Breaking: Sources say programs scaling down this year

[AllFiredUp]

Poli Sci Job Rumors site has numerous sources citing budgetary crises as cause for vast cut backs this year for Ph.D. acceptances. Committee sessions will perhaps be significantly more competitive than first thought. Developing hard...

[AllFiredUp]

Link: http://www.poliscijobrumors.com/topic.php?id=1580

[CAPoliSciPhD]

I think I hate you.

Okay. I'm over my irrational response to this post but UCHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

[jackassjim]

That is just plain scary. I hope many other people chime in to say it's bull. I will be following that thread closely.

[CAPoliSciPhD]

I just rechecked it....jeez....one top 20 dept is reducing is class size by 60 percent? holy freaking crap

[jackassjim]

That's suspiciously high. Let's remember those are anonymous comments. Let's not freak out...

[ShamPain]

60% seems high, but please be realistic: times are hard. state schools are losing state funding. private schools have had their endowments slashed. some will be affected more than others, but i would expect offers to be down across the board.

in addition, there will likely be more applicants, since the private sector is hurting so bad. best of luck to all of you, and i mean that sincerely.

[browneyedgirl]

the other possibility, certainly, is that some schools may opt to offer substantially smaller packages to those they accept, or offer packages to fewer students. I saw this last year and I imagine it may still be true for this year, though I have no special inside information (sorry!) reality could be a combination of reduced numbers and reduced funding for those accepted, which would be terrible, but somewhat necessary.

I sympathize. current students are also discussing how the cutbacks going on at many schools will affect guaranteed funding, if at all. we're all thinking (praying?) that we'll be untouched, but one can never know for sure, and we still might be hurt by disappearing lines of funding for travel and research.

good luck!

[rising_star]

Not in polisci, but my university is about to have 1/4 of its state funding for the fiscal year (which began July 1) cut. Since it's so late in the year, a lot of that money has been spent. The new working assumption is that departments will have less money in the upcoming fiscal year (July 1, 09 - June 30, 2010) than they have after the upcoming cut. Who knows what that means for admissions though.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

It would seem irrational to reduce the number of admitted students. Reducing funding packages makes sense, but assuming the same number of faculty in a given department, their incentive would actually be to increase the number of admitted, unfunded students. Given that professors will be teaching courses and collecting a salary no matter how many students are in a course, it doesn't matter if there are 2 students or 20, so the school should prefer 20 and thereby collect the additional tuition. The only places where you should see fewer admissions are where students are guaranteed funding or where there are faculty cuts. An unlikely alternative would be that a program would accept no students, but suspending or curtailing a graduate program limits departmental productivity and would lead to a fall in the rankings.

Reducing graduate admissions would also hurt the longer term strategic plans of some universities, which plan to increase the use of graduate students in the teaching of courses. Graduate teaching assistants cost less than 1/4 of what it costs to hire an assistant professor.

[jackassjim]

it doesn't matter if there are 2 students or 20, so the school should prefer 20 and thereby collect the additional tuition. .

Are there so many students willing to pay full tuition for 5-6 years to get a PhD in political science, given that the financial prospects at the end of the tunnel are not so impressive either?

[sabana15]

I was also wondering if there would actually be more TAships and postdocs with fewer TT hires to lighten the burden of courses to teach (and the inherent costs). In this case, things could be OK for us now, but not so fab come graduation.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

Are there so many students willing to pay full tuition for 5-6 years to get a PhD in political science, given that the financial prospects at the end of the tunnel are not so impressive either?

Depending on the program, there may or may not be that many students willing to pay, but if the normal cohort would be 20, why not admit that many and let the students decide if it's worth it? Sure, yields (% of accepted who enroll) would be lower, but a small yield isn't a major problem. A higher than expected yield would be, as it would strain resources and faculty availability.

This recession will not last forever. Some may enter in the hopes of later attaining funding.

[jackassjim]

Sure, yields (% of accepted who enroll) would be lower, but a small yield isn't a major problem. A higher than expected yield would be, as it would strain resources and faculty availability.

This recession will not last forever. Some may enter in the hopes of later attaining funding.

Sure, I can see how some applicants would follow that logic. It is a very risky gamble however.

In essence, my question was: Just how low do you think the yield would be if they did not offer funding at all?

If the yield is VERY low, then it's a problem for the departments who want to ensure that their "legacy" is preserved by sending, not just good, but great graduates on the job market. I get the feeling that the best candidates are probably very committed to political science, but that they are also those who have the better Plan B available to them. From my perspective at least (not that I'm the best candidate), the opportunity cost of attending grad school in polisci is already really high. For example, I have applied to a few joint programs that required a separate application to law school. Without much effort, I got into the JD program at harvard. Now following that track would certainly be a less risky option than hoping for a chain of events that is rather unlikely (end of recession -> growth of university endowments -> polisci department budget bump -> money is spent on current students rather than on attracting new and potentially better ones in a tougher market for schools (no recession = less applicants in grad school)). If that kind of Plan B is available to me, I can't imagine the options that the real star-applicants have...

Of course, this is just speculation, but what do you all think? Are the stars among us that crazy about polisci that they would take the gamble?

[rising_star]

It would seem irrational to reduce the number of admitted students. Reducing funding packages makes sense, but assuming the same number of faculty in a given department, their incentive would actually be to increase the number of admitted, unfunded students. Given that professors will be teaching courses and collecting a salary no matter how many students are in a course, it doesn't matter if there are 2 students or 20, so the school should prefer 20 and thereby collect the additional tuition. The only places where you should see fewer admissions are where students are guaranteed funding or where there are faculty cuts. An unlikely alternative would be that a program would accept no students, but suspending or curtailing a graduate program limits departmental productivity and would lead to a fall in the rankings.

Reducing graduate admissions would also hurt the longer term strategic plans of some universities, which plan to increase the use of graduate students in the teaching of courses. Graduate teaching assistants cost less than 1/4 of what it costs to hire an assistant professor.

Yea, but grad students (esp once you count tuition and any insurance benefits) aren't cheaper than adjuncts. That's what you have to consider. You also have to consider that while professors may have to teach the same number of courses, they are not necessarily obligated to teach a certain number of *graduate* courses. So if they admit fewer students, they don't need as many seats in grad classes, freeing profs to teach undergrads (where the money is and comes in from the university based on enrollment).

I was also wondering if there would actually be more TAships and postdocs with fewer TT hires to lighten the burden of courses to teach (and the inherent costs). In this case, things could be OK for us now, but not so fab come graduation.

As least in my program, that will NOT be the case. We aren't hiring. There won't be more TAships. And, even though there aren't really jobs for our graduates (several openings have been pulled, including some after phone interviews with candidates), our department is pushing those at the dissertation stage to finish to free up funding for the currently enrolled students.

My program is likely to admit the same number of students, but a lot fewer will be offered funding. The idea is that all the people near finished will finish and graduate, freeing up a few spots for new students (but almost certainly there will be fewer new students with funding than there are those graduating).

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

I'm not saying that programs would admit anyone that would not have been admitted in a previous year. I am saying that they would not cut back on admissions, just on offers of funding. Given that schools only admit applicants they feel have the potential for success and that this year's applicants are probably just as smart as ever, departments would have only themselves to blame for a drop in the relative quality of a cohort. Of course cutting back on funding would harm the yield, but if all or even most universities are having the same economic problems, then the decision will be shifted to the applicants.

Again, a small yield is not a problem, as long as admits are of the same quality. Every year there are strong applicants who enter programs without funding. What interests me is the idea that state schools could benefit from this whole debacle. If strong applicants end up with no funding offers at all, but are still committed to entering grad school immediately, then they have an incentive to enroll in an in-state program. This implies that public schools could draw higher than normal quality students, even if those students plan to just attain a master's and reapply in a few years.

Yea, but grad students (esp once you count tuition and any insurance benefits) aren't cheaper than adjuncts. That's what you have to consider. You also have to consider that while professors may have to teach the same number of courses, they are not necessarily obligated to teach a certain number of *graduate* courses. So if they admit fewer students, they don't need as many seats in grad classes, freeing profs to teach undergrads (where the money is and comes in from the university based on enrollment).

Not all graduate assistants are offered tuition waivers or insurance benefits and given the prevalence of hiring freezes, can universities really add adjuncts?

Also, as long as the department plans to admit anyone, they can't cut any graduate courses. I don't know how your program works, but in mine, your first year is spoken for with required courses that everyone takes. The only split in the cohort is for core seminars, which students don't officially choose until just before the semester begins. So it wouldn't matter how many students enroll, as long as there is at least 1.

[IvyHope]

I'm not saying that programs would admit anyone that would not have been admitted in a previous year. I am saying that they would not cut back on admissions, just on offers of funding. Given that schools only admit applicants they feel have the potential for success and that this year's applicants are probably just as smart as ever, departments would have only themselves to blame for a drop in the relative quality of a cohort. Of course cutting back on funding would harm the yield, but if all or even most universities are having the same economic problems, then the decision will be shifted to the applicants.

Again, a small yield is not a problem, as long as admits are of the same quality. Every year there are strong applicants who enter programs without funding. What interests me is the idea that state schools could benefit from this whole debacle. If strong applicants end up with no funding offers at all, but are still committed to entering grad school immediately, then they have an incentive to enroll in an in-state program. This implies that public schools could draw higher than normal quality students, even if those students plan to just attain a master's and reapply in a few years.

Not all graduate assistants are offered tuition waivers or insurance benefits and given the prevalence of hiring freezes, can universities really add adjuncts?

Also, as long as the department plans to admit anyone, they can't cut any graduate courses. I don't know how your program works, but in mine, your first year is spoken for with required courses that everyone takes. The only split in the cohort is for core seminars, which students don't officially choose until just before the semester begins. So it wouldn't matter how many students enroll, as long as there is at least 1.

Re: Your first comment about high quality students- that doesn't really make sense. What makes you think that public schools are going to enroll higher than normal quality students just because you think people are motivated to stay in-state?

Re: Adjunct profs, Can they really add adjuncts? Yes, they can and do. This year our department cut three TA-ships and gave them to an adjunct. Much cheaper for them to pay an adjunct part time per hour and let them teach three classes then to pay for the grad student's tuition, stipend, and health benefits.

Re: Can they cut grad courses? Yes they sure can. They can cut as many graduate courses as they want. In fact, I'm having trouble finding enough coursework to satisfy my full-time requirement right now. ;-) Not all programs are set up to move the grad students through like a herd of cattle.

[rlayla]

A lot of schools have policies that they can`t make an offer to a student unless they can pay for them. Uchicago, where I went to undergrad, is like this. My old prof told me that in her department (in the Humanities) they can only make 9 offers as opposed to 30 they did last year because the amount of funding they had was lower. So accepting students without funding is not an option, and the acceptance rate will go down.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

A lot of schools have policies that they can`t make an offer to a student unless they can pay for them. Uchicago, where I went to undergrad, is like this. My old prof told me that in her department (in the Humanities) they can only make 9 offers as opposed to 30 they did last year because the amount of funding they had was lower. So accepting students without funding is not an option, and the acceptance rate will go down.

That differs from program to program. Not all programs have to fund everyone. I would be willing to bet that most do not.

[UndraftedFreeAgent]

Re: Your first comment about high quality students- that doesn't really make sense. What makes you think that public schools are going to enroll higher than normal quality students just because you think people are motivated to stay in-state?

Re: Adjunct profs, Can they really add adjuncts? Yes, they can and do. This year our department cut three TA-ships and gave them to an adjunct. Much cheaper for them to pay an adjunct part time per hour and let them teach three classes then to pay for the grad student's tuition, stipend, and health benefits.

Re: Can they cut grad courses? Yes they sure can. They can cut as many graduate courses as they want. In fact, I'm having trouble finding enough coursework to satisfy my full-time requirement right now. ;-) Not all programs are set up to move the grad students through like a herd of cattle.

This was just speculation. I'm interested in seeing IF this happens.

As for the adjuncts comment. Again, not all GA's get tuition waivers and health benefits. Plus, grad students are pretty much a captive teaching pool, as they can't easily move elsewhere to take a position the way an adjunct theoretically could. This weakens the grad student bargaining position and could make them cheaper.

It sucks that your department isn't offering enough courses. Ours is kinda the other way around, where there are more interesting classes then I could ever fit into my program of study. Only our first year (plus one course) has requirements as to what we must take. Does your program let you do directed independent study for credit? Those can be really fun if you push yourself hard enough.

[rlayla]

That differs from program to program. Not all programs have to fund everyone. I would be willing to bet that most do not.

I'm pretty sure it usually varies by division. So the social science division at the UC, and most of its peers would not accept a student without funding. I'm willing to bet this is true for the top 10-15 political science programs, and the division in which they are placed. I know Harvard/Yale/Princeton have similar policies within their social science and humanities divisions that they do not accept students without funding them.

I would be really surprised to get into one of the top 10 programs without funding. What

[ordinonuovo]

I know for a fact that UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSD, and MIT did not provide full funding for all

their grad students last year. These are all top 10 PoliSci programs in most ranking schemes.

HYP Stanford and Chicago funds everyone, U of Michigan does also. Not sure about the others

(Columbia, Duke, etc). The CA budget crisis seems to be the biggest problem for the UC schools,

which will be exacerbated this year. The pinch has spread to the private schools the past few

months, with endowments taking a hit.

Each school, however, has a different policy of whether, and how much, of their resources and

funding they allocate to domestic and foreign students. Americans may remain unaffected at

some/most of these schools, even those cutting back.

The calculations regarding this are different for the state and private schools,

because state schools can fund 2-3 Americans with the money they need to fund 1 student(this

is because of the different in-state and out-of-state tuition), but hard times strengthen the

tendency to 'take care of one's own.' It will be interesting to see what the effect of the crunch

will be on the proportion of international students at the top universities.

Good luck everyone.

[technocat]

A lot of schools have policies that they can`t make an offer to a student unless they can pay for them. Uchicago, where I went to undergrad, is like this. My old prof told me that in her department (in the Humanities) they can only make 9 offers as opposed to 30 they did last year because the amount of funding they had was lower. So accepting students without funding is not an option, and the acceptance rate will go down.

Do you know if this is true of Chicago's polsci dept this year as well--that they'll be cutting the number of admitted students?

[jackassjim]

Again, a small yield is not a problem, as long as admits are of the same quality. Every year there are strong applicants who enter programs without funding. What interests me is the idea that state schools could benefit from this whole debacle. If strong applicants end up with no funding offers at all, but are still committed to entering grad school immediately, then they have an incentive to enroll in an in-state program. This implies that public schools could draw higher than normal quality students, even if those students plan to just attain a master's and reapply in a few years.

Point well taken. Daniel Drezner (from Tufts) makes essentially the same argument in two of his postings. Interesting stuff:

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... _education

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... _part_deux

[rlayla]

Do you know if this is true of Chicago's polsci dept this year as well--that they'll be cutting the number of admitted students?

I would guess, but I know for sure that Mark Hanson, dean of the social science division cut all funding for masters students in the social science division. Ha, I applied for U of C CIR program thinking I had a chance to get funded, but guess that was a waste of time!