Are PhDs Losing Their Lustre? Why Fewer Students Are Enrolling in Doctoral Degrees (nature.com) 87
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.
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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.
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There's not a single Bachelor student out there conducting research or writing papers that isn't under the guidance of the aforementioned professors. There is a big difference between independently doing something (not really doing, but establishing a department to do it) and doing something under guidance. In virtually all bachelor programs you don't even get to come up with what to research, you pick the topics available by the professors who established the research grant to do it.
The next door neighbour
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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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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.
With one huge caveat: tenure assures freedom of research within certain boundaries. It’s no longer a strong safeguard against being drummed out for positing anything that isn’t sanctioned by the most recent DNC platform. Of course this assumes you somehow managed to hide such apostasy in order to get tenure in the first place.
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“Nazi” “inbred” “fuckwads” “killing child cancer patients” “childraping” “Dear leader” “Hitler”.
Congratulations comrade!
You got tenure!
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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)
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Believe me, we know they exist, we get stuck training those wet behind t
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I have a PhD, and I am a professor. Really professors split their time between teaching and doing research work. The exact ratio varies by institution. I wanted to go into teaching, and so I went to a teaching university to work. I spend about 80% of my time teaching students to hack code and then 20% advancing the state of the art of my field. (By tiny increments at glacial speed as is the way of the academy.)
Personally, I love it! Though in computer science it can be a hard sell because of what you have s
You absolutely cannot just go get a masters (Score:2)
What happens is you become overqualified for entry level positions. Nobody will hire you because they know that you're just going to quit as soon as you get a little experience. There are plenty of forums of people who got Masters or even PhDs in various science fields or medical fields that aren't a straight up MD (like the nursing ones) where the
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
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That's a load of crap, especially for engineering - a field which not only relies on continuous development to stay on top of the latest standards, but in fact most professional accreditations require you to prove you're continuously learning in order to retain your status as a professional engineer.
You aren't just in service of someone. You are a financial decisions. Someone is paying you to do something. If you don't have the capability to do it they will stop paying you and find someone who can. It's up
I'm not saying it's supply and demand, but... (Score:2)
No jobs (Score:4, Informative)
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?
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I've Got a Friend (Score:2)
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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)
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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
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I read the encyclopedia and dictionary for fun when I was a kid
I guess kids don't do that anymore.
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If you're getting a doctorate in a field not relevant to your industry then you've objectively wasted years of study. The reality is getting a doctorate puts you very much in the crosshairs of the industry. Specialists are a thing, and they often attract specialist pay packages.
E.g. I guarantee you precisely zero PhD postDocs out there in any AI field are currently regretting their decision. If on the other hand you do a PhD in COBOL now then I'd question your intelligence.
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:I almost went for a PhD (Score:4)
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. You're making a huge mistake. What are you doing? Stop it. You're gonna be at least 100-200 thousand bucks in the negative, on top of the lost income. The Ph.D. closes off more employment opportunities than it opens up, and the really nice PhD jobs are extremely competitive. You're probably gonna regret your life decisions. You would be much smarter to work for a company or the government, and convince them to pay for your doctorate. Or, work for the university in some fashion that covers your tuition and a bit of income that lets you survive. You live the poor grad student life, you enjoy the academic environment, and you graduate without much debt.
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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.
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on b) thank you for picking up this probably small but really important group!
lots of people do PhD's to fill what they see as really important knowledge gaps - and really this is the whole point of PhD's in the first place. The difference is that funding is available for some of those knowledge gaps (science and STEM good examples because govts see them as economically productive and/or they have commercial applications), and for many of them almost nobody gives a shit and people work really hard to put th
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I already have my masters (an MBA) and I ended up teaching at a Title 1 (poverty) middle school. I have been considering getting my Doctorate, in this case an Ed.d.,
My reason is twofold, I see a problem and I want others to see it. I would also like to do more focused work on possible ways to address the problem.
The problem is the failure to address the needs of boys. I am not going to go into details here, except to say that the educational institutions are fa
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I don't know anything about your specific subject area but, yes, it's the cool thing about a Phd (or almost any research degree) - you are free to research any new area of knowledge you like.
You obviously have to research it objectively, follow sound principles around research approach, but otherwise free to test your hypothesis. If what you say is indeed true, then your literature review would uncover a tendency to marginalise an issue faced by males, and that is a good starting point into what you can pro
Return on investment (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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After I finished my PhD a few years ago, I thought seriously about going in to academia - at the time I already had a quite well paying career and just thought it'd be an interesting area to move into.
But after seeing postdoc or other academic opportunities - usually along the lines of an objectively low income, doing lots of teaching, and basically being the faculty's bitch, while at the same time needing to have a million publications from somewhere - I just thought fuck this and stuck to the career I alr
In the old days that kind of basic research (Score:2)
Of course somebody noticed the billions of dollars we spend on basic research and asks themselves, what if that money was mine? And the rest as they say is history.
In a few years we are going to have a major problem because it takes 50 to 60 years for basic research to pay off
Piled Higher Deeper (Score:3, Interesting)
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 sciences and medical research it has often meant more. The PHD mathematicians, metallurgists, etc, I worked with in manufacturing were almost universally quite competent and productive. And, just like software developers, they too are usually pretty reserved about advertising their education level - letting the results speak for themselves.
On the other hand, from what I’ve seen, advanced degrees in soft disciplines are a truly mixed bag. They often mean little except perhaps as a checkbox necessary for a bump in a government salary (or for academia). Yes, many are quite smart, competent, and productive, but also too many aren’t really any of these. For example, a PHD in teaching is arguably far easier to get than a bachelors in electrical engineering - have a neighbor that got one via a correspondence course - and a bachelors in teaching not much harder than a GED. Yet despite this mixed bag, I've noticed that soft discipline PHDs are FAR more likely to tout their credentials socially, on-line, and at work. You’ll often find out within minutes of meeting them the first time, and their social media profiles often ram it in right up front.
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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).
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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).
And, as icing the cake, too often absolutely certain they knew about everything - especially politics.
Plus let’s not forget the school administrators - even more so than the teachers.
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Wow snobby much?
They earned an advanced degree and are perfectly entitled to call themselves Dr. Maybe they had to study part-time because they work low income jobs, and have a family to provide for - what's your problem exactly?
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They were the ones who were snobby about it. They may have been technically entitled to call themselves "doctor", but most hard science Phds. (who generally worked a lot harder for their degrees) don't insist. Heck, I know plenty of medical doctors who only want to be called "doctor" at work.
I have a law degree. Believe it or not, there is an ethics opinion that says lawyers are entitled to call themselves doctor because they have a Juris Doctorate. You'd be right to laugh me out of the room if I told you t
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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
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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
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Given the extreme wealth gaps we are seeing these days, it's no surprise most of us are strapped for resources. We, as a society, seem to perfectly okay with billionaires and also perfectly okay with people dying in the streets. These two sets of people can even exist in the same region. SF or LA has both I'm sure.
Maybe in the future we can once again let people do mostly pointless studies on topics that won't really matter much in the day to day of society at large. For now, I'd advise a youth to work hard
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400% charge out rate is industry standard in engineering. My pay is $80ph, consulting it is $400.
Not job training (Score:3)
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
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This is a super important distinction. Every level of certificated (American) education has different intended goals:
* High School Diploma: Literacy, arithmetic competency, basics of American history, basics of civics, basics of money management.
* Bachelor's Degree: Strong written competencies, moderate general mathematical competencies, strong analytical decision making, and a focus in a particular area of study
* Industry Certification: Demonstrated competency in a particular type of work, often requiring
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I agree that Academia is oversold. I have worked with many self taught software developers that are much more productive and versatile than most CS Majors. I found I learned much more the first year on the job than I did the entire time at the University.
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:So most PhDs (Score:5, Funny)
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
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Smart is OUT.
You got that right, but for entirely different reasons than you intuit. The average IQ of a graduate today is 102. It used to be 119.
The drop is entirely due to the $SoftAreas swapping out merit measures for “narrative” compliance. Those gender studies and critical theory degrees are drop dead easy. Regurgitate claptrap about “systemic X” and “power imbalance Y” and voila! Instant A.
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Hats off to you for reading all that. I started, checked the posters name after the first paragraph and stopped. All his post ever are talking about Trump or Republicans. Constantly.
He does occasionally have a good point but his TDS creeps into everything he comments on. It's exhausting after a while.
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He makes reference to ROI in his first 2 lines when he talks about how non STEM need grants and fellowships. No one pays for their own gender studies PhD because the ROI is zero. Duh. Did -you- read his dumb post? Apparently not. I read every word for content and meaning. Some of it I read multiple times because he's nuts so it wasn't clear wtf he was talking about but I needed to figure it out to write a proper summary to serve the community. At great personal sacrifice I provided a proper summary f
Read the article, lived the experience... (Score:4, Informative)
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 looking for grants and funding, especially federal funding, which has just vanished. He has said that the biggest block of his time is trying to get funding, the rest is teaching, and he has almost no time for actual research, the reason he went for the PhD in the first place.
I've had schools reach out to me to be an adjunct faculty. I did it for a semester for a class, which was fun for me and I loved the students and got great reviews from them, then realized the problem with it and have sworn it off and warned others away as much as possible. Two decades ago my department only had one adjunct faculty member, someone who had been teaching on the side for over a decade but wanted to primarily stay in industry. These days about 70% of faculty are adjuncts [cengage.com], contract workers with no benefits, with much lower pay than regular professors, and no tenure track for anybody. Like so many businesses, most universities have chosen a race-to-the-bottom for the cheapest workers possible. That means fewer regular jobs for the PhD holders, and if they do manage to get one of the roughly 30% of the remaining jobs, they pay less -- if they pay at all. Many universities have shifted entirely to require some faculty to get their own funding through research grants to justify their pay. Tenure tracks have all but vanished.
And then there's the pay issue again. In my field I can get almost 3x the money working in industry. My BIL doesn't have industry options as an astrophysicist researcher, which is why his time is almost entirely devoted to the search for more money and teaching rather than productive research, which he would much rather be doing.
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Very interesting post and it definitely lines up with my community college experience that I've recently had. All my tech teachers are old men with decades of industry credentials. All very interesting, knowledgeable folk and I get the impression the single classes they are teaching per semester is a side gig for them.
After reading your post, it makes a lot more sense why this is. At least all my tech teachers have lots of real world experience and knowledge. I've learned plenty about tech but it's the othe
The problem is poor pay for very few jobs (Score:4, Informative)
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 base rate varies by school, but is always absurdly low. She would typically be paid $1800 - $2500 per class per term (a 5 month semester). So, if she was teaching a full load, of 5-6 classes, the most she would make is around $45k/year (2 full terms + a summer term). But then there's the complication that no single school would give her more than 3 classes per term, so she'd have to look for jobs from multiple schools simultaneously. Also, there are no automatic renewals, so every term you have to basically find as many new classes as you can and just hope you get the contracts. Some terms were great and she'd have a full load, but often she might only get 3-4 classes total. We knew MANY adjuncts living in their cars.
But if you score a permanent position in a department, things must get better, right? Well, that's easier said than done. These jobs are incredibly competitive, and there aren't a lot of openings. My wife is very well known in her field, she's written dozens of papers and published her first 3 books before she even tried to get a permanent position. Even then, with around 45 applications over 3 years, she only made the shortlist for 4 jobs (each with 5-10 other candidates). After 3+ years of searching, she managed to find a position, but the issues didn't end there. The assistant professor position only paid $55k. She'd make more if she got tenure, but getting tenure is a 10-15 year process, and it's much harder to get as universities prefer to just let professors leave than try to retain them (they can just throw more temporary adjuncts at classes for next to nothing). She was at a large state school, but even they had a handful of departments with only 3-4 tenured professors each (and generally 1-2 dozen assistant profs. or adjuncts at any one time).
Long story short, after struggling within the university system for over 15 years, my wife now teaches high school. The pay for a high school science teacher started at $80k, about 50% more than she made as an assistant professor at a large state university.
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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.
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Let's face it. A lot of people will chase after a goal without realizing just what they are up against. You want to become a university professor? Well, that's actually an industry we can get a pretty accurate head count on and the number is low. There are only so many colleges/universities in the world and I'm pretty sure you are waiting for someone to retire or die for a position to open up.
Hats off to the people that can blindly follow their dreams against all reality.
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?
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While I think you are vastly overestimating Billy Bob's research capabilities on the Internet, I don't think you are really wrong either. While our current "AI" is pretty silly, it will get better and become more tailored to a more narrow subject matter.
I've no doubt you could have a large amount of traditional course work (The slow moving, rarely changing subjects, like History, English, K-12 Math topics) taught completely by an AI bot and a proper educational platform. We're almost there as it is.
So as yo
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Maybe you missed the point of a PhD - it's not just a harder and longer undergrad.
PhD's are explicitly about uncovering a new area of knowledge that hasn't been researched before. So - you review literature that is related to the new idea you want to research. But you don't get the degree until you have explored this new area, that nobody else has focused on.
So, no, your comment is completely redundant - by definition Billy Bob wouldn't be able to read about your as-yet unresearched idea. But love the inver
PhD Students are Too Expensive Now (Score:3)
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 worked**. The cost of the PhD student has thus increased so massively that labs could could carry 4 or 5 can now only fund 1-3.
Particularly in light of the massive changes in federal higher education and research funding, there's going to be a LOT less funding to pay for PhD students and thus we should expect massive reductions of PhD enrollment.
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:3)
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, if you need time, are willing to put in the work and willing to put up with the associated pains, it may be for you.
Generally, I find PhDs to be more flexible and deployable. Ideally PhDs are self-motivated, curious, flexible, quick studies, not afraid of difficulty - at least in my area of work. There is an expectation that PhDs require little supervision, ideally close to none. They are supposed to know what to do, or figure it out themselves, quickly. PhDs usually get more freedoms at work for that reason.
In a way I find it easier to be employed as a PhD than decades ago, maybe simply because many do not go that route to become professors anymore. YMVW greatly depending on field, I realize that. But if getting a PhD is a plan that targets personal growth rather simple delay prior to entering the job market, people seem to be doing fine.
And since /. ought to be (ha!) full of engineers, they can probably not relate at all - no need for a PhD in engineering, really. I know that.
To me the best career paths are getting a PhD in a reasonable field, or learning a trade and running your own business. The former seems more fun, the latter will earn you more money, if done right, on average. Have had cab drivers with PhDs before - still waiting for a plumber with a PhD. Must exist, somewhere ...
Why would you put up with the abuse? (Score:1)