Are PhDs Losing Their Lustre? Why Fewer Students Are Enrolling in Doctoral Degrees (nature.com) 53
Several countries are seeing a decline in PhD enrollments as high living costs, stagnant stipends and limited job prospects deter students from pursuing doctoral degrees. Australia recorded an 8% drop in domestic PhD enrollments from 2018 to 2023 despite population growth of 7%, while Japan's numbers fell to 15,014 in 2023 from 18,232 in 2003, data from education authorities showed.
PhD stipends have failed to keep pace with rising costs. In Australia, doctoral students receive about A$32,000 ($20,000) annually, below minimum wage, while Brazil only increased its graduate grants last year after a decade-long freeze.
The trend reflects broader concerns about academic careers becoming increasingly precarious, said Claudia Sarrico, a project lead at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. Some countries are taking steps to address the issue. Japan's education ministry plans to provide additional funding for doctoral students, while Brazil's 40% increase in graduate grants in 2023 has led to a slight uptick in enrollments.
PhD stipends have failed to keep pace with rising costs. In Australia, doctoral students receive about A$32,000 ($20,000) annually, below minimum wage, while Brazil only increased its graduate grants last year after a decade-long freeze.
The trend reflects broader concerns about academic careers becoming increasingly precarious, said Claudia Sarrico, a project lead at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. Some countries are taking steps to address the issue. Japan's education ministry plans to provide additional funding for doctoral students, while Brazil's 40% increase in graduate grants in 2023 has led to a slight uptick in enrollments.
Teaching (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of it is that the majority of PhD's seem to just become professors, which at the end of the day is still a teacher. Not a lot of people really want to do that.
If you want to work in the industry a Masters or even a Bachelors is typically fine.
Plus personally I will say that I had to deal with parental pressure. By the time I was completing my Bachelors my parents were basically to the point where if I wanted to continue it had to be with no external support at all (while loans and grants were covering tuition, they were giving me about $500 per month to cover living expenses). They wanted me to just go ahead and get a job.
Re:Teaching (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of it is that the majority of PhD's seem to just become professors, which at the end of the day is still a teacher.
They may want to become professors, but there just aren't enough positions. Many PhDs become untenured researchers, or go into industry after finishing their degree or working as a postdoc.
And professors are not just teachers. In order to obtain tenure, you have to demonstrate your ability to attract research grants, conduct research programs, and publish papers.
Re: (Score:3)
Conduct research? Papers? My Eldest, after decades as an OTA with a 2 yr degree, is finally finishing her ->4 yr- degree, and had to design a research study last term, and is conducting the research this term. For a bachelor's.
And I did the last 2/3rds of my career before retiring on a BSc. I was always afraid, if I got a masters, some moron in HR would decide I was "overqualified".
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is finally finishing her ->4 yr- degree, and had to design a research study last term, and is conducting the research this term
That's an entirely different thing. The same way a kid running for student council isn't the same as running for a seat on the US Senate.
was always afraid, if I got a masters, some moron in HR would decide I was "overqualified".
"Overqualified" means one of two things: 1) You're actually overqualified and so they don't expect you to stay any longer than it takes to find something better 2) You're an idiot and they don't want you to reapply.
Academic Freedom (Score:3)
which at the end of the day is still a teacher
Another huge attraction is the degree of freedom we have that comes with tenure. We can choose what to research and how to research it: we do not have a boss who can tell us what to do most of the time and even when we do that boss is an academic too and knows the job so our governance is, for the most part, quite collegial - certainly compared to private business. That level of freedom and job security is very hard to find in most jobs these days and while we pay for it with a lower salaries the fact that
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Another huge attraction is the degree of freedom we have that comes with tenure.
Only if you look at what Trump and the Inbred Retard Fucks are doing in the USA-Becoming-Naziville, freedom of research is dying.
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I think part of it is that the majority of PhD's seem to just become professors
Nonsense! Were would they all work? Besides, adjuncts make next to nothing, non-tenured are usually short-term (essentially contract work) and the tenure track is fiercely competitive.
You'll find that the overwhelming majority of PhDs work in industry.
Research (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Believe me, we know they exist, we get stuck training those wet behind t
If you need it, your job should pay for it. (Score:3)
need more trade schools and not 2+ years of pure c (Score:2)
need more trade schools and not 4+ years of pure class room. For most jobs 4 year degree with no hands on work is over kill and they want trade school like skills and certs on top of that?
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It takes many, many years of concentrated study and research to obtain a PhD. Employers can't afford to have someone on the payroll with that kind of distraction.
The typical path is that someone gets a PhD (or is close to receiving one) and then looks for a job. Employers would rather hire candidates who already have one, than support an existing employee as they get one.
That said, many companies offer support for PhD students while they're at school, if their dissertation research is of value to the compan
I'm not saying it's supply and demand, but... (Score:2)
No jobs (Score:2)
late thirties still in school with pay way under m (Score:2)
late thirties still in school with pay way under an mcjob? and have like 300K+ in loans?
I've Got a Friend (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OK, I'll bite. what is it in? I'm assuming not engineering, or science for that matter.
Re:I've Got a Friend (Score:4, Funny)
Re: I've Got a Friend (Score:2)
The problem with a doctorate these days (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Is it you wind up having to be so specialized. That in most Industries there is very little need for you and what you know about.
Exactly this.
People mangle the jack of all trades quote - the actual quote: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one.” from good old Willie Shakespeare.
I made a lot of my career by having varied interests way outside my schooling. Now I'm probably more curious than many - hey, I read the encyclopedia and dictionary for fun when I was a kid - but everything has connections, and I was pretty good at making them. So I ended up involved in many pro
Ph'ds (Score:2)
The plight of the Doctorates degree (Score:2)
A doctorates degree was a career path that had you almost exclusively working at University. I spent my career at university, and it was common knowledge that if you wanted to work in industry or outside of a University environment, you stopped at a Masters.
In my few early jobs at tech places, they might have one Doctorates holder on staff.
The second thing is there are degree paths that are what I call the opinion degrees. None of the degrees are worth p
Irrelevant demographics (Score:3)
Load of bollocks (Score:3)
I'm a skilled immo to Australia and could do a PhD tomorrow if i wanted to. You really are talking through your hat.
I almost went for a PhD (Score:3)
and my advisor said "it's only worth it if you have a personality defect and love to do work like that".
That being said if you get a PhD, you'll probably work longer and in many fields you'll get paid only a fraction more. In my field you'll only earn 10-20% more for most jobs on average. But the real problem is the money you lose getting a Phd. So you'll have to pay 20k to 60k per year, and you lose salary. That could be 150k per year, and a Phd is - say - 4 years so 500k to 600k lost. That is a lot of money to recover over the rest of your lifetime. Granted a PhD can help you get jobs, but I still don't think it's worth it .
Re: (Score:3)
a) You're independently wealthy. Money/employment is a secondary concern for you. Good for you. Do what you love, and no real need to worry about what comes next.
b) You're paying for your Ph.D. out of your own pocket while working. That's like holding down 2 jobs simultaneously and sinking money into something you love. Totally respect that.
c) You're borrowing money to get a Ph.D. full time.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a d) to this list. Some schools will get you a stipend and/or allow for work to pay for the PhD, but then you still lose out on the salary you would have had with a masters. I think a MS is worth it, you'll make the money back.
Return on investment (Score:3)
I think it's two main reasons: money and specialization.
1) To obtain a PhD you need to go to school for another 4-7 years, during which you're paid very little. After you graduate, there are still few job options. Often you will have to move to find a job. If that job is in academia, you will continue to paid very little. Working at a biotech company is financially ideal, but those jobs are hard to find.
2) Imagine you spend 5 years getting a PhD in biomedical engineering, and your speciaty is imaging of the aortic valve. You know everything there is to know about it, and you've written papers about it. But unless someone is hiring aortic valve imaging specialists... you'll have a hard time finding a job.
It's overall not a great return on investment of your own time. For some people academia is a terrific life and they're willing to accept less pay, but for other people its not worth it.
Re: (Score:2)
To obtain a PhD you need to go to school for another 4-7 years
That depends very much on the country. It's only 3 years in the UK but the education system is more specialized so you enter direct from your bachelor degree - or more recently from a one-year master's degree they have tacked onto the end of it to bring people back up to the same level due to a serious drop in educational standards at schools.
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Working at a biotech company is financially ideal, but those jobs are hard to find.
I guess it depends on the individual. My daughter has a PhD in microbiology and has had zero problems moving from job to job in the Boston area. Her last move was when Pfizer bought the company she was working for, and she didn't want to work for Pfizer. She made a huge pile of money cashing out her stock options and started her new job with no gap in employment.
Piled Higher Deeper (Score:1)
In my line of work - five years in manufacturing software development, then 25 creating heavily adopted “middleware” for other software engineers - PHDs meant little more than a masters, and a masters only somewhat predicted additional competence. In addition, it’s rare to even know another’s educational background - it’s something you might find out casually after years of working together, more considered a matter of curiosity than considered a paramount credential.
In hard s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the only Ph.Ds I can recall where people insisted on being called doctor were high school teachers who had Ph.Ds in education (typically earned part-time).
Re: (Score:1)
There's a meme that is basically "PhD in $SoftSubject: It's DOCTOR! PhD in EE: Call me Bob!"
Exactly. I worked for years with an absolutely top notch technical writer, often daily, before finding out she had a PhD in $HardSubject.
The word has gotten out (Score:2)
Next I talked with a professor in engineering and even twenty years ago he said all his PhD student were foreign because it made no financial sense to get a PhD for a US citizen.
Then of course in even the l
depends, are we talking real PhDs or meaningless? (Score:1)
Unfortunately the nature article is semi-paywalled. I can't see any stats in the links provided that break it down PER FIELD, which would be interesting.
1) I strongly suspect "real" PhDs that demonstrate actual technical mastery of (usually) a hard science or STEM categor - Chemistry, Aeronautics, Astrophysics, etc - probably are flat (I could see arguments for both slightly increasing or slightly declining).
2) "bullshit" PhDs - Medieval Russian Literature, Gender Studies, Puppet Arts (yes, that's real), e
Re: (Score:2)
1) I strongly suspect "real" PhDs that demonstrate actual technical mastery of (usually) a hard science or STEM categor - Chemistry, Aeronautics, Astrophysics, etc - probably are flat (I could see arguments for both slightly increasing or slightly declining).
2) "bullshit" PhDs - Medieval Russian Literature, Gender Studies, Puppet Arts (yes, that's real), etc - hopefully are indeed plummeting as fewer and fewer people can afford to waste absurd $$ on something that's objectively useless or of professional value to ...basically only the programs that maintain the fiction that it's a real field of study.
Not really sure how you're defining "real" here. It seems like a word your substituting for "your opinion on which fields are worth putting societal resources into". You might also be suggesting that "real" here is an implication of what economic value the field can derive. That you feel this way is, I think, actually rather indicative of your sense of the state of society. It seems you think that the so-called "bullshit" PhDs are taking up resources that we do not have to spare, and that this time should b
Re: (Score:2)
400% charge out rate is industry standard in engineering. My pay is $80ph, consulting it is $400.
Not job training (Score:2)
A Masters degree is highly saleable for advanced positions. A PhD isn't unless you want an academic or research career.
Academia in general has been highly oversold the last couple of decades. At one time post-secondary education was for the academically keen. It's not job training and never was. A generation are now finding that out the hard way.
My Masters paid for itself in about six months, BTW.
...laura
So most PhDs (Score:2)
When it comes to paying for a PhD or a master's degree even (which is what my kids after right now) You're pretty much going to have to
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Summary for those unwilling to read that whole thing:
1) PhD is expensive with low ROI
2) I'm bitter than Trump is going to cut unlimited funding for PhDs in gender studies for my kid I want other productive people to pay for
3) Trump and his billionaire pals are going to murder me and eat my kidneys
4) More stuff about Trump
5) Republicans and Trump
6) Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump
Re: (Score:2)
Read the article, lived the experience... (Score:2)
The article touches on a few of the factors, but there are more.
I originally qualified for the PhD program in computer science, and I enjoy teaching, but I ended up going to a master's program. My brother-in-law did go for a PhD in his chosen field.
The options for teaching are (or were when I looked) limited and relatively low pay. I earn 3x the salary with a masters degree in industry. Even with that, universities have reached out to me to teach as an adjunct faculty. For my BIL, he is constantly looki
The problem is poor pay for very few jobs (Score:2)
The biggest issue is pay. You'll put up with a lot if you love what you are working on and can make a career out of it. But making a career out of being a university professor is becoming impossible, and that is the ultimate goal for many (if not most) folks getting a Ph.D.
Case in point: My wife has a Ph.D. and was an assistant professor for several years. Just getting a tenure-track position required working as a temporary adjunct for almost a decade and only being paid a base rate per class. That bas
Re: (Score:2)
This.
Even though some states like mine pays 3x yours and at a state school. I have a union. Full time doesn't pay much more and lacks incentives other than universities here require a PhD for full time; plus they require you publish... which can be a lot of BS depending on the school. Average work week for full time is 70 hours. Tenure is not easy to get and people are so busy they can't go cause any good trouble which I think has been the plan since Nixon.
Understandable (Score:2)
When Billy Bob can do his research on the interwebs and spend one hour to know more on a subject than someone who spent a decade going through a series of more and more rigorous classes topped by a dissertation they have to defend, why bother getting a Phd?
PhD Students are Too Expensive Now (Score:2)
At least in my (very large) research institution, PhD students recently jointly bargained future PhD students out of affordability.
For some institutions, most of the cost of PhD education and living expenses is funded through a combination of teaching assistant work, research work, fellowships, and grants. The concern was that PhD students are being asked to work too many hours in a week in addition to their own education, so they jointly bargained for **higher wages instead of strictly limiting hours worke
The wrong perspective on the issue (Score:2)
If you look at the job market, how many companies are run by people who actually understand the products/services the company provides? We are in an era where businesses are often run by people who don't have any enthusiasm for what the company makes, or then, they get bought by people who don't care about the products/services and are just going to run the business like a generic corporation. So, if you actually care about the products/services the company offers, but the company is run by people with
There are reasons for PhD ... and against (Score:2)
First, the "necessity" of getting a PhD depends on the field / specialty. In some areas they are a still a must (professor, of course; grant writing researcher) or can be at least highly desirable (some areas of STEM, most researchers, certain medical areas). In some cases the extra pay is worth the extra time spent getting a PhD.
Second, it allows you to grow (up) more and buy yourself time before you join the rat race (or you can delay growing up and taking on responsibility - cuts both ways). Basically,