MORE DREARY NEWS FOR ACADEMICS

Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, a humanities professor has been on a crusade to reveal the many ways that graduate school is a bad idea. There are too few academic jobs for the training to be anything other than a crap-shoot. This is a problem, particularly because the hurdles to becoming a professor in America include slaving away for years on a PhD and submitting yourself to the low-wage exploitation of adjunct teaching.

Louis Menand addresses this in his new book, "The Marketplace of Ideas" (reviewed by The Economist here). He notes that whereas you can become a lawyer in three years and a medical doctor in four, the median time to a doctoral degree in the humanities is nine years. And then good luck finding a job.

Given all the bad news, I was initially heartened to see that the Chronicle has published a response to the original story, called "Neither a Trap Nor a Lie". Surely James Mulholland, an English professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, would offer evidence that secondary degrees in history and English aren't a fool's errand. Surely he would suggest that the economics of academia isn't so dire.

Alas, no. Instead, Mulholland argues that grad students need to be a bit more Zen about debt: "we must accept that persistent professional disappointment is a central part of the life." He explains that it would be better for those researching, say, the bathing habits of middle-class children in early Victorian literature to view their pursuit "as more like choosing to go to New York to become a painter or deciding to travel to Hollywood to become an actor. Those arts-based careers have always married hope and desperation into a tense relationship. We must admit that the humanities, now, is that way, too."

This perhaps explains why academics in American universities are so arrogant, as Naomi Schaefer Riley argues in In Character. Professors see themselves as a class apart from other professions because somehow, against the odds, they aren't the sad sacks most of their students are destined to become. Though given the fact that the same article also mentions that more than 100 new scholarly books were published on Shakespeare last year, perhaps a bit of a cull makes sense.

 

Picture credit: Horia Varlan (via Flickr)

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Comments

Great comment about North American grad schools

March 16, 2010 - 20:39 — Dave (not verified)

Public universities have a little secret that makes them exactly like the for-profits. Many departments want the dollars of the less-than-able students to keep their programs going. I’ve had an experience that taught me this: After I did my first degree (history), one of the options I looked at was to earn a doctorate in Mayan astronomy.

My impression was I'd get accepted to the master's level, but I did a market study first. It took a bit of digging (oh, the irony!). Approximately 100 Mayan archaeology docs were graduating in North America every year. But only two positions open up across the continent. My estimate said I would not be one of the two: I am not particularly good at languages (you’d need other languages, including Quechua). My calculus marks were terrible. The opportunity cost was a concern. And the return-on-investment for 8 years of huge tuition and living costs made me blanch. Not to mention realizing that 98 of us would exist to get two admittedly superlative people onto the career track of their choice and desire.

Moreso, realizing that we 98 would be there to help universities inflate their enrollments to get more funds from government.

The lesson? Do your research. Don't presume that universities will tell you the complete story. They have an agenda, too. And it is not always a transparent one.

If academics consider

March 19, 2010 - 02:49 — Visitor (not verified)

If academics consider themselves citizen of a global community perhaps thinking of working somewhere, Asia maybe, can be an option. Their training and skills will surely go a long way in other countries. The labor "market" for Phds should not simply be confined to the West for western scholars. Although there are obviously major differences in the standard of living and cultures between the academic communities of the East and the West it would still be better to be employed and hone your skills even if not highly paid compared to waiting for employment that may, as one commenter said, come in two every one hundred.

The Numbers Game

March 19, 2010 - 12:52 — New PhD (not verified)

I am a freshly minted PhD in the social science. I came from a good, but not elite, program at a major American University. Stories of "adjunct hell" are overblown. Despite coming from a middle of the pack school, every single one of my colleagues from graduate school is fully employed.

There are those who never finish, didn't take it seriously, or have to adjunct because they are unwilling to move (i.e., spouse with a good job that isn't going anywhere, etc.) but truth be told, these sorts of folks are fewer than the Chronicle articles let on. My advice to those considering a PhD is to think it over carefully, there are costs (financial, time, and other) involved -- but if you really want an academic life, you can make it happen.

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