The Number of Philosophy PhDs

[Glasperlenspieler]

I was a little reluctant to post this, because I tend to think the last thing you all need is another post talking about the job market, especially as many of you are already stressed out with completing the application season and I assume you are all already well informed on the topic (if this is you feel, free to stop reading now). That being said, some of you have noticed that a discussion has erupted in the philosophy blogosphere over the last few days in response to the recent data concerning the number or Philosophy PhDs being produced every year (here, here, here, and here, and probably elsewhere).

As someone who hopes to pursue a PhD in philosophy and hopefully and academic career, these statistics are of course concerning, but I also find the question about the value of a PhD and what an ideal (or at least superior) graduate education system would look like to be interesting and important. 

So what are your thoughts? I'm especially curious whether you all would still consider pursuing a PhD, even if you knew you had no chance of a TT job prospect. I'm torn, but tend to think my answer would be no (although an MA might be worth it for me for personal reasons). Some in this discussion (debate?) seem to think that the intrinsic value of graduate study in philosophy is worth pursuing for its own sake, while others think the financial costs and time spent given the current system make this view unrealistic. Yet seeing as the people engaging in this conversation seem to be mostly the lucky ones who have "made it", I thought it might be worthwhile to hear your voices from this side of things. Likewise, as an applicant, would you be in favor of fewer PhD granting programs?

[sidebysondheim]

I have a hard time thinking about this because I also would really like a job at the end of 5-6 years of work. But at the moment, even just a term into my program, it's one of the most fulfilling things I've done with my life. It's been tough, but the people (grad students, faculty, and staff) and work make it well worth it. I can honestly say that I'll be happy to find something else to do with my life if I spend two years or so on the job market with nothing. 

Of course, there are a couple of things to put into perspective here: I'm at a program with a good climate and some amazing people. If I was at another program that didn't have the social ties, good grad and faculty interactions, etc. then I'd probably be significantly less enthused. It's also something you can't really know until you spend time in your program. If these aspects weren't here then I'd probably be significantly less enthused by the whole thing. 

One program I visited (no names) seemed to have a significantly different atmosphere and part of it was because a lot of the grads were concerned about jobs and carried that with them it seems. I can only imagine this is the case the worse your program's placement record is. 

I'm not advocating for either position (too many programs or not), I'm just not sure it's something that even you as an applicant can know until you spend time in a program. (Trying very hard here to not call it a transformative experience). 

[brush]

If the problem is that prospective graduate students are being tricked into going to graduate school based on false or misleading information about their future career prospects, then I could why people would be upset. But based on my own personal experience at my undergraduate institution, this is not happening. If my experience is representative--that is, if there is in fact no widespread systematic deception of philosophy students--then I don't see any problem at all. If there are people that want to go to lower tier graduate schools in spite of the abysmal job market (perhaps because they think the study of philosophy is valuable in it of itself), then that is their decision. The graduate schools themselves are just giving people with those desires the chance to fulfill those desires. I fail to see how this is a bad thing, unless one could make the argument that prospective graduate students are incapable of correctly judging what is best for themselves.

Edited December 8, 2015 by brush

[thatsjustsemantics]

37 minutes ago, brush said:

If the problem is that prospective graduate students are being tricked into going to graduate school based on false or misleading information about their future career prospects, then I could why people would be upset. But based on my own personal experience at my undergraduate institution, this is not happening. If my experience is representative--that is, if there is in fact no widespread systematic deception of philosophy students--then I don't see any problem at all. If there are people that want to go to lower tier graduate schools in spite of the abysmal job market (perhaps because they think the study of philosophy is valuable in it of itself), then that is their decision. The graduate schools themselves are just giving people with those desires the chance to fulfill those desires. I fail to see how this is a bad thing, unless one could make the argument that prospective graduate students are incapable of correctly judging what is best for themselves.

Some may argue that the image of graduate study in philosophy is tarnished in virtue of the significant number of PhD programs that reward underqualified students with PhDs, where we measure the qualification of a student by such qualitative factors such as publications or likelihood to publish,  quality of dissertation (its rigor and its impact), as well as candidates' potential to teach and research within both of their AOS and AOC.

In turn, some may argue that the tarnishment of graduate student in philosophy is making the profession worse off; but how would one argue that? I'm not sure. Even well qualified candidates cannot find jobs. But the alternatives aren't better! Prospective students pay hundreds of dollars to apply to grad schools. Even if Leiter et. al are right that there should be fewer PhD programs and fewer admitted students, it just means that the prospect of becoming a graduate student at a decent place would be even slimmer! And what reliable indicators could graduate programs use to assess whether they should admit a student? I smell a lot of structural injustice implicit in any attempt to control the academic market as Leiter et. al suggest, just because it's biased in favor of those who are already privileged.

I wouldn't be suprised if the new norm is for everyone to get an M.A. first, which I wouldn't mind doing -- i just wish there were better M.A. Programs, that's all. (On this point, I agree with Leiter).


 

[sidebysondheim]

Why would it make it harder for people to get into a decent place? If one somehow came up with a way to quantify what decent is, then the programs that weren't decent would be the ones closed down. Any students who would go to these places would likely go to them because they didn't get into one of the decent ones, so would it really change anything? I am not for shutting programs down, but I'm just seeing not seeing how what you said would be accurate. 

I think the major issue with requiring a terminal MA is that it requires more moving, which starts making it more difficult for people who are lower-income/first generation/etc. I literally spent my entire savings (plus a credit card) to move across the country. I couldn't imagine having to do that process a second time two years from now. 

Edited December 9, 2015 by sidebysondheim
grammar

[maxhgns]

I think there's no doubt that there are too many. There are too many in Canada too, and probably also in the UK. I don't have any firm opinions on what, if anything, should be done about it, however.

There shouldn't be any programs that don't fully fund their PhD students. Those programs are part of the "too many". There also shouldn't be any for whom the graduate students are ornaments. Unfortunately, there are a few of those and, contrary to what you might think, they're not all or even primarily low-ranking departments. Those, too, strike me as excess.

[thatsjustsemantics]

13 hours ago, sidebysondheim said:

Why would it make it harder for people to get into a decent place? If one somehow came up with a way to quantify what decent is, then the programs that weren't decent would be the ones closed down. Any students who would go to these places would likely go to them because they didn't get into one of the decent ones, so would it really change anything? I am not for shutting programs down, but I'm just seeing not seeing how what you said would be accurate. 

I think the major issue with requiring a terminal MA is that it requires more moving, which starts making it more difficult for people who are lower-income/first generation/etc. I literally spent my entire savings (plus a credit card) to move across the country. I couldn't imagine having to do that process a second time two years from now. 

In response to your first question, the answer is this: Leiter suggests that decent PhD programs should admit fewer students. How does that not suggest that it would be more difficult for people to get into a decent place, if all else equal -- every PhD program sets a limit of 3-4 graduate students instead of 5-6, or something along those lines.

As for your point about non-decent schools being cut down, I agree that this would probably change very little for competitive applicants.

[sidebysondheim]

Ah, yes. Read too quickly (indeed, right over the part where you said "and fewer admitted students"). 

[philstudent1991]

Seems to me like an across the board limit doesn't make much sense. I have full confidence that NYU or Stanford or Harvard can place a high number of their graduates into very good jobs, and would be skeptical that "low ranked" or "unranked" schools could place even 3-4 into good (TT, say) jobs. I think any program worth attending will be open about their placement. And sure, placing graduates into teaching jobs is not the only measure of a PhD program. But it's safe to say it's the main one. That's one thing that struck me as weird about the folks at South Carolina responding to Leiter's post. They didn't respond "hey, our placement is actually good." They said, "well, we place people into other kinds of jobs." Fine, if true, but they need to be open about this. I had no idea that South Carolina was a program that was more interested in placing their graduates into non-academic careers, or whatever, rather than teaching positions. Did anyone know this? Their website certainly doesn't make any indication of this. In fact, it doesn't seem to give any information about what their graduates do at all. And this seems like a red flag. I don't think they should be forced to shut their doors or anything. But they definitely should be upfront with applicants about what the prospects are (for an academic job or otherwise) for graduates of their program. It seems like Leiter has the moral high ground to me. Students are making huge investments of their prime career building years by pursuing the PhD. Certainly programs have an obligation not to be shady about what the outcome of such an investment might actually be. Just my 2 cents.