Who is pushing PhDs? The meme that there are far fewer academic jobs than PhDs has been widespread for at least 10 of 15 years.
A PhD is either a segue to a job in that field, if there is an industry (like pharmacology) or to launching a new segment of industry (as in computer technology) or a non-pecuniary pursuit of folks who are intelligent and financially independent.
This is factually wrong; universities are replacing tenured faculty with "cheaper labour" in the form of PhD holders from the excess glut. So, they are quite motivated to keep producing an "over-supply". The percentage of teaching staff that have tenure is a decreasing number over the pas ~30 years or so. Furthermore, the universities are getting comp'd on the tution of PhD students even though the students themselves don't pay fees. They do this indirectly through the "3 card monty" system of research grants, government subsidies, stipends & etc. Lastly but not leastly, the "prestige" of any political organization, hinges on the amount of resources and staff that come under the executive's aeigis. And so it is with departments at universities: large scale command of cash and IQ is a proxy for "power" and "verility" and all of the other stuff that people use to indirectly "measure themselves" against one another. After all, "prestige" is the measure of the modern university man...
You stated that the post you replied to was "factually wrong", and then proceeded on an entertaining diatribe against the post-secondary education system. I agree with many points you made, but you never clearly stated what was "factually wrong", or provided evidence to refute the falsehood.
On a proportionate basis, tenured faculty has declined significantly: from 46% to 22% in the USA since 1975.[1] So, what was traditionally a 50/50 shot at tenure, Now it is a 80/20 long-shot. At the margin, tenured track positions are actually even rarer. Recall, of the 22% most of them are not recent hires. So, you're odds may be as low as 9/10 against you getting a tenure job...assuming you got any "faculty job" at all. Since the latter is also decreasingly likely, given a supply glut/relatively, the odds of getting an academic job that is also a tenure job are lower yet.
One thing I can't understand is why are people not researching this kind of stuff beforehand? By the time you're doing a PhD you're in your mid to late 20's right? You should've been thinking about your marketable skills since you turned 20. You can't just do whatever you like and expect the world to throw jobs at you.
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Who is pushing PhDs? The meme that there are far fewer academic jobs than PhDs has been widespread for at least 10 of 15 years.
A PhD is either a segue to a job in that field, if there is an industry (like pharmacology) or to launching a new segment of industry (as in computer technology) or a non-pecuniary pursuit of folks who are intelligent and financially independent.
This is factually wrong; universities are replacing tenured faculty with "cheaper labour" in the form of PhD holders from the excess glut. So, they are quite motivated to keep producing an "over-supply". The percentage of teaching staff that have tenure is a decreasing number over the pas ~30 years or so. Furthermore, the universities are getting comp'd on the tution of PhD students even though the students themselves don't pay fees. They do this indirectly through the "3 card monty" system of research grants, government subsidies, stipends & etc. Lastly but not leastly, the "prestige" of any political organization, hinges on the amount of resources and staff that come under the executive's aeigis. And so it is with departments at universities: large scale command of cash and IQ is a proxy for "power" and "verility" and all of the other stuff that people use to indirectly "measure themselves" against one another. After all, "prestige" is the measure of the modern university man...
see: figure 3, p7 http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/2011-12Economic-Stat...
You stated that the post you replied to was "factually wrong", and then proceeded on an entertaining diatribe against the post-secondary education system. I agree with many points you made, but you never clearly stated what was "factually wrong", or provided evidence to refute the falsehood.
On a proportionate basis, tenured faculty has declined significantly: from 46% to 22% in the USA since 1975.[1] So, what was traditionally a 50/50 shot at tenure, Now it is a 80/20 long-shot. At the margin, tenured track positions are actually even rarer. Recall, of the 22% most of them are not recent hires. So, you're odds may be as low as 9/10 against you getting a tenure job...assuming you got any "faculty job" at all. Since the latter is also decreasingly likely, given a supply glut/relatively, the odds of getting an academic job that is also a tenure job are lower yet.
[1] This data is cited above.
50:50 would imply that 1 in 2 PhDs would get tenure; the odds were never that good.
One thing I can't understand is why are people not researching this kind of stuff beforehand? By the time you're doing a PhD you're in your mid to late 20's right? You should've been thinking about your marketable skills since you turned 20. You can't just do whatever you like and expect the world to throw jobs at you.
Please clarify the nefarious means by which PhD advisers are intentionally recruiting and training their underpaid replacements.
A "university" is not a single actor. PhD applicants generally apply to advisers or departments, not universities administrators.