Analysis: Universities overproduce Ph.D.s

[kurth]

Analysis: Universities overproduce Ph.Ds
By JUSTIN POPE, AP Education Writer
Jan 20, 2008

College students are getting a raw deal, a recent New York report asserted. The problem is they're taking too many classes from part-time, or adjunct, professors. But that same report unwittingly revealed something about how higher education is more culpable than it likes to admit when it comes to creating the problem.

The issue is a huge one in higher education far beyond New York, with about half of the nation's college faculty now on part-time contracts. Adjuncts are cheaper for colleges, but they often lack the time and resources for focused teaching, and research shows students' performance suffers if they are taught by part-timers too often.

In its report last month, a 30-member commission called for New York's state (SUNY) and city (CUNY) systems to alleviate the over reliance on adjuncts by hiring 2,000 more full-time faculty for their 87 campuses. But just one page away, the report also called for adding at least 4,000 new doctoral students.

There's a connection between those numbers that deserves more attention. In many fields, there are already too many Ph.Ds awarded for the full-time academic posts available, creating a surplus of likely jobseekers. That pool becomes adjuncts, who command wages and benefits so low that universities find them irresistible hires. "It's not uncommon to have a disconnect like this in higher education, in which people are both concerned about the difficult career prospects being faced by recent Ph.D. graduates and concerned there aren't enough Ph.D. students," said Michael Teitelbaum, of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080120/ap_on_re_us/part_time_profs

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Good. We need more low-paid proles. Smirk." - republicon homelander corporate Borg

[Elspeth]

2. "...adjuncts, who command wages and benefits so low..."

The word "command" is curious here. The adjuncts have no power over PT salaries.

[Jed Dilligan]

3. It's just a figure of speech

Everyone who gets paid can be said to "command" whatever their salary is. Kind of quaint, but correct, even if the person isn't deciding what they want to be paid.

[Elspeth]

5. I understand that particular connotation of the word, but it is highly inappropriate and misleading

in a case where no "command" is really possible. Bad on the author of the article for such poor word choice.

[Jed Dilligan]

6. Sadly, there is such a glut of PhD.s that if they stopped paying

altogether, the adjuncts would still show up just to build their cv's in hopes of someday maybe getting a FT gig.

[Elspeth]

8. Boy is that the truth!

What fields are the worst?

[Jed Dilligan]

9. From where I'm sitting it looks like social science

but I'm sure it's no picnic in the hard sciences or the humanities.

[TZ]

10. In my field biology....

There are actually more and better opportunities for Masters or even just Bachelor's degrees.
A phD friend (who works at NIH) once told me get a phD if you want to be a desk jockey....

[Jed Dilligan]

11. Are you talking about academia or industry? nt

[knitter4democracy]

4. Well, look at what we are doing in our economy:

We have made it impossible to get a job without any college of any kind (trade school, associate's degree, whatever). Once people graduate with their bachelor's degree, they often find they can't do what they really want to do with it, so they go back to get their master's and then get talked into going on and getting their doctorates. If we really valued work and stopped putting ridiculous requirements on many jobs, then things would even out again.

[rockymountaindem]

7. As someone who just started a PhD program,

I can say that I'm *really* glad I don't plan to work in academia when I finish. Jobs are few and far between.

[EstimatedProphet]

12. Speaking as someone with a Ph. D. - FUCK YOU!

Academia is not the only venue for a doctor, far from it! And even if it were, the issue is declining enrollment in colleges leading to serious budgetary issues for colleges, and that's because there's a hell of a lot less people that can afford college these days. This is another blatant attempt to "help the public understand" that college is only supposed to be fro the privileged few, and the Great Unwashed shouldn't try to raise their standards too much.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

13. This applies to another kind of doctorate too -- law degrees.

It's a Doctor of Jurisprudence, commonly known by its initials in Latin -- J.D. for Juris Doctor.

It really is ninety semester hours of PURE HELL.

They've been cranking out way too many lawyers for several decades now. Jobs???

Oh well, at least I got mine when I could pay for it out of my salary by going to night school, so I don't owe any money on student loans.

But hey, that degree looks great on the wall, very dignified, matted and framed, and would make a really nice impressive placemat on my table. :)

[JCMach1]

14. Several issues in the OP... Use of adjuncts/Graduate Students

to teach basic level courses.

-Professors years ago figured out the trick that if you have graduate students to do the work, you don't have to do those things you hate like teaching basic level classes and grading.

-Consequently, programs sprung into being solely to serve as teaching mills for those basic course.

-Hence, you ended up with too many degreed people in certain areas of Gen Ed.

-Adjuncts and part-timers are the equivalent of scabs in the regular work world. They are chronically underpaid and lack benefits.

-Even if you are full-time, your salary (most likely) won't even begin to cover your student loans. Salaries for Ph.D.'s in the States (for many fields) are quite low.

That's why I work outside the US.