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Hi all,
I did a search to no avail. It looks like no one has posted the AHA's new jobs report.
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2017/conflicting-signals-in-the-academic-job-market-for-history
In year's past I remember this being controversial--it shouldn't be! There's a reason our professional association studies and publishes new reports every year. 
A few things to note:
the graphs include *all* jobs for History PhDs (full-time positions, including tenure-track jobs, non-tenure-track jobs, and term-limited fellowships, as well as positions beyond the professoriate), not just tenure-track. Only 9% of jobs went to ABDs. For those entering your final years in the program, this might be helpful info to consider when deciding how to split your time between apps to postdocs/non-tt jobs/vaps vs. tt jobs. Jobs beyond the tenure track increased! No doubt, this is partly due to the incredible work of the AHA.  

@kurayamino -- Think about what you just posted. You have been here as a member since 01/15. There are members who have been here longer, who are also seasoned graduate students (some have earned their Ph.D.s)  who are agreeing with the OP, who has BTDT-- earned a Ph.D., has gotten works published, and has looked for a job. You are being afforded an opportunity to learn from the hard earned, bitterly won experience of others. Does sparring help you to learn what you can?
 
More generally, I think it is unwise to dog pile on the OP because he/she is presenting jarring information and some find the tone of the message distasteful. The members of this BB who are seasons graduate students, or have earned Ph.Ds, or are professors and administrators are all here to offer support/advice/criticism based upon either personal experiences or directly observed experiences. This is not to say that members of this cohort should get a pass for everything they say or that anyone should follow their guidance no questions asked.
 
This is to say that many of you need to think it through a couple of more times before attempting to shoot the messengers.

This is a helpful distinction for me. I'm just very worried when people get all pollyanna about grad school with stuff like, "Well I don't mind burying my nose in books for 5-8 years, to hell with the consequences." I would add that often the casual fallback option planning is far too casual. People need to realize that 5-8 years of studying for a degree that probably won't get you a job is a long time to not be earning and saving for whatever your needs may be in the future (retirement, family, home, etc.) It's just a huge chunk of deferred income (5-8 for the degree, but +2 years or so if you choose to try your hand at the academic job market; so that's 10 years of deferred income, people!) that can really screw with your life plans if you're not ready for it.
 
I hate the rat race and every other part of capitalist society that makes me worry about the crap I listed above, but simply ignoring it is not going to help me and my family survive.
 
And I think this is ComeBackZinc's point--if you go in with the express knowledge that you can walk out either unfinished or without a job with a smile on your face, then have at it. The awareness is what's key. Have Plan B's and C's that you're ready to move up in the queue at a moment's notice. Ph.Ds are not just a risky choice anymore, it's almost a sure-lose.
 
Unfortunately, like OP said, I really do think there's a lot of exceptionalism in these types of threads, so his or her warnings are very, very much needed for that reason.

Couldn't help but read the initial post in Glenn Beck's voice.

Septerra -- Unfortunately, I'm not so sure you'll find academia sheltered from "capitalism and the commercialization of society." Student debt & adjunctification are just a few signs of how similar the academy is to other industries and institutions.

Word.  One of the good things about both academics and teachers (and other jobs that really do value being as educated as you can) is that they can recognize the value of criticizing their own field without undermining it.  I assume that you're a licensed teacher making a living doing that, working in a public school system that sounds like is working well and doing what it was set out to do.  Which is fantastic.  But I just worry about the state of public education in many places, especially in places where there are big issues with economic inequality and segregation and where those socioeconomic issues are perpetuated alongside the undermining of public education in ways that can actually be beneficial for people looking for a plan B, but not necessarily in a way that would be savory to a lot of otherwise well-intentioned young educated people trying to be a positive force in their cities and make a decent living wage.  It's more complicated than "this is bad" or "this is great" though.  I do think people should look into teaching as an alt-ac career (as lindsey372 said, having that kind of knowledge and background can be very valuable in a school), but, like anything else, should make steps towards that early instead of taking it for granted as a natural "Plan B" (which is an attitude I've heard people in my program say: I think there are real problems with both the attitude of TFA vets I've heard talk about teaching as a form of martyrdom and those who say they'll just go get a teaching gig in a high school if they can't find a job in academia).  :-) 

Since I, and maybe others who don't live on this forum, have not followed the ponzi scheme thread, reactivating the conversation here, with new perspectives, has been edifying (for me at least) and hopefully worthwhile since secondary teaching is such a common plan B.  

Lindsey, I'd defer to a past poster that complained about the "exploitation Olympics" (or whatever the phrase is). The point is not to say that PhDs are not privileged in certain respects, or that they are the most exploited.
More specifically,
You assume that all grad students get a living wage with full benefits. This is simply not true. Benefit packages are not always "full," depending on how you define that. You also may lose these benefits if, for instance, you need to withdraw while researching abroad due to the constraints of your funding.  Finally, many schools across the "ranks" provide a salary that cannot pay the bills in the expensive cities in which the university is located.  You can absolutely accept a "fully funded" offer to a grad school and, by year 2, realize that you must earn more money to continue, pay healthcare costs out-of-pocket, etc.

Lindsey, I'd defer to a past poster that complained about the "exploitation Olympics" (or whatever the phrase is). The point is not to say that PhDs are not privileged in certain respects, or that they are the most exploited.
More specifically,
You assume that all grad students get a living wage with full benefits. This is simply not true. Benefit packages are not always "full," depending on how you define that. You also may lose these benefits if, for instance, you need to withdraw while researching abroad due to the constraints of your funding.  Finally, many schools across the "ranks" provide a salary that cannot pay the bills in the expensive cities in which the university is located.  You can absolutely accept a "fully funded" offer to a grad school and, by year 2, realize that you must earn more money to continue, pay healthcare costs out-of-pocket, etc.

Lindsey, I'd defer to a past poster that complained about the "exploitation Olympics" (or whatever the phrase is). The point is not to say that PhDs are not privileged in certain respects, or that they are the most exploited.
More specifically,
You assume that all grad students get a living wage with full benefits. This is simply not true. Benefit packages are not always "full," depending on how you define that. You also may lose these benefits if, for instance, you need to withdraw while researching abroad due to the constraints of your funding.  Finally, many schools across the "ranks" provide a salary that cannot pay the bills in the expensive cities in which the university is located.  You can absolutely accept a "fully funded" offer to a grad school and, by year 2, realize that you must earn more money to continue, pay healthcare costs out-of-pocket, etc.

Lindsey, I'd defer to a past poster that complained about the "exploitation Olympics" (or whatever the phrase is). The point is not to say that PhDs are not privileged in certain respects, or that they are the most exploited.
More specifically,
You assume that all grad students get a living wage with full benefits. This is simply not true. Benefit packages are not always "full," depending on how you define that. You also may lose these benefits if, for instance, you need to withdraw while researching abroad due to the constraints of your funding.  Finally, many schools across the "ranks" provide a salary that cannot pay the bills in the expensive cities in which the university is located.  You can absolutely accept a "fully funded" offer to a grad school and, by year 2, realize that you must earn more money to continue, pay healthcare costs out-of-pocket, etc.

You've misread molloy's post. He's one of the most tireless advocates here on issues of income inequality and the importance and rewards of teaching socioeconomically disadvantaged students, which he has, you know, actually done. In the phrase "the alternative being to be lucky enough to find a job teaching the children of the 1%" the "teaching the children of the 1%" percent is a bad thing, the downside to taking a more stable and financially secure job in a private school instead of a public one. Telling him what he has no idea about when you have no idea about him is, again, not the most charitable of possible responses.

Except that it's just that sort of language that internalizes and, frankly authorizes, a lot of real world, piss-poor academic labor practices. No, academia should not be a labor of love in which one resigns oneself to a potentially economically precarious position in return for experiencing a vague Life of the Mind  that doesn't need recompense because it is supposedly its own reward. I'm usually one of the first ones here to look askance at people saying that the cruel realities of the job market are in any real sense oppressive (I'll totally buy exploitative, though), but I think it's equally misguided to say that those realities don't matter. It's a job, and the minute we treat it less like a job that deserves (like all labor!) fair compensation and instead imagine it as special and set apart, as some quasi-monastic pursuit of ill-defined capital-K "Knowledge" that imagines financial hardship as somehow constitutive of the scholarly project, is the minute people think they don't need to pay their students/adjuncts/faculty well because, hey, what the hell do they do all day but sit around and talk about poetry and doesn't everyone know there's no money in the humanities and isn't that what they signed up for, anyway?
I also don't know how productive it is to try to discern the OP's passion or lack thereof at this remove. OP's been through this, OP's done this, and OP's not sure they'd do it again. Saying that that must mean that oh, well, OP just didn't want it hard enough, or doesn't now, seems uncharitable.

MollifedMolloy, Yes!  You might look into AHA's new programs, one of which provides money/aid to help schools make grad student jobs in non-teaching areas (admin, tech, etc.) I believe Jim Grossman pioneered it. This enables grads to progress in their PhDs while also building a resume in non-academic/non-teaching fields.  Here's a link to some similar ideas:
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/november-2013/in-admin-four-history-phds-discuss-their-alt-ac-careers
I've tried to take on research, admin, and volunteer roles throughout my PhD. It hasn't always worked, but oftentimes I find that I can earn some extra $$ or gain a few new skills, ease some job-related anxiety, and actually get more done on my PhD because my academic time is structured (and precious).  Even work related to your PhD can help, if only because its puts you in touch with people outside your immediate circle/industry. Oftentimes, advisers' professional networks are deeply embedded in academia, where there are lots of people looking for work. But, if you take a part-time position in an archive, at a publishing house, or even tutoring, you will meet people in other industries while also adding lines to your academic CV.  Depending on your field, you could: take a proofreading/copyediting exam and do freelance work in your field at your institution's academic press (yes, you could get doubly paid to read books), tutor in your field, volunteer ESL with migrant aid centers and adult learners in the area, volunteer/work to translate documents or statements for non-profits, hospitals, and law firms, volunteer for research positions in campus research centers, do part-time work in your campus's student services (if you're interested in admin) PR unit (if you're interested in media/communications) or development office (if you're interested in finance).
I think these opportunities are win-wins: you get more money, more skills, more friends/contacts, with minimal injury to your progress. It has eroded my social time a bit, but I have also made new friends in these volunteer and work positions, so I think it's worth it.  Best of luck!

This is very important.  If I could give advice to every admitted student, it would be 1) conduct one-on-one conversations, outside of Visit Day, with multiple students and former students of your adviser/field (so as to get a sense of your committee). Ideally, these students would be advanced, because they'll be able to tell you about life after coursework, when advising, funding, etc. is most critical. 2) know placement rates for your adviser & field within the department (assuming you want a TT job. I would also advise to ask about support for alternative careers, but that's another matter).   You seem to know about 2, but 1 is equally important. If you can confirm with multiple students that a professor is very, even exceptionally, dedicated to students, and kind, I'd say you have a great and rare adviser on your hands.  It's true that the adviser isn't everything. However, it is also true that the lack of a dedicated mentor can jeopardize your training, happiness, and career. Track down more students and try to figure out if this is just about department politics. If it is, ignore it.  If its a sign of general difficulty that impacts her advising, you have another matter on your hands.
FWIW, two of the faculty at my top-ranked department have issues with departmental admissions right now. This is largely because they (understandably) think fewer PhDs should be admitted due to declining job numbers.  They have both stopped actively recruiting for this reason. But, they are hands-down the most supportive people on our faculty when it comes to grad students. Sometimes the faculty that have spats with other faculty are the ones that advocate for their students the most.

This is very important.  If I could give advice to every admitted student, it would be 1) conduct one-on-one conversations, outside of Visit Day, with multiple students and former students of your adviser/field (so as to get a sense of your committee). Ideally, these students would be advanced, because they'll be able to tell you about life after coursework, when advising, funding, etc. is most critical. 2) know placement rates for your adviser & field within the department (assuming you want a TT job. I would also advise to ask about support for alternative careers, but that's another matter).   You seem to know about 2, but 1 is equally important. If you can confirm with multiple students that a professor is very, even exceptionally, dedicated to students, and kind, I'd say you have a great and rare adviser on your hands.  It's true that the adviser isn't everything. However, it is also true that the lack of a dedicated mentor can jeopardize your training, happiness, and career. Track down more students and try to figure out if this is just about department politics. If it is, ignore it.  If its a sign of general difficulty that impacts her advising, you have another matter on your hands.
FWIW, two of the faculty at my top-ranked department have issues with departmental admissions right now. This is largely because they (understandably) think fewer PhDs should be admitted due to declining job numbers.  They have both stopped actively recruiting for this reason. But, they are hands-down the most supportive people on our faculty when it comes to grad students. Sometimes the faculty that have spats with other faculty are the ones that advocate for their students the most.

I'm not sure why people are so down on OP. I get that it's unpleasant to hear these things and that we've heard it over and over and over but I liked the original post. I don't want to minimize OP's experience either by shouting him/her down.
 
As far as I know, most of the people dumping on him/her don't actually have their degree yet and are definitely not on the same job market. So while we, as candidates have one view, it's still pretty valuable to hear these job market experiences. It is for me, at least. 
 
As in, I know it's terrible out there. But did I know all the details that OP shared? No... and I think it's wise to steel oneself with realities like this. Obviously, none of us will ever be 100% ready after we step out of the university and into the job market, but hopefully we'll all be wiser and more prepared than those who haven't had the same schpeel pounded over and over into their heads.

I do think Ponzi scheme is a little bit more appropriate than simply a synonym for "scam" but it's not a perfect analogy.
The way I see it, a Ponzi scheme is a scam where you lure future investors into investing their money with you and then uses this new money to pay off old investors (keeping a cut for themselves of course). However, this does not actually generate any new income so while the old investors may be under the impression that they are investing into something that is making good money, the whole scheme is unsustainable and eventually they will have no more new investors and then no one will get any more money! In essence, the scheme works by luring in future investors by false pretenses of rewards that don't exist.
The analogy to academia is that the current professors need graduate students and postdoc to do research work for them. At least in my field, it's pretty clear that the majority of the research "engine" is work by grad students and postdocs. So, there is a lot of recruitment and not-quite-promises of a future career in academia if you go to grad school, or if you do this postdoc, or if you adjunct here or there. But like a Ponzi scheme, the whole situation is unsustainable--there are far more early career researchers than permanent positions. I think when institutions create postdoc positions that they know will not lead to TT or other permanent positions and when they recruit graduate students without telling them the truth that most of them will not get TT positions, that is where the professors and departments act like a Ponzi scheme. 
But otherwise I do agree that it's not a perfect analogy. For example, I can't think of the analogous equivalent of the part where they "pay out old investors with money from new investors".
But back to the topic. Also, I just want to say this is me writing as a community member, not as a moderator. Why are we going around and trying to "police" each other's opinions and thoughts. It's not like VM is advocating that we do unethical or immoral things. I don't understand why we (as other community members) need to tell VM to stop posting their opinion and pass judgement or criticize VM's choice to advocate for their cause in this way. I think it's one thing to disagree and post counterpoints when VM posts their points (as was done at the beginning of the thread). But now, we are no longer discussing the content but instead, the way it is presented. It's not like VM's posts are speaking on all of our behalf, so I don't think we have any prerogative to tell VM how to advance their cause or how to write their posts! Just my two cents.

The conflict that many in this forum have with VirtualMessage is basically that we don't get it. We don't know shit.
VirtualMessage can correct me if I'm wrong, but he or she graduated with a PhD and is now an adjunct/NTT faculty/working outside of academia. VM was probably a terrific graduate student. VM probably spent at least 10 years in school (from BA to PhD) being fawned over by his or her professors. Very likely these same professors either glossed over the increasingly nonexistent academic job market or (worse) they simply never discussed it, because why would they given that they have their tenure security already in hand, and given that they hold no accountability over whether their graduate students ever get a TT job. 
Now VM is bitter about it and I can't blame VM for being bitter about it.
And I'm big enough to admit that I cannot empathize with the sheer weight of that disappointment. I won't be able to do that until and unless I find myself in the same situation (hopefully not). And I would wager that this is true of all of us. It's easy to think like Wyatt's Terps and say well, just get out of academia if TT doesn't work out. This is easy to say. This is much harder to do. I bet that a lot of adjuncts thought (while they were in grad school) that they would get out when it became clear that TT wasn't going to happen. Then they fell in love with research and teaching and now they are trapped there. I think it's disingenuous to just think that we can put ourselves in VM's shoes. We cannot. 
You may have noticed that ComeBackZinc hasn't posted recently. I know who he is (not personally but he's very active in the R/C field) and I'd wager that his disappointment at not getting a TT position has something to do with why he hasn't been around recently. The point is, you can't theorize this shit until it happens to you, and calling VM a whiner just confirms that.
VM is here to remind us that this is a difficult path, and if you feel uncomfortable about that then I don't know how you will deal with the job market once you get your PhD.
All this being said, the problem with VM's pessimism is that you can't get any work done if you stress too much. I've spent weekends reading about how academia is gradually destroying itself and in that period I only made myself worry even more. But perhaps more importantly, I got no work done during those CHE binges. And I'm not getting any work done by posting this, because my research isn't about the shrinking of the tenured professoriate.
 

I'll just interject briefly to say that this site has MANY more lurkers than it has active posters, sometimes numbering in the hundreds online at the same time. So just because everyone posting acknowledges the lack of academic jobs doesn't mean this thread isn't informative to others. There may very well be people who read TGC discussions and decide maybe graduate school isn't for them (because of the job market, the length to degree, how hard it is to get into a good program, fear their GPA isn't competitive, etc.) without ever posting or even creating an account. 

As an East Asian historian at a very top program, I certainly wish that this were true. Certainly, graduates of my program have done better on average at getting jobs than the sort of overall numbers that we see so often. But it's far, far, from a guarantee; some years, like this one, seem to have been especially tough. No subfield is immune from the problems facing our field as a whole. Nor is any program.
I'd also note that "non-US historian" is a far from monolithic category. So is "East Asian historian." Africanists are a lot better off than Europeanists. Historians of China are better off than historians of Japan. Some non-US fields are probably just as badly off as some US history-fields.
 

@AbrasaxEos, brilliant post.  I also hope every admit and early-career student read's @Joseph45's post, especially this part:
This realization was the turning point in my own mind.  When I entered my program, even as part of a couple, it was easy enough to say: I love my field so much that I am willing to sacrifice a stable income and viable career path for the next 5 years. But about three years in, I realized that my PhD was also a significant sacrifice I was forcing my partner, family, and children to make. Of course, there are benefits: you have a flexible schedule that may allow more contributions to raising your children, and you might enable your partner to travel place they otherwise wouldn't have seen.  But the pursuit of one pleasure may come at the expense of very real, very beloved, others.

@marXian Don't get me wrong, not that you were getting me wrong necessarily, but I don't want to come off as suggesting that the Humanities are useless or worthless.  I don't think this this the case.  What I'm talking about is a getting a terminal degree in the humanities, which I would argue represents exactly the kind of collapse of vocation and utility that you are talking about.  It is a commodity, and you become an extension of that commodity.  It is the story that everyone has been talking about on GradCafe, and in the Chronicle, and everywhere else.  You get utterly dissolved and recast into the mold of your degree - you become an 'expert' in a 'field' and gain some kind of capital, both symbolic and economic (ha-ha) from it.  I'm not a philosopher, and Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse were some time ago for me, but a terminal degree in the Humanities sounds exactly like what they are talking about.  
So, I think it is one thing to regard the abstract concept of 'critical thinking,' reading about Livonian werewolves, and being sure you understand the difference between Foucault's archaeology and his genealogy as inherently worthwhile.  I still won't agree to them having worth that inheres, because I think that's really a theological argument, and I rightly pass as an atheist.  However, I am glad to give you that argument, as I think it makes sense in a certain way, and I generally find the Frankfurt school convincing, if a bit Freudian for my taste.  What I think needs some consideration is exactly what you identify above, the collapse of vocation and utility that I think is inevitable within a PhD.  You don't need to get into the PhD game to study the humanities, or read good books, or to learn to think critically.  By engaging in a terminal degree, one where you are (hopefully) being paid something, one where your "work" is exactly the reified commodity that you note as a problematic element.  I think the degree is designed to get you to shift your thinking about your vocation as I'm Odysseus-tied-to-the-mast-safely-listening-to-the-siren-call-while-his-men-row-with-their-ears-plugged-to-his-frenetic-cries into commodities of various sorts, be they actual things, like monographs or peer-reviewed articles, or something abstract, like "an original contribution to the field."  
My posts aren't designed to denigrate the humanities, just the notion that doing your PhD somehow gets you around the utilitarian calculus of homo oeconomicus simply because you are doing what you are passionate about, or feel called to do.  As Žižek so wonderfully puts it, we're all already eating from the trash can all the time. 

This is a nice conversation, all around. I've largely stopped commenting on the cafe, or going to it, but I occasionally surf here in order to remind myself of what it was like to be so excited about applying and getting into a PhD program. (I had quite the difficulty getting into one myself). Just to give people an idea about where I'm coming from, I'm defending in May (at an Ivy).
First, about the job market. This past year (applications for jobs that will start in the fall) was worse than usual in my field. That said, there were five jobs to which I could apply--one open rank Stanford, another at Yale, another at a small liberal arts that was open field, and then two more regular job openings for assistant profs. I want to stress that I was not limiting myself to elite schools or a specific geography. I applied to every job that was a conceivable fit. (Very religious schools were not an option, but, if you are very religious, that also limits you to a very few set of schools in another way.) All of which is to say, there were basically two jobs in the entire country that were hiring in my area. Think about that for moment. It makes getting into a PhD program looking like a F*%$* joke. Think of all of the people applying for those jobs, from people in the Ivies and Chicago, Duke, Stanford, etc., people who might have inside connections, people at great programs with slightly less prestigious RELS programs (Virginia, UNC, Indiana, Syracuse).
Also, depending on your field, very few people actually graduate in five years. This means that you're not just sinking five years of your life into a program, you're more likely sinking 6-7 (and many people can't finish, so there's that.) And it's one thing to be okay with doing this when you're younger, un-partnered, without kids--it sounds basically like doing a second round of college. It's exciting, you'll get to read so much. If, however, once you're in your 30s (probably) you might end up married and with one or more kids. Now, all those evenings reading and writing seem so much less exciting and important. They instead feel selfish and somewhat pathetic. At best, you're getting a stipend that covers your living cost. You'll likely run out of that for your last year or two. Your partner has to pay for the rest, and your partner suffers as you read another $Y(**#*() book on that topic that you find so much more important than spending time with him/her or your child(ren) (or at least getting paid).
Again, it's different for everybody, but there are a lot of high costs that go into getting a PhD.
Additionally, at this stage, there is passion, but it's not just reading what you want to read. With or without partner and/or kids, it's about producing extremely competent work. (And it will never be good enough.) I appreciate the person (above) who doesn't want to write a book or lecture on a topic without a terminal degree. Chances are, however, that you won't write the book you want or have anybody who wants to listen to you when you do have the terminal degree. You'll be trained so intensely that nobody will want to read the monographs you write, becasue they won't understand what's at stake in the first place. I don't know how to put this without sounding harsh, but it's really not about reading or writing for fun at this stage. There's a very slim bit of scholarship that I find interesting right now. The rest I need to know to properly bolster my arguments, to footnote. And that's the stuff of scholarship. Most of it is pretty pedantic and predictable. Most of the interesting stuff is BS. Even if you publish early, it's still no guarantee of getting a job. You will almost assuredly not present enough, publish enough, or do such outstanding work that you'll feel okay about yourself.
Again, I don't want to be harsh, dispiriting, or condescending, but, for me, it does not seem like a decision between following my passion for academic quesitons (which I still have) and the job-risk it entails versus just getting a "normal" job, it's that very little of doing good PhD work involves following your passion. It's a job. There are moments of glory. There are good things about it. It's also intensely competitive. Your work will never be good enough. You'll soon see that most of what you read as an M* student was the best of the best in your field--most of the rest of it is sh*t. Then you'll start writing and realize you are part of that sh&t. Then you will start teaching, and you will realize almost none of your students find your area interesting at all. They view you as the enemy, because you are a teacher. They will not read. Even though you thought you would love teaching, you realize it is much harder when the students are not excited to be academics, and they do not care about your field. [or they have the most simplistic understandings of the field, but will not listen to you, even though they've never read so much as a single book on the topic under discussion.]
And all of this is assuming that your advisor is helpful and supportive, that s/he doesn't leave or retire, or get arrested because he hit a prostitute (true story for a friend of mine). If you have a bad advisor, or even an average one, there are whole other nightmares with that.
I can't say whether anybody should do a PhD or not. And it's certainly a better experience for some rather than others. What I will argue though, is that it is rarely primarily about pursuing one's academic passions. It's a job at best. You get to read about as much in your area of academic passion as you would if you were outside of the academy. You do have people pushing you on your reading, people who will call out your BS, which does have great advantages, but that's about it from my perspective.
 

Thank you, klader, for bringing a bit of balance to this thread! There is no reason that someone casting light on these issues should be derided as comparable to an "assclown" or someone whose "bitter is showing."  Every professional scholarly organization in higher education that I've looked at is addressing the same problem - including the Modern Language Association, the AAR, and the AHA (not to mention the Atlantic, PBS, the New Yorker, Slate etc.)  Most of those organization are calling for diversified training, and for more information to be disseminated to new admits about the prospects of obtaining jobs in the academy.  Simply put: the official voice of those organizations does not seem a whole lot different from js17981's (at least from what I've read). Humanities departments at Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia are calling into question why they're training PhD's and how they should change their programs. (Stanford convened a panel to redesign the PhD; Harvard held a conference on the aim of doctoral training, Columbia holds regular series on this).
Of course, it's fair to say that you don't need to explain your personal decision to get a PhD. It's also fair to say that you don't want or expect an academic job at the end of it. It's understandable that so many reacted to js17981's "you are making a huge mistake" comment. But, does her/his entire post warrant such hostile responses? Her (his?) first question is "Just genuinely curious to know why you would pursue a PhD knowing that you won't get a tenure track job." Top R1s have recently opened up offices to ask this exact question. I have yet to see a scholarly professional society that does not concede that PhDs in the U.S. are being trained largely for academic careers and suggest that departments take a different approach. In fact, at least one president of a humanities society has presented this issue  - departments training people for jobs that don't exist, only to turn around and offer precarious employment as adjuncts - as a moral crisis. 
It's worrisome that so many on this thread suspect that js17981 is writing out of "ulterior motives" and can't possibly be writing out of concern for her/his colleagues.  As I understand it, part of the value of studying the humanities is to understand and hopefully be more humane to one another. rising_star responded while I was writing this -- he's apparently more experienced in this type of hostile conversation, and has already learned not to speak up.
 
 
 
https://www.mla.org/Resources/Career/Career-Resources/Career-and-Job-Market-Information/Reports-from-MLA-Committee-on-Professional-Employment/Final-Report-from-the-Committee-on-Professional-Employment/Careers-outside-the-Academy
 
http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2003/budget-cuts-and-history-jobs-many-problems-no-easy-solutions