The Ph.D. puzzle

In addition to persistently low wages, the crisis in post-graduate education is marked by a surplus of Ph.D.'s in the job market, a trend fueled by universities producing more Ph.D.'s than there are positions available for them. According to an op-ed penned earlier this year by Michael Berube, former President of the Modern Language Association, doctoral programs have been consistently overproducing Ph.D.s since the 1970s, stranding highly educated people in a job market less hospitable than the arena from “The Hunger Games,” where years of intensive training at least win contestants some hope of success. The resulting glut of qualified candidates, which is worse for graduates in the humanities, results in widespread underemployment for Ph.D.s. For those who find jobs in academe, many have little choice but to seize on adjunct (non-tenure track) positions.

Moreover, Ph.D. programs in the humanities typically take about 9 years to complete, and inconsistent funding streams coupled with stringent program requirements have drastically increased the amount of time and effort Ph.D. students have had to commit to their programs.

Given that Ph.D. students must invest years of low-paid work for derisory job prospects, doctoral education may not make sense for most college graduates. Indeed, some critics have decried graduate education in the humanities as a “shell game” designed to churn out a steady stream of low-wage workers for universities. Providing a supply of “cheap, highly motivated and disposable labor,” Ph.D. students allow universities to produce research at a low cost, and academic departments face a powerful incentive to continue recruiting and training Ph.D.s, even if the market is not prepared to place them in academic jobs after graduation.

Although universities benefit from a large stock of poorly compensated laborers, prospective post-graduates have a responsibility to consider the realities of graduate education before enrolling. Placement statistics for graduate programs are available on most university websites, and students unprepared for top graduate programs may want to consider other options. Ph.D. programs offer incalculable value to students, universities and society, but the current rate at which universities are producing Ph.D.s is unsustainable. Indeed, absent significant and immediate increases in university and government budgets, any solution to the graduate education crisis will require tradeoffs. Universities should adequately compensate the people who labor for them, but we have to be prepared to accept, as a condition of higher wages, the possible reduction in available Ph.D. positions.

Solutions are scarce, but greatly needed. The paucity of jobs for Ph.D.s weakens, over time, both the research and pedagogical power of the American higher education system. Having specialists in academic fields not only strengthens individual colleges, but is also indispensable for a society that hopes to make significant contributions to the corpus of human knowledge.