There were several posts in the Test Optional Strategy thread about how difficult it was to get tenure track academia jobs, and I thought it might be worth its own thread.
I have previously described the job struggles of a well-known CC poster who got her undergrad in MIT and then got a PhD at Harvard in 2013 (I won’t reveal her name or CC id). She also had publications in journals like Science, Neuron, and Cell, and was even featured in an episode on NOVA. But after her PhD she ended up doing two post-docs, and held three different roles as adjunct professor. This fall she finally landed a position as an assistant professor at a respected New England LAC. I used her as an example to my kids of just how hard the struggle to a tenure track position can be. Apparently it worked, as neither of my kids showed any interest in getting a PhD.
Now onto more recent examples. Before college, my two children were fortunate enough to do three years of research at separate HYPSM colleges. Each one had a wonderful graduate student mentor who provided an amazing environment for learning, and for one of my children, led to published papers. One was a PhD student and the other was doing a postdoc. Both had numerous publications, and the postdoc’s publications included 5 articles in Science and Nature. My children owe much to each of them, and wish them nothing but success.
A few years ago we learned that the post-doc got a job as an assistant professor at Oregon State. And just this week, we learned that the PhD student who originally got an assistant professor position at Stanford did not get renewed, and was now taking a new position as assistant professor at the University of South Florida.
These three people had better credentials going into the academic job market than just about anyone, and yet they were all unable to break into anything close to the top tier of academic positions. I would hate to see what the market looks like for PhDs coming from less well-known programs.
The worst thing about the examples you give is how very recent they are when this has been a persistent problem in academia for literally decades. Sad to see some of the ‘smartest’ people reject the evidence and experience of decades for whatever reasons they’d give.
When I started my PhD program a number of years ago, I dreamed of being a college professor. I taught for several years and across several subjects as a graduate student instructor and really, really enjoyed it. And I was GOOD at it. My research was innovative and, by the time I finished my dissertation, I was one of the foremost experts in my subject matter in the entire world (it is a bit of a niche area, but it has implications that are quite relevant for more mainstream topics and due to current events is also enjoying some renewed interest - which I can see by the number of people who have downloaded my dissertation on academia.edu in the past year or two)
All of this is to say: I would have been an asset to academia, both in terms of teaching and research.
And, yet, after only about two or three years as a PhD student I realized I would never work in academia. I was not willing to adjunct because I had a child and didn’t feel it would be fair to not only accept ongoing economic insecurity (read: poverty) on behalf of my chlid, but also wasn’t fair to have to keep moving around the country as one contract ended and another (hopefully!) began.
And so it went. I got my PhD out of stubbornness and left academia. With some regret. But also confident that I had made the right decision. It is certainly my loss, but also - and I say this more sincerely than egotistically - academia’s loss.
It is not uncommon for these academically top-flight kids to view the free-thinking tenure position as the ultimate goal, but they grow up so fast… And they realize that the ivory tower sinecura comes with lots of committee meetings. If you can get it.
We are not trying to influence our kids one way or the other though - just teaching them to work hard, so that they hopefully have opportunities that speak to them when the time comes to choose.
Our older entered MIT with a CS paper under review (since published) and aspirations for an academic career, and, five semesters and two more published papers later, finished his undergrad, put his MEng admission on a two year deferral, and took a dream job in the industry that not too long ago he had no idea even existed. He doesn’t seem interested in riding that MEng onramp back into academia.
His younger brother is now applying to colleges, having just published his second math paper, with third in print and fourth just completed. He is a little too young to give up on academia just yet, but one thing his brother’s and his own experience taught him is to keep his mind open to the opportunities.
I know a couple of PhDs who work as Library Technicians, starting salary of $14.75 per hour, at our local public library. Two of them have Ivy League PhDs (one in art history, the other in some ancient languages). Another PhD who used to work there told me that if you factored in the benefits, the public library job paid more than her previous teaching job at a local public university.
Yes, but I bet your son knows students who had the same type of career offer but thought long and hard about giving that up and going for the pauper’s life of a PhD instead. Mine certainly did.
One of my close friends got her PhD in math at Stanford - she does have a full professorship but it is at a small, unremarkable college where she is overworked and under paid (once told me that she was making - at the time - less than the average public school teacher in our town). The only bright light for her is the kids as she really loves teaching but I’m not sure how much longer she’ll last as the administration is so toxic.
Interesting thread since it seems to deal mostly with tenure track STEM jobs. The arts and humanities are in decline so it is even more “brutal” in those areas.
The years spend doing a doctorate have to have some value other than career outcome. However that chance to explore an area of study in depth comes with significant financial consequences.
And a STEM PhD can still be very helpful outside academia as a signal of credibility (or simply being “smart”). I find mine to have value even though my job has absolutely nothing to do with math (for example it automatically adds credibility when I’ve testified as an expert witness). But spouse’s PhD in a non-STEM field has been no help whatsoever outside academia.
However I would still encourage any of my kids to get a PhD if that’s what they want. Just like I’m happy D is now doing ballet, even though for the vast majority of people it’s a dead end with no prospect of making money. But they should treat a PhD like dancing for a few years: an interesting diversion on the long and winding path of life that might lead to something, but most probably won’t. That’s what my PhD was, three years of enjoying college sports and life in general, with no serious intention of pursuing an academic career.
I agree, but with that said an average STEM PhD takes 5-7 years. That’s a large opportunity cost in lost earnings and promotions in the non-academic world.
For example, I worked alongside PhDs in consulting. Others like me had MBAs, while some had various master’s and only bachelors degrees. Those with PhDs did not come in at a relatively higher level position. Meaning they don’t get credit for the PhD years as work experience. They might be reporting to someone of the same age with just a bachelors degree, but that person has 7 years work experience. Those with PhDs can and do progress, but generally not any faster than people with the other educational backgrounds. Just an n of 1, although observed over decades.
But how much of that 5-7 years is artificially prolonged while people are searching for academic jobs or wanting to produce the best possible thesis and associated papers to help their application for academic jobs? It is problematic that US students are allowed (and often funded as a TA) to continue rather than having a strict deadline like in the UK (funding stops after 3 years, although for most people you’d add a year long masters beforehand).
I was done just after I turned 24, and the PhD taught me to write and present, so I ended up with a job that I simply wouldn’t have gotten out of undergrad. Because of that opportunity I was then able to progress more quickly in my career. So I look at the financial penalty (for me personally) as quite limited, and I never really cared about maximizing my lifetime income anyway. The race is long, and in the end it’s only with yourself.
I agree that this ‘penalty’ is different for different people. People considering a two year MBA have to look at the opportunity cost of lost wages and promotions for example. It’s not necessarily true for MBAs (and I would expect for those considering other advanced degrees) that these degrees always lead to a job one couldn’t get otherwise. That’s just another part of each person’s personal analysis/calculation, whether they do that via formal ROI or by assessing what is important to them across many other factors. Fundamentally though choosing to not work and pursue an advanced degree is an option that not every college grad has.
Not worrying about a career path and expecting it to all work out in the end is definitely not for everyone. In some cases people are unable to do that because of financial constraints, and in other cases it is just not aligned with their personality.
It’s certainly more reassuring as a parent if your kids have a well-defined medium term career plan, and correspondingly nerve-wracking if they don’t.
At my university (a large state school ranked around 100), hiring of tenure-track engineering faculty remains very competitive. For every open position in the last several years, we get 50–80 applications. Most of the candidates we invited to campus had a PhD from t20 engineering, or did a postdoc at those t20 but received a PhD from t100. Almost all have pretty good publications in an area that’s hot or considered up and coming. Some have famous advisors. So it’s “typical.”
However, hiring of tenure-track CS faculty is a completely different story. I don’t know how the applicant pool looked like (not being on the search committees), but most of those who ended up joining had a PhD from schools like ours, or schools ranked significantly below ours (e.g., non-state flagships). There was one from the “top 4” of CS but that person has regional ties. I chalk this up to CS PhDs getting so many amazing offers they can’t refuse, that the only ones we’re able to attract are prestige-wise at least a few rungs below the tippy-top tier.
I agree that potential PhD students at age 21+ should be able to evaluate the likely career outcomes of getting a PhD.
But I wonder if we are letting their professors too easily off the hook. While PhD students SHOULD KNOW, the professors that are teaching them DO KNOW. They know exactly how bad the career prospects are for their students, yet they happily take on new students at a regular pace.
Given this apparent continuing market failure, I wonder if there should be the equivalent of a College Scorecard for PhD students, showing the past outcomes for people in that college and major and their median income.
Or, perhaps the Bureau of Labor to start reporting on academic jobs and the projected need for them, as it does for many other industries. For example, the BLS tracks law jobs and reports numbers that show the need for newly-minted JD’s is about 50% of the number that graduates. In other words, we graduate 2x teh number of attorneys needed.
It would be great to know a similar number for tenure track jobs.
But I would also think that universities are motivated to keep churning out PhDs because, although there are few TT jobs, adjunct and lecturer positions still need to be filled, and many of those positions require PhDs. They need people willing to teach for peanuts and no job security and the only way to ensure that is by dumping out a ton of PhDs, many of whom - especially in the humanities who have fewer industry prospects - will vie for those positions in desperation despite their clear limitations. (Many students in my cohort certainly did and some continue to do so to this day.)
There are some data at AAUP (from IPEDS, so title IV institutions only) showing last 10 years of trends in tenure track/non TT jobs. Tabs to drill down further on the main page:
