encouraged to hear that Sydney is nearing completion and has found a safer if not altogether supportive space to create. I hope that thesis, more than 40 years in the making, will reach us all. I would like to add sexism to Sydney's list. The idea of intersectionality is at the forefront of my mind, reading these comments. Mutliple layers of oppression operating to create a very real, lived experience that translates into  'we don't want your kind here' or 'quit your whining, you're lucky to be here'. I hope at a future point we will have the opporunity for academics to become the focal point of discussion, because I suspect there is some solidarity that students could and need to provide - quid pro quo.