Thread by @Noahpinion

1/Today in @bopinion, I discuss why America has been producing too many PhDs in recent years, and what we need to do to solve the problem.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/First of all, many people don't realize just how many PhDs we produce! More than almost any other rich country.

3/And we've kept ramping this number up and up.

4/But the problem begins when PhDs start looking for (usually academic) jobs.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

5/The U.S. built a ton of universities and then we stopped.

Professors have tenure.

That means there are just going to be fewer new tenure-track jobs than before. Everyone in academia already knows this well.

6/Here's the market for history professors.

historians.org/publications-a…

7/Here's the market for anthropology professors.

journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

8/Here's the market for English and foreign-language professors.

insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/2…

9/Now, to make matters worse, college enrollment has been flatlining. Even before COVID-19 came along and kicked colleges' butt.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

10/And colleges, under huge pressures to cut costs, have switched from tenure-track faculty to adjuncts and lecturers.

11/The life of many PhDs after graduation has thus become "adjunctopia" -- or more accurately, Adjunct Hell. Desperately hanging on year after year, hoping for that big break that never comes.

nytimes.com/2020/03/05/ups…

12/Of course, PhDs can go into the private sector. BUT, many doctoral advisors push PhD students toward academia. And grad school culture stigmatizes private-sector jobs as failure...

13/Plus, while STEM PhDs and some social science PhDs can often find private-sector jobs in their fields, many humanities and social science fields don't have good private-sector analogs.

This will lead to underemployment and resentment.

14/And social unrest really is a threat here. Dashed expectations can lead to deep rage at the system. And who better equipped to overthrow the system than a bunch of brilliant underemployed people?

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1040785903201861632

15/Some historians, like @Peter_Turchin, have warned that "elite overproduction" is a recipe for unrest.

nationalpost.com/opinion/peter-…

16/And the insanely shitty job market for PhDs is taking a massive psychological toll.

insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/1…

17/So what do we do about this?

For STEM PhDs, we can have the government employ more. A massive expansion of federal research funding is in the works. We should pass @RoKhanna's Endless Frontier Act.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

18/But for many humanities and social science fields, a big federal bailout simply isn't in the cards. Nor is the private sector prepared to employ ever-increasing humanities and social science PhDs without severe underemployment.

We need to cut back on production.

19/Some universities are already cutting back on production in these fields.

This will be painful but necessary.

wsj.com/articles/pande…

20/We need a PhD production system that is more in line with new economic realities -- flat or declining college enrollment, cost-cutting, and the end of the 20th century college building boom.

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…