Gary North on the Ph.D. "Glut"

Gary North has penned an interesting essay about how the American higher education system produces Ph.D.s. He thinks it's a terrible system, and anyone joining a PhD program is making a terrible career choice, unless they are in one of those disciplines in which there are chances for private-sector employment. From the essay:

Ph.D. students are a lot like gamblers. They expect to beat the odds. The gambler personifies odds-beating as Lady Luck. The Ph.D. student instead looks within. "I am really smart. These other people in the program aren't as smart as I am. I will get that tenure-track job. I will make the cut. I will be a beneficiary of the system."

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Also, if ego were marketable, all Ph.D. graduates would get tenure.

Why does any Ph.D. student at any but the top graduate schools believe that he will get tenure at any university? The odds are so far against him, and have been for a generation, than he ought to realize that he is about to waste his most precious resource – time – on a long-shot. Investing five or more years beyond the B.A. degree, except in a field where industry hires people with advanced degrees, is economic stupidity that boggles the imagination. Yet at least 200,000 graduate students are doing this at any time. Of the 46,000 who earned a Ph.D. in 2003, at least 50% got to ABD status and quit. Probably more than half of the others quit before they got to ABD status.

North says this is a long-term trend:

The Ph.D. glut has existed ever since the fall of 1969. The number of entry-level full-time professorial positions has remained stagnant. Few new universities have been constructed. Legislatures have resisted additional funding.

This has led to a reduction of the number of tenure-level positions. Universities and community colleges have been able to staff their entry-level positions with inexpensive instructors.

Those few Ph.D.s who receive a full-time position at a university find that they are paid much less than tenured members of the department. They are assigned the lower-division classes, which are large – sometimes 200 to 1,000 students. These mega-classes require lecturing skills that most professors do not possess. Those untenured faculty members who perform well in mega-classes are kept on until the day of reckoning: the decision to grant them tenure, usually eight years after they go on the payroll. They are usually not re-hired unless they have published narrowly focused articles in professional journals. But mega-class professors do not have much time to do the required research.

Reading this made me reflect on why I am attempting to get a master's degree. It's been very demanding on my personal time -- I've spent well over 1000 hours on class time, homework, and research for my ALM thesis thus far, mostly at night. This is time that otherwise could have spent with my wife and children.

Where will my ALM degree lead? Certainly not a professorship. In the field of Chinese history, I feel there is an excess of expertise and limited number of University teaching positions. Attempting to start a PhD program after I complete the ALM program would be a major investment in time and money, and upon receiving a degree, there is no guarantee I could find suitable work. That's a risk I cannot take with my family.

And in any case, I didn't start the ALM program as a stepping stone to a PhD. I started because I love history, and the Harvard Extension School program was convenient and free, at least while I worked on campus. It's not free anymore (I left my Harvard job in 2005) but I still love the intellectual challenge. It's exhilerating and very, very interesting.

There's a career benefit, too. The classwork and research are giving me critical thinking skills, the ability to evaluate other people's statements and research, and develop my own viewpoints according to very rigorous standards. It makes me a better writer and a better researcher -- and potentially opens up doors to other non-journalism jobs in government or the private sector that require strong analytical skills.

One thing I would like to note about the Harvard Extension School ALM program is that many graduates do go on to PhD programs, or use their degrees to change careers. The Extension School alumni magazine (The Lamplighter?) lists a lot of the success stories, you can sometimes grab a copy at 51 Brattle Street.