How many PhDs does the world need? Doctoral graduates vastly outnumber jobs in academia
PhD programmes need to better prepare students for careers outside universities, researchers warn.
Archive: https://archive.is/f1YtL
if you can't do a job after getting a PhD then explain how a person without one can?
It does sound paradoxal at first but is actually quite logical. The person without a PHD enters the corporate market at a younger age with a lesser degree. He has an easier access because he can get paid less and is more accepting of more menial tasks. PHD candidates are older, expect higher salaries due to their higher education, but actually have less corporate experience. That's why the article is calling for a better preparation to work outside of academia jobs
A PhD is a highly specialized thing, much like how a Masters is fairly specialized. Only a BA/BS is something that is supposed to be relatively universal. If someone has a BS in accounting that is pretty applicable anywhere accounting is needed. If someone has a masters in accounting specializing in taxes or something, then theyre useful to places that need an expert in tax accounting. If someone has a PhD in some specific field of accounting then theyre useful to universities with accounting programs who are trying to crank out accountants at the B/M level, of which there are only so many slots. A PhD doesnt mean someone has more general knowledge, it means they have a ton of very very specific knowledge
Technically that PhD holder would also be useful as an accountant anywhere, but being an accountant just anywhere probably isnt going to pay for that Masters or PhD. So if one decent spot will open in academia this year, but 10 people graduate with PhD’s this year, obviously they cant all have that one spot.
Im not into accounting, so idk how much sense that explanation will make to an actual accountant. But you could change accounting for literally anything and that is basically the problem in a nutshell. Plus many people get PhDs in subjects that dont have such a wide job market at the entry level. If you get a history PhD and dont get an academic slot then you are basically fucked. Being a museum docent or a highschool history teacher isnt gonna pay for that PhD. This is why a lot of my professors in community college back in the day taught as adjuncts at like 3-4 colleges at the same time
That’s all swell but you know what?
It isn’t about what the world needs.
If you have the desire, ability and opportunity to get a PhD in accounting then that’s what you should do.
Everything else is equivalent to someone telling you that, “the world needs ditch diggers, too.”.
Fuck people like that. Let them forgo their passion in life, not you.
also: PhD's are often funded positions where the student receives a stipend - not something where significant tuition is paid (not always, of course). Master's degrees can cost a bundle, but not every PhD program requires a Master's beforehand. The biggest loss (again, not every case) is in loss of income that would have been gained if one had immediately entered the workforce after BS or MS.
I’m getting a PhD because I like to learn and I want to learn all I can about the physical phenomena around me - I would hope we could start thinking of higher education as more than just job training.
Exactly, I went for my PhD because of interest in science and my subject. Never really wanted a job in academia and I am happily employed in the private sector now. We should return to praising science and knowledge for its own sake (and the betterment of mankind) rather than seeing it only as a means to a better paycheck and/or corporate profit.
Yup. Me too.
This is me. Grad school was about interest not work.
The world needs as many highly educated people as possible. The problem becomes when you make higher education a business and attach publication as a requirement for advancement. Then you are diluting the quality of research in pursuit of a "high volume" model. In this model people don't follow passion they follow the path of least resistance and we all suffer for it.
You might notice that not all PhDs work in academic environments. Actually most of them work in businesses.
PhD overproduction (and subsequently devaluation) is a real thing. The intention of PhDs was to reward and recognize major original contributions to a specific field of science. It turned into another academic "level" that you have to grind towards by producing a large quantity of articles. Even before AI the academic slop was a real thing.