Should academia reduce the number of graduate students they admit to doctoral programs?

[Eigen]

I would argue that the limit should be the number that we can train appropriately and fund appropriately, and we're very much past that point now. 

 

Faculty advisors are overworked and don't have the time to appropriately train their graduate students. Similarly, there isn't enough funding to (a) fund graduate students research properly or ( fund the graduate students themselves to an appropriate, non-poverty level. 

 

We end up then with people finishing graduate school with a lot of debt, many of them without having had adequate guidance, conference travel or academic socialization. In STEM, many aren't even being broadly enough trained to go on to an industry or faculty position because of low research budgets. 

 

Fewer graduate students ultimately ends up meaning better training for those that are left, and that's in everyone's best interest. 

 

You can say that this is just my position because I've "gotten in", but I had this opinion while I was an undergrad back in the dark ages as well. 

 

I'd argue that this is even reaching the opposite extreme, where we're diluting academia as a whole by trying to open it up to more and more people who aren't the absolute top of their cohorts. 

 

You can still study a field and take graduate courses as a non-degree seeking student, but that's different from fully funding people and paying them to become the backbone of research and development for their generation, and faculty that will train future generations. 

[spunky]

 

I prefer to think about a model of higher education that allows for greater access without limiting resources. Moving away from a neoliberal university model would be a good first step.

 

yeaaah.... good luck with that one. but if we're being honest here, i wouldn't hold my breath with that happening anytime soon. ergo, we try to look around for more practical solutions?

 

and in a relatively tangential argument, i'm almost sure there are a few articles here and there where it was mentioned that millennials (who i guess are most of us) were using graduate school as some sort of "diversionary tactic" while waiting for the job market to look better? the jump from potential unemployment to a  (hopefully regular) stipend/fellowship sounds like a really smart move to me. but then again it probably sounded like a smart move to hundreds of other students and now we have more PhDs graduating than society can absorb (unless you look for alternative/industry options)

Edited June 29, 2015 by spunky

[spunky]

Second, there was a study which has been discussed a lot around here on the influence of prestige on academic hires for business, computer science, and history. 

 

i think it's this one, right?

 

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005

 

it was somewhat of an eye-opener to me. i actually ended up switching unis for nothing else but the ranking of the one i'm now VS the one i started graduate school in. it's a tough world out there

[dr. t]

Man - what is with the obsession with supply and demand logic here? 

 

What is the realistic alternative?

 

Its pretty sad that so many folks are willing to bar the doors to higher education in order to enhance their own access to resources (funding, jobs, etc.).

 

I haven't seen anyone argue that here. 

 

Its easy to claim that graduate schools should only accept the very "best and brightest" (whatever that means) after you've already been admitted to a graduate school. Did somebody say "entitlement?"

 

Eyeroll. In my case, at least, I've held my current thoughts - along with the knowledge that academia is certainly not a meritocracy - long before I was accepted to any program.

 

I prefer to think about a model of higher education that allows for greater access without limiting resources. Moving away from a neoliberal university model would be a good first step.

 

OK. How?

Edited June 29, 2015 by telkanuru

[juilletmercredi]

Interesting discussion!

 

@RollRight, I think it's not that people are willing to "bar the doors." The fact is, higher education is currently in a crisis moment. It is, indeed, partially because of a neoliberal/conservative approach - where certain players want to defund and lower public support for education. The problem is, though, that we're dealing with reality. Graduate schools already only accept the best and brightest; the whole point is bringing in people with the most aptitude to do science at a level high enough to lead to new discoveries and improvement of life. And resources are scarce; they are by default limited. There's just not unlimited money, unlimited time, unlimited mentors and classes and all the other resources that are required to bring someone from college graduate to tenure-track professor.

 

Frankly, we are never going to get to a system where we don't have to worry about limited resources.

 

I am in the limited graduate student camp, and not because I want more resources to myself (I'm planning to leave academia anyway). In fact, it's driven by care and frustration for others: I don't think a system in which the vast majority of PhDs spend years floundering is a good one. It's a waste of the top minds of our era. My thoughts were along the same lines as those who suggested two things: 1) making postdocs more of an expense (and the corollary is adding more career steps in STEM fields, particularly), and 2) reducing the amount of contingent labor and adding more non-tenure-track teaching/lecturer positions.

 

I'm in an NIH-funded social science field, and I think that the NIH postdoctoral stipend minimums are far too low. TakeruK is also right in that they don't mandate benefits; most postdocs cover health insurance, but there's no requirement to cover benefits like parental leave, sick time, retirement savings, etc. Furthermore, in discussions with PIs on other message boards (*cough*Chronicle*cough*), it's clear that a lot of PIs view their postdocs as the workhorses of their lab - one PI expressed disdain at the idea that a postdoc would ask for protected time to work on publishing their dissertation material, saying that a postdoc's job is to generate findings for the lab grant. But they want to have their cake and eat it too, as postdocs are paid as "trainees" and ostensibly have a training plan to follow.

 

I think the solution here is 1) make postdocs more work to get, and more expensive, and 2) add other positions in the traditional science lab that do the work a postdoc would do. Postdoctoral positions should be training, but also a step along the career ladder - treated more like junior faculty. They should require extensive, detailed training plans that funding agencies actually check up on, and I think that the starting salary should be at least $60K with full benefits and they should be longer than 2 years so postdocs don't have to hop around like a transient (maybe 3-5 years, depending on the field. In my field 2-3 years of postdoc'ing is plenty, but I know in other STEM fields more time is expected). The corollary is that you increase lab support otherwise. Hire BA- and MA-level research associates to do lower-level tasks that you don't need a PhD to do, like cleaning data or prepping literature reviews. The upside is that this gives those professionals either a chance to increase their own credentials for graduate school and/or an alternative career path to getting a PhD and striking out as a PI. For those tasks that really do require a PhD, hire a research scientist! A staff scientist who's job it actually is to help you churn out papers and projects, and who you are not expected to spend significant amounts of time training. And pay them well.

 

I think a lot of these articles avoid talking about the adjunct problem because few tenure-track or tenured faculty really want to talk about the exploitation of adjuncts, let alone discuss how they are complicit in and/or benefit from that exploitation. Most of the articles/thought pieces coming from that angle are coming from those with less power in academia (adjuncts themselves, graduate students, people who have exited the field). But yes, I agree that the demand side is also the problem. I think accreditation bodies should put hard limits on the percentage of faculty that can be contingent labor, lest a school lose their accreditation. And I agree that collective bargaining could help the situation. More of those positions do need to be turned into professor of the practice/contracted NTT teaching positions (with contracts being longer term - say 3 years to start out, then 5 years, then longer if both parties wish and quality is reached. Or they can be hired like most employees are - at will, but with the understanding that the job is meant to be long-term). And those positions need to pay a decent wage and have full benefits, too. (And yeah, some of them could be done by folks with an MA, particularly ones who are teaching - say, composition or introductory psychology classes.) A side effect might be that graduate students have to do less teaching when they are in PhD programs, which may mean faster times to degree.

 

But yeah, all of these changes will have the effect of reducing the number of PhDs "needed." Yes, some PhDs will always go into industry. Professors need to stop it with the fantasy that all of their students will go onto R1 positions and anything else is failure. I'm not saying that they should become well-versed in helping their students get non-academic jobs - that's what career services is for - but students shouldn't afraid to tell their PIs that they don't want to be a professor lest their PI stop giving them time and resources. It's completely ridiculous and makes the profession look out of touch with reality.

 

But let's be real - I think a majority of people who go into PhD programs start with the notion that they want to be college professors, and professors are treating these programs like training for those kinds of jobs (with the exception of STEM and business fields where there is some industry draw). I'm not saying that there needs to be 1 tenure-track job waiting for every PhD graduate. It shouldn't be a guarantee. But I think right now professors are admitting more graduate students for their own purposes - heightened prestige, more assistants in the lab, more teachers in the classroom - and those are also symptoms of a university structure that's devaluing the work they do and pushing it off to low-paid contingent workers who are unwittingly putting their own selves out of a job.

[Eigen]

Just to throw this in here talking about post-doctoral salaries...

 

National Lab/NRC post-docs are in the $80k range, and increase per year.That is what I would consider an appropriate STEM post-doctoral salary, personally.

[rising_star]

Warning: disjointed thoughts below.

 

National Lab/NRC post-docs are in the $80k range, and increase per year.That is what I would consider an appropriate STEM post-doctoral salary, personally.

 

Wow! That's more money than STEM professors are making at some institutions. At the place I taught at last year, assistant profs in biology make $55-70K. In the same state university system, there's a research scientist in chemistry earning $54K and a full-time lecturer making $52K. That said, that state university has some amazing retirement benefits that I fully wish I could return to (10% of your pay with no required contribution/match on the employee's end). I'm obviously not in STEM and I also don't make $80K but I also don't think I'm underpaid by any stretch of the imagination. I don't live in a big city which affects things, obviously. I just did a cost of living comparison and it seems my salary would have to go up by over $20K if I lived in Boston or NYC. I guess what I'm saying is that while $80K is a nice ideal, it would be completely nuts to pay postdocs that much in certain parts of the country. It would also be very controversial to pay postdocs more than faculty.

 

My original point was along the lines of what RollRight has brought up. There is plenty of need for teaching at colleges and universities, especially as they increase the size of their incoming classes. College tuition is going up and yet the number of full-time faculty has been stagnant for years at many institutions. While yes, there is a need for some of the growth in administration to meet federal mandates, it's obscene how little of many universities' budgets actually goes toward instruction. I remember being shocked by it as a graduate student (luckily/sadly, I've now grown accustomed to it). Colleges and universities have systematically divested from their actual teaching/educational mission in favor of numerous other priorities and as part of the neoliberal model. I would love to see something where accreditation is tied to having a certain percentage of classes be taught by full-time faculty.

 

I work at a college that makes relatively minimal use of adjuncts (I think they're less than 10% of the instructors on campus) and I'm proud of that. Part of the reason for that is that, even in tight budget years, the college has remained committed to adding new TT faculty, rather than using adjuncts as a stopgap measure. Is it costly upfront? Absolutely. But today, a campus tour was going past my office and parents got really excited when they heard there child wouldn't be taught by graduate students or TAs. It is a selling point for some schools and could be more of one if more people spoke out about the benefits of learning from FT faculty. (Note: this isn't to say that graduate students are bad teachers. It is to say that at some large public institutions, one could get to their junior or even senior year without having ever been taught by a tenure-track/tenured faculty member. We see posts from those folks here during application season as they're trying to figure out who to ask for rec letters and not having luck in securing them from people with PhD after their name.)

 

I am not trying to bar the door and keep others out of graduate school. You'll note that I haven't said that programs need to reduce the number of people they admit. Should they for ethical reasons? Maybe but that is really field and even subfield-specific. 20th century American history, for example, is an oversaturated field so perhaps programs could not admit students into that subfield for a few years to see what happens. The downside of that approach is that you potentially lose out on having students that could revolutionize that field of study... Anyway, people need to be realistic throughout about their job prospects. Alt-ac training needs to happen throughout one's graduate career, not just at the end when one is struggling to find some sort of job. I think there should be more internships during programs, that departments need to work more closely with industry and corporations, and that students need to bear some of the responsibility for ensuring that they are employable (whether that's as a professor, a research scientist, in industry, or something else) after their degree. Students are also the ones that have a say in how graduate school affects them financially. The current funding model of many universities encourages them to admit graduate students that are fully paying for their degrees, regardless of the student's qualifications. These "cash cow" programs then subsidize other activities at the university. But, they wouldn't if students didn't enroll in them...

 

(Sidebar: some of those enrolling in graduate degrees [typically master's, not PhDs] are doing so because they need the degree for advancement at work. For public school teachers, this is definitely the case and it's due to No Child Left Behind. You basically have to have or get a master's degree to be "highly qualified" and retain your certification to teach in public schools. Many of the people in this situation often end up paying for their graduate degree because it's either that or not have a job. It's a crappy set of choices but one that we shouldn't demonize them for. Blame Congress for that crap.) 

 

Last thing for now. This is my (admittedly unpopular) view but, in addition to speaking out about being adjunct/contingent, people need to stop applying for and accepting those positions if they want the system to change. Just as TakeruK has talked about having timelines for various stages and being willing to exit at those points, one should have the same attitude toward contingent positions. I personally decided to only apply for multi-year VAPs or full-time teaching (lecturer/instructor/professor of practice, depending on the institution) when I was on the market because I did not want to adjunct. I've gotten flak for that position publicly at a conference and here on this board. Still, I think that we have to consider our own position in this system. Yes, we've made into (or through) graduate school but that doesn't mean that our decisions stop having consequences for the neoliberal university system. If universities can't find anyone willing to teach a class for $1500, then either the class won't get taught (thereby screwing over their customers students) or they'll cough up some more money to find an instructor. I'll leave it there for now. 

[Eigen]

Wow! That's more money than STEM professors are making at some institutions. At the place I taught at last year, assistant profs in biology make $55-70K. In the same state university system, there's a research scientist in chemistry earning $54K and a full-time lecturer making $52K. That said, that state university has some amazing retirement benefits that I fully wish I could return to (10% of your pay with no required contribution/match on the employee's end). I'm obviously not in STEM and I also don't make $80K but I also don't think I'm underpaid by any stretch of the imagination. I don't live in a big city which affects things, obviously. I just did a cost of living comparison and it seems my salary would have to go up by over $20K if I lived in Boston or NYC. I guess what I'm saying is that while $80K is a nice ideal, it would be completely nuts to pay postdocs that much in certain parts of the country. It would also be very controversial to pay postdocs more than faculty.

It is indeed! But they're also exceptionally competitive positions.

To be honest, I think that a lot of full-time faculty positions are significantly underpaid as well. And I think a large portion of the reason for this has to do with two factors:

Large use of adjunct labor (that is exceptionally cheap) and a huge number of people relatively desperate for any full time position, no matter the pay.

$80k is high, but at my institution that's a good deal lower than starting faculty pay- and I'd wager that's the case for most schools that routinely hire post-docs. At least in my experience, schools where faculty are making 40-50k aren't R1 schools that are hiring large numbers of post-doctoral researchers. That, of course, brings up the other issue- that we have a hugely dual class system even within TT faculty, separating research (R1, some R2) faculty from teaching faculty, with an immense difference in compensation. I've even seen starting faculty salaries that are less than my current graduate stipend, to be honest.

[ZeChocMoose]

In this limited resource environment, I would take a state systems approach to this question and go back to the 1980's when public institutions within state systems were doing a better job at centralizing their governance and degree programs.  It might not make much sense for all or even half of the public universities in the same state to offer the same PhD program especially if the combined number of academic and industry jobs for that degree is low.  Instead of reducing cohort sizes of programs, I would suggest to just directly cut PhD programs at some schools especially if the program is doing a poor job of socializing their students and teaching them to become independent scholars/researchers.

 

How to implement it?  While I would advocate for this approach, I also think this would be a chaotic mess given the research I have done on why universities close their programs.  Sometimes it has nothing to do with quality and more to do with political power of the department chair and/or faculty.  How to mitigate this?  One option would be to not replace T/TT lines when faculty retire in the program and not accept any more incoming students.  While this could be the "easiest" method, it would be a long death and I imagine create a pretty poor environment for the current students who are trying to get the hell out and graduate so this doesn't seem like the greatest solution either.

 

And what to do with private universities?  This solution doesn't address them because it is more difficult to change institutional behavior for these type of institutions because they don't rely on the state for money so some of the typical policy leverage points are gone.  However, if there were one or two pioneering private institutions who took up this idea and saw good results, hopefully they could influence other private institutions to adopt this policy and eliminate PhD programs in their institutions that are struggling.

 

I am not particular hopeful this will happen unless there is some type of national event that spurs universities to change.  Right now, some institutions are reducing their class sizes and focusing on time-to-degree issues in their doctoral programs, but it tends to be the more elite institutions who have the resources to do this.  It also tends to be piecemeal efforts that don't necessarily think about unattended consequences of some of their policies.

[Eigen]

If we're talking about redesigning PhD programs, UC Irvines recent change is interesting, with the very structured 5+2 program.

[TakeruK]

In this limited resource environment, I would take a state systems approach to this question and go back to the 1980's when public institutions within state systems were doing a better job at centralizing their governance and degree programs.  It might not make much sense for all or even half of the public universities in the same state to offer the same PhD program especially if the combined number of academic and industry jobs for that degree is low.  Instead of reducing cohort sizes of programs, I would suggest to just directly cut PhD programs at some schools especially if the program is doing a poor job of socializing their students and teaching them to become independent scholars/researchers.

 

How to implement it?  While I would advocate for this approach, I also think this would be a chaotic mess given the research I have done on why universities close their programs.  Sometimes it has nothing to do with quality and more to do with political power of the department chair and/or faculty.  How to mitigate this?  One option would be to not replace T/TT lines when faculty retire in the program and not accept any more incoming students.  While this could be the "easiest" method, it would be a long death and I imagine create a pretty poor environment for the current students who are trying to get the hell out and graduate so this doesn't seem like the greatest solution either.

 

And what to do with private universities?  This solution doesn't address them because it is more difficult to change institutional behavior for these type of institutions because they don't rely on the state for money so some of the typical policy leverage points are gone.  However, if there were one or two pioneering private institutions who took up this idea and saw good results, hopefully they could influence other private institutions to adopt this policy and eliminate PhD programs in their institutions that are struggling.

 

I am not particular hopeful this will happen unless there is some type of national event that spurs universities to change.  Right now, some institutions are reducing their class sizes and focusing on time-to-degree issues in their doctoral programs, but it tends to be the more elite institutions who have the resources to do this.  It also tends to be piecemeal efforts that don't necessarily think about unattended consequences of some of their policies.

 

These are interesting thoughts! The first bit is actually how many Canadian physics programs work in the "Maritimes provinces" of Canada (the ones east of Quebec, that kind of sticks out). These schools are smaller so the physics departments have split things up by speciality. One school is where you'd go for Astronomy, one for Medical Physics etc. After all, it's much better to have, say, 4 astro profs all in one place than 1 astro prof each in 4 places. This is for both undergraduate and graduate programs. But one danger of downsizing is restricting access. For example, not everyone can travel across the state to attend a school that offers a program in X. 

 

But if it is implemented though, I think the "slow death" or "dismantle by attrition" would not be optimal either. I wonder if you found other methods in your research? If I had to choose, I would choose some hybrid transition where the program stops taking students for 2 years (or whatever milestone is significant, such as all graduate students are post-quals) and then do a fast transition, where everyone moves to the new school within 2 years or so. Moving schools is disruptive for both students and faculty but I think the school can manage it via financial incentives (i.e. pay them a bunch of money to move) and setting up a good infrastructure for students who cannot / do not want to relocate. For example, for ~5 or so years after the move, the school can provide both temporary office space for the students who are staying and travel funds for students and faculty to meet with each other semi regularly (it would be in-state travel, so it should not cost a lot). They can also make reliable video conferencing rooms available too!

 

As for private schools--I'm at a private school right now and it's not true that we do not rely on public funding. For example, the money that funds our research often comes from public funds (NSF, NASA, etc.). Our school recently presented the breakdown of where the money to pay for grad students come from and it's just under 50% from public funds. I know that the majority of the cost for my research comes from a NASA grant held by my supervisor (i.e. public funds) and a large chunk of my pay comes from Canadian and US government funding (not sure if the rest is coming from that same grant or private school funding). So, while I only have the stats for grad students, since most research faculty pay for grad students through grants for their own research, I would think the fraction is similar across campus as well (maybe still less than 50%, but still a significant fraction).

 

But my private school does regularly evaluate its undergrad and PhD programs and cut/eliminate them where necessary. We're a really small school (< 300 faculty) and the administration has purposely chose to keep us small. Because of this, there are some degree programs we don't offer at all because we don't have faculty doing everything possible. And sometimes when faculty retire and new hires are doing something different, we shut down those degree programs (but we also start new programs if the new hires are doing something different!)

[juilletmercredi]

I hadn't heard of UC-Irvine's 5+2 program and I went to look it up. I love the idea: it's 5 years of PhD work plus a semi-optional 2 years as an assistant adjunct professor. PhD students in a 5+2 would spend the first year on fellowship taking courses, then years 2-4 on a teaching assistantship. Year 2 is courses, Year 3 is exams and dissertation prospectus, and year 4 is dissertation work while teaching. In year 5 you go back to fellowship, and have a year to write. The +2 part is time spent as an assistant adjunct professor, where you have a course load that's 2/3 of a normal professor's course load and 2/3 the pay of assistant professor, and the idea is to get independent teaching experience while taking the 2 years to publish work from your dissertation and other projects you may have begun.

 

I love it. Already, though, there's an interesting backlash from graduate students and faculty alike. The English department is not on board because they feel like students will be "rushing" to finish their dissertations, especially if they need to acquire language skills. One graduate student in comparative literature said that "becoming the kind of rigorous and reflective researcher with an interesting project who would be hired for a tenure-track position at a major institution takes time and financial support, not speed." And in the comments lots of people were lamenting the loss of critical thorough work necessary.

 

I must say I'm quite baffled. I guess my opinion is colored by being in a field where finishing in 5-6 years is the norm, and 6 is usually the upper bound, and very few people finish in more than that. And perhaps the problem is that the bar is already set too high. Back in the 1990s and before, a new t-t scholar was expected to come up with a book in press for tenure; now it seems like in book fields you need a book by graduation just to get a job, and another one by third-year review or something. And in article fields like mine, whereas before it was not the norm to publish before graduation, now students are finishing with 5-10+ publications. The serious candidates who were brought on campus to interview for our junior positions when I was at Columbia had 10-25 publications. They were mostly graduate students and postdocs.

 

That is, frankly, insane. If students didn't feel like they needed to write the most perfect dissertation to easily turn into a book or a series of publications to get jobs, then perhaps we COULD reduce time to degree. In other words, if search committees had more realistic expectations about what kind of (and volume of) work a newly minted PhD should have completed in order to be competitive for jobs, I bet we could cut back time to degree. But - much like in the adjunct situation - there's always someone out there willing to do it, whether "it" is staying in graduate school for 3 extra years to get the book in press or working around the clock to produce 15 publications before graduation.

[rising_star]

I think you're absolutely right about the search committee expectations, juilletmercredi. The expectations for publications when one is on the market are insane. They're especially insane if you consider that they're overkill for folks that will end up outside of R1s or R2s. I interviewed at a SLAC where the requirement for tenure in the social sciences was 5 peer-reviewed journal articles, and they would count up to 3 published in graduate school. In a way, this makes sense if you want someone to focus more on teaching rather than research. At the same time, it also means that they interview and sometimes hire people that have met 40-60% of their publication requirement for tenure before even starting work! That is a total mismatch in the system and one that I personally think should be corrected by de-emphasizing publications. (Side note: de-emphasizing journal publications might also halt the proliferation of journals and reduce the cost of journal subscriptions, saving university libraries a boatload of money.)

 

I know that for people in history or anthropology or comparative literature, acquiring the foreign language skills, having the time to go to the field/archives, and then spending the time translating and interpreting documents and data can be very time-consuming. It's not like switching to a 5+2 program shortens the amount of work that would have to go into a dissertation. It may ultimately dissuade people from pursuing comparative dissertations or ones that require extensive time in the field or archives. It also depends on what the expectations are for incoming students. For example, I started my PhD program with a master's degree in the same field already. I already had the language skills needed to do my project and some of the theoretical training. Had I not had those things when I started, it would've taken me longer to actually be able to go collect the data I needed. So I'm wondering if the 5+2 program model at UC-Irvine is going to lead to programs admitting more students that already have a master's, rather than those with just a bachelor's...

[Crafter]

Reducing the PhD slots to "secure TT jobs" sound to me like a rather outdated thinking.

 

At least in my field, a PhD is somewhat standard requirement when applying to higher salary jobs, either at academia, industry or policy.

 

While I was looking for a position, right after finishing my MS, I found myself in a bad situation where many jobs required either a PhD or an MS plus X years of experience. I was in neither of such categories.

 

So, as someone mentioned before, the ultimate goal to pursue a PhD varies from individuals, and to me, it looks like the PhD students wishing to get a TT position is not as common as it could have been in the past (just my impression, though). When I told a friend of mine about my idea of going back to school for a PhD, he said something like "there are way too many PhDs looking for a job right now. Do you really think it may help you?". Well, I think it will. Anyway, what else a recent PhD graduate will do after their program completion if not looking for a job??

 

Thinking in such a way would imply that everybody with a PhD, working as Staff Scientist at some biotech firm, Senior Program Officer at some nonprofit or governmental organization, Research Associate, etc are there because they didn't make it into Academia. I don't believe that is true.

 

There is also another thing to consider: international applicants.

It is hard to get into a PhD program as it is now (mostly due to funding issues, if you do not come with your own money or a scholarship from your country). Reducing the number of PhD admissions will severely hurt most international applicant's chances.

 

The above issue may seem irrelevant to many, but it goes beyond Diversity. It will hurt global Science Advancement. In many cases, PhD programs are not offered in our home countries and that's why we need to study abroad. But upon returning home, the ones with the degree and research experience in other countries (the US, in this particular case) are responsible for technology transfer, training staff and getting some science done. In my field, biomedical sciences, it is very common that the topics of high research and funding in the US are causes of death in here and an local ongoing production of scientific data in the subject is paramount.

[eeee1923]

 

There is also another thing to consider: international applicants.

It is hard to get into a PhD program as it is now (mostly due to funding issues, if you do not come with your own money or a scholarship from your country). Reducing the number of PhD admissions will severely hurt most international applicant's chances.

 

Very good point - I forgot about the insanely difficult time many international applicants already have getting their training in the US (or whatever country, though I am unfamiliar with how international applicants are treated in other countries).

[shinigamiasuka]

>>Inb4 why more PhDs is important in some other countries:

 

100% with Crafter here, but I'm going to add a few points with my country as an example. Bangladesh hardly has any research opportunities currently. It's us with graduate degrees and research experience from abroad who can help improve this dire state. Lately, there's been a rise in the number of people pursuing graduate degrees abroad. When they come back, they're going to be entrepreneurs, create bridges for collaboration with the universities they graduated from, help improve the education system, initiate new research, motivate future generations, better the economy, improve infrastructure, etc. I hope to be a part of a tech and research boom in my country.

 

Being a young country, they're also building new universities (e.g. my undergrad school opened in 1995)--both public and private--to accommodate the rise in population and %literacy, so the number of TT positions is far from saturation. I'm sure there are many countries just like mine that would benefit from more PhDs. So yes, taking fewer PhDs is not the answer.

 

It's not only about STEM fields, it's the same for humanities and social sciences as well. There's a bias towards STEM fields and the others are seen as "lower"; we need to improve that. Also, there are some fields (within the "soft sciences" primarily) that are either completely absent or provided at too few universities compared to their actual demand.

 

Additionally, where you study also influences you thought and approach styles. We've been staying to ourselves and using only our resources for too long, hence the education system hasn't quite changed in a very long time. I hope the current rise in interest in abroad studies introduces some diversity of thought and ameliorates this.

[Igotnothin]

I feel for anyone who spends ~6 years getting a PhD then ends up having to work ridiculously hard for low pay as a postdoc for 5, 10 years, even longer. Particularly if TT positions were way more common when you went into grad school than when you got out. But in general I think the problem is that applicants aren't looking at the employment numbers. They're excited and flattered to get in to a PhD program, and they enroll without really considering job prospects. Not as much as they should, anyway.

 

If you pursue a degree that isn't in high demand, you can only blame "the system" so much when you graduate and can't find a job.

[Vene]

I feel for anyone who spends ~6 years getting a PhD then ends up having to work ridiculously hard for low pay as a postdoc for 5, 10 years, even longer. Particularly if TT positions were way more common when you went into grad school than when you got out. But in general I think the problem is that applicants aren't looking at the employment numbers. They're excited and flattered to get in to a PhD program, and they enroll without really considering job prospects. Not as much as they should, anyway.

 

If you pursue a degree that isn't in high demand, you can only blame "the system" so much when you graduate and can't find a job.

I don't like solutions like this that blame it on the individual. A solution may work at an individual level, but if there's a systemic problem it will fail when applied across the board. There are more applicants than there are slots in the first place so your idea doesn't pan out very well. It's the universities (and funding agencies) that control the number of PhDs, not any individual applicant.

 

Ultimately, if people decide to stop applying in large numbers, then in a handful of years the field will become all the more appealing as employment will be high for the handful who did decide to apply. This strikes me as similar to when I see people telling young adults that they should major in engineering. Sure, it has good pay and job prospects, but when everybody has a degree in it those prospects quickly decline. Instead, engineering programs have very difficult first year courses in order to weed out prospective engineers. Graduate programs can do the very same thing, even if the 'squishy' fields. It's not hard to make any major rigorous.

[GeoDUDE!]

Very good point - I forgot about the insanely difficult time many international applicants already have getting their training in the US (or whatever country, though I am unfamiliar with how international applicants are treated in other countries).

 

 

I disagree, part of the reason international applicants have difficulties is because the higher cost at state schools: less grad students in the department means more resources put into each grad student, theoretically. 

[Vene]

I disagree, part of the reason international applicants have difficulties is because the higher cost at state schools: less grad students in the department means more resources put into each grad student, theoretically. 

It's also harder to put an international student on certain grants, depending upon the requirements of the funding agency.

[GeoDUDE!]

It's also harder to put an international student on certain grants, depending upon the requirements of the funding agency.

 

sure, but the amount of grad students and certain grant requirements are independent. 

[Vene]

sure, but the amount of grad students and certain grant requirements are independent. 

To a degree, but it is easier to justify bringing in a graduate student if you have grant dollars you can use to directly support them.

[GeoDUDE!]

To a degree, but it is easier to justify bringing in a graduate student if you have grant dollars you can use to directly support them.

 

 

I'm really not understanding why thats different in this case vs the current case: they would bring the domestic student in anyway if the grant can only fund domestic students (or certain internationals ect)

Edited July 3, 2015 by GeoDUDE!

[TakeruK]

As far as I know, most grants that professors apply for to fund their graduate students do not come with restrictions on the nationality of the graduate student. However, almost all fellowships that graduate students apply for (e.g. NSF) do come with such restrictions.

 

This makes a difference to the # of international students admitted because admitting domestic students means that there is a chance that student will win something like a NSF and reduce the cost to the department. But if you accept an international student, it is much less likely they will ever reduce your cost. This factor makes it harder for international students to be admitted in both public and private schools. (In public schools, there is an additional hurdle of international students costing more).

 

Also, as others point out, even though international students cost more, training them to be PhDs might be a fairly cost effective way to do humanitarian missions too. The US wants to send money overseas to help developing countries and training PhDs can be part of that mission. I'm certainly not qualified to comment on whether this makes quantitative sense, but I think it's important to point out / recognize that there is value to the US for them to train international students while also recognizing that international student admission should be harder because American taxes fund most schools.

[ExponentialDecay]

It's not hard to make any major rigorous.

 

I would disagree that a "squishy" field at a T10 department is not rigorous. The fact is also borne out by attrition rates at top-rated humanities programs: they are very high. I don't understand where this notion that people who did kind of okay in undergrad are getting into top grad schools came from. They're not. Admitted applicants to top grad schools in the humanities are eminently qualified for what they want to do. They both show incredible scholarly promise, and they already have most if not all of the skills they need to do their research. These are people with fluency in 4+ languages, research experience, publications, and background reading in a number of interconnected fields. To me, this sounds like a rigorous education.

 

If you keep increasing rigor, you are eventually going to hit a tradeoff, where more rigor means fewer good ideas get researched. That is the point where you are rejected eminently qualified, talented scholars with promising ideas just because you're trying to keep program numbers small. That point has already been reached. The reality is that academia, like pro football and Hollywood, only accepts the best of the best, and that best is so good that it is not possible to weed it out at an earlier stage. I have a friend who does quantum physics, and he tells me that there are 4 schools in the USA whose program places PhDs in any kind of academic position, and of those schools, 50% of their PhDs still don't get jobs. It sucks that young people have to gamble 5-10 years of their life on a pipe dream, but what can anybody do?

 

As regards schools that are lower-tier or schools that don't place (not necessarily overlapping sets in every field), yeah, that's a thing, but we're back where we started. In the end, academia exists to produce new knowledge, not to provide sinecures to people who did good in school. You can say, let's close down these programs, but then you'd be like, if we close down these programs, we will have to close down their research too, and isn't that counter-productive to our goals? There are programs that produce good research out there who don't place their PhDs. Yes, they need those PhDs to do that research - but you can't legally call that exploitative, since these people are getting paid. Why are they doing it? Idk, everybody's entitled to her own utility curve.

Edited July 3, 2015 by ExponentialDecay