Thanks for the personal criticism, I appreciate it! And you're right, I'm unclear on the difference between associate and assistant professors. So, you're saying that the assistant professors are probably the ones I've read about being on food stamps?
But, you haven't really addressed my core statement: Universities should be models for the liberal worldview. Instead, we find income disparities just like we find in the corporate world. Why do these organizations (universities) not live up to their ideals? You haven't answered that question. Instead, you've said that the people who make food stamp wages should go get other jobs if they don't like their current ones. You've said people without degrees have no right to expect to be paid living wages, and that even discussing a university paying all of its employees a living wage is not relevent to its progressive worldview.
>> [a graduate student] is able to take a better-paying job doing something else if they prefer
Certainly, a student can choose to drop out, and essentially forfeit the tuition they've paid into the program so far. Can the phd student decide they don't like their working hours, and pick up and switch schools? What would happen to them? No, they can't just switch without a tremendous cost. They are basically locked in and are totally dependent on their professors. In the corporate world, when an employee has paid their boss 10s of thousands of dollars, and can't leave the company without giving up a large chunk of that investment, it's considered to be....Um. No. Actually, that doesn't happen in the corporate world. Again, where's the evidence that the university is more progressive than the corporate world?