If someone offered an online PhD in history ...

If the upcoming retirement of baby boomers creates a shortage of workers, it will affect practically every occupational sector in the country -- it wouldn't be something specific to academia.

The leading edge of the baby boom has already begun to take early retirement, and to collect social security benefits. Some have speculated that the retirement of the boomers should lead to widespread demand for new workers in labor markets nationwide.

Yet so far, there are few signs that this phenomenon is happening -- it's hard to even find isolated or anecdotal evidence that supports it. On the contrary, the unemployment rate is now relatively high, and appears to be rising. Employers don't seem anxious to hire workers now as "insurance" against future retirements.

Maybe the predicted labor shortage will eventually materialize, or maybe not. The problem, obviously, is that it's difficult to predict the future. And so it's risky to let long-term demographic projections -- like the one you posted, which extends to 2025 -- influence your choice of career.

 

It's risky to drive to work in the morning yet most of us take the chance. Fortunately, not everyone wants to earn an MBA. I believe that those who have alternative visions for their future shouldn't be discouraged from pursuing them simply because the odds are not so good.

 

That's exactly why people buy lottery tickets: they have alternative visions for their future, and they aren't deterred by the odds. Of course, many of them don't understand the odds. Shouldn't they at least be informed ?

I'm hardly the first to compare the pursuit of doctoral degrees with playing the lottery. A recent column in the Chronicle of Higher Education put it like this:

In fairness, there is one important difference between investing in lottery tickets and investing in an unmarketable doctorate. Banks won't lend you thousands of dollars to buy lottery tickets, so that approach is less likely to leave you saddled with debt.

 

I believe that there is a substantial intrinsic value in education that can not be simply measured by the job you hold or the net value of your estate at the end of your life. I also believe that the vast majority of people who go through the process of earning doctoral degrees in History or English Lit or any other liberal arts discipline know full well what they are doing.

 

I've seen quite a few posts over in the higher ed forum from professors and grad students that said if they had to do it again, they wouldn't have gone to grad school.

 

Which is why DL or other alternative programs are successful. Giving up your life to complete a graduate degree at the poverty level can be less than fulfilling. But, I liked the part time grad school thing and enjoyed it because it was a break from work. I could imagine where doing it full time and then trying to find work in today's environment might be disheartening.

A friend of mine holds two bachelors, one in construction science and one in electrical engineering. He is a research engineer and holds five patents and is paid exceedingly well. He started a masters but stated he wasn't gaining anything for his research so dropped the program.

I would agree that graduate school is not necessary but it has the potential to make a difference, especially for those in academia where pay scales are set for attainment of higher education.

I would be interested in seeing a composite of the major fields of those complaining.

 

My very non-scientific findings indicate that the people that are most unsatisfied by their choices are mostly those in various humanities subjects like history, sociology, philosophy etc.

It seems like those in business and hard sciences were happier because it appears there are more TT jobs for those with business and science PhDs. The salaries were also mentioned as being higher for these areas. In fact, it was stated numerous times that those with an accounting PhD are currently the rockstars of the academic world, pretty much able to write their own ticket.

I say non-scientific because a) I didn't really dig into this besides all the threads I read on the higher ed forum and b) the bitter people are the most vocal and they are all in the humanities. Business and science doesn't have the same number of people complaining and therefore appear to be happier.

 

I think that most people pursue advanced education in the sciences and humanities because... they are passionately interested in the sciences and humanities. Most of these graduate students know full well that the chances of landing full-time teaching positions might be pretty slim for individuals who aren't star-students in full-time B&M programs at leading universities. It's not exactly a secret.

So, what's the alternative? Vainly try to forget your lifelong passion, slam down too many beers, then shoot yourself?

Or find employment in some other hopefully-related field and then find a way to pursue your interests around your day-job? Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity for DL?

Is the number of full-time positions in the humanities really declining? The figures you quoted up above in an earlier post show full-time faculty numbers (in all fields?) growing 83% from 1970-2005.

Even if the number in the humanities specifically is falling, or at least not growing fast enough to satisfy out-of-work would-be professors, what's really causing it? My obseration is that the reason has little to do with DL, but rather with the relative growth in enrollments in business and vocational subjects in the last generation, relative to the traditional sciences and humanities subjects.

Trying to dissuade students from even majoring in the humanities isn't going to make that situation any better. Our anti-DL out-of-work professors are just undercutting their own shaky position. No students => no professors. (It's a law of nature.)

If that's true, and to some extent it probably is, then wouldn't the obvious response be to find some alternative to full-time tenure-track academic employment that will still allow these people to remain active in the fields that they love?

Again, it sounds like an argument for DL. And remember, there's no law of nature that says that professors teaching in DL programs can't be full-time. That's just a rhetorical premise that sort of been snuck into the arguments covertly.

Given that few DL graduate programs in the traditional academic subjects even exist, their current hiring practices aren't a guide. What everyone on the professor-boards seems to be really railing about, without always correctly identifying their target, is the huge growth in business programs that's gradually crowding out everything else in academia at all but the elite universities. Part-time night-school business (and other jobs-skills) programs at low-prestige (especially prorietorial) schools typically employ lots of adjuncts too, despite their being bricks-and-morter operations. That's where much of your 491% increase (1970-2007) in part-time faculty employment is coming from.

I think that our wonderful brilliant humanities professors are just shooting wildly and not thinking straight.

 

List of AMU grads seeking PhD's?

Bazonkers did you ever hear back from AMU concerning how many of their grads go on to PhD programs?

I did see something on google about an AMU grad who went on to the PhD program at Univ of Florida.

 

One very attainable option is employment in a museum. You can literally create your own position if you are adept at grant writing. The State of Tennessee has a transportation enhancement grant that can be used to fund, you guessed it, a transportation museum. I'm sure there are grants available for other fields.

There is currently one WWI museum in the United States. Take a very entrepreneurial person with a humanities background who would be willing to learn how to pitch such a project to a local community with WWI ties and viola. Tourism, economic development, a sharing of grant money, education of local students could all be selling points. Yes this is all hypothetical but it could work.

Just some things to make you go hmmm...

 

They never replied to me. They didn't even say something like we don't keep that data. I suppose I could call them.

I've decided to take the GRE exam and get some letters of references for the MA in History program at Sam Houston State University. I'm shooting to enroll there instead this summer. If they have issues with my application because I don't really have a big writing sample, or academic letters of refernece, etc. I'll take 2 classes at AMU this summer then transfer in the fall.

I've decided that going forward, I'm going go with schools that have a B&M presence. Plus, SHSU is very open about where their graduates have gone onto for PhD studies. (University of Colorado, University of Virginia, Oklahoma State University, American University, University of Alabama, Texas Christian University, Texas A&M University.)