Leaving the university
Charlotte Aten
2026 April 2
The 2025-2026 academic year has been my last as a professor at a university. At least for a while, but maybe forever. As much as I reasonably can, I'd like to record how I decided to take this step. I'll begin with the three main reasons for my decision, then discuss how this fits into the larger story of my life, and finally address what I'm going to do next.
The first reason is safety. I am openly transgender and in a visibly queer marriage. I transitioned when I was a minor and was never open about it until about a year ago, when I decided that, as one of the few people who transitioned at a young age decades ago, I should be visible. While I do hope to continue to advocate for transgender people, I would benefit from controlling my interactions with the public in a way that a position as a professor does not allow. Aside from being queer, I have been vocal in opposition to the fascists in the United States government, so I check a number of boxes which could make me a target.
The second reason is money. I paid on my student loans when I first left graduate school. At some point I tried to apply for student loan forgiveness since I worked at a university. The application process was broken, then a lawsuit killed it. Everything kept getting more expensive and my pay never really went up. I failed to negotiate a higher salary at my second job. Eventually I just stopped paying anything back. I'm still losing money, living paycheck to paycheck and going deeper into debt.
If I could get a tenure-track position then losing money for another year might be worth it, but even if I started making $80k or even $100k a year, what would that look like? It would be barely enough to actually save money, maybe pay back debts to banks that would get bailed out by the government anyway. I could pay back student loans to a government that doesn't recognize my government-issued passport as valid. I could pay more taxes to a government that uses the money to commit crimes against humanity.
The third reason is academia itself. I have wanted to be a professor and do research since I was a kid. I am the first person on both sides of my family with a PhD, and I really believed that even if the system was far from perfect, it could become something great for society. I now feel that I don't care to fight the corporatization of academia for the rest of my life. I see wealthy white men with tenure endlessly complaining about university administrators maiming the academic system for personal gain. If they are subject to these forces in their own domain, what chance do I have against them?
If it weren't for the safety and money concerns, I might have stayed in the university system. I can't be certain, though, since I'm also having to turn down invitations to speak at conferences as well as jobs because I can't safely visit or live in whatever location. There aren't a lot of people funding mathematics in the United States, and I don't like my chances of getting any grants in the near future. In a way I am grateful, since I think that I've been pushed towards a better path which I wouldn't've easily chosen on my own.
Before describing what I intend to do next, I'll give some perspective on my life. This is a big change, so it seems worth considering where it fits into my story.
I first decided I wanted to be a mathematician when I was 15 years old. I had been taking college courses occasionally since I was 12, which was about 20 years ago now. My parents strongly encouraged my academic interest, although neither of them had a bachelor's degree, nor had any of my ancestors attended graduate school.
By the time I was 16 I had skipped a grade and completed some part of a freshman's college coursework. I had been out to friends since middle school, but by this point I was visibly transitioning medically and socially and wanted as much privacy as possible. I was a 16 year old senior and dropped out at the beginning of the school year. So did about half of my class, which was quite unusual for this public high school.
I have two GEDs, or high school equivalency degrees. One I obtained immediately upon dropping out of high school, under my given name. Soon after, I obtained a legal name change and tried to get my GED updated to reflect that. I was told there was no legal way for me to do this. I pretended I was a new person and took the same exam again, obtaining a second equivalency degree under the correct name.
This type of pattern is probably familiar to anyone who doesn't fit into the system of our society. There is always a catch-22 where you need document A to obtain document B but you needed document B to obtain document A. You either ignore the problem and try to live outside the system or you have to make a "mistake" to break the deadlock.
Public school taught me a lot about life. The institution claimed to support education and personal growth, but it was largely a daycare facility with mandatory propaganda. We were made to swear a loyalty oath to the government every day. It was tedious. We were ruled over by rich people who had histories of financial improprieties and who displayed predatory behaviors towards children. Those people told me I'd end up "flipping burgers" if I dropped out.
In spite of the negative experience I had with high school, I was excited to return to college when I was 19. I learned a lot about mathematics. I had some of the best times of my life so far.
I now fear that the university is more like high school than I wanted to admit to myself before. When I was a kid, I thought that I had to wait until I was an adult to transition and that I had to suffer through high school so I could go to a good college. Eventually, both of these situations became intolerable. I suffered more by denying myself what I wanted than I would have if I had just transitioned and dropped out as soon as I wanted to.
Things are similar now, but I'm more prepared to learn the lesson this time. I love doing math research, teaching, and sharing my work with others. I do not need to force myself to conform to the university in order to do these things. In fact, I think I'll do much better at all of them if I don't. I believe that my life will be greatly improved if I do what I want, not what I think I'm supposed to.
I am going to split my time between subsistence farming and mathematics. I feel very fortunate to be privileged enough to have the resources to try this, although I am starting off with virtually no cash and no solid plans for making money in the short term. I'm also lucky to have a partner who is excited to do this with me, and we only have ourselves and our dog to support. I look forward reconnecting with nature and caring for plants and animals.
In addition to immediate benefits with respect to my safety and comfort, I hope that this change will direct more of the fruits of my labor away from the system that has been terrorizing us. I know that even if I give up everything I have worked towards and every comfort I have, it might have little effect on the state of the world. Regardless, I am too afraid and too angry to keep on as I have been.
I wanted to end this essay with some kind of uplifting message. Earlier drafts contained more political thoughts and suggestions about where things are heading for humanity and the Earth. I don't care to share these at the moment. I hope this change helps me to survive. I hope that one day I can thrive. That one day I'll see all the institutions arrayed against me tear themselves apart. I have to believe that future is possible.