Interesting article. Globalisation may help to distribute the PhD holders to where they are needed. Information technology may also transport the skills base without the PhD having to leave home. It is a little like food. The west has an obesity problem while certain parts of the world are starving. We probably all need to speak Esperanto so we all have a common language, although English seems to be filling this role for some reason. Esperanto may step past the politics of language though. It would be interesting to see what effect it would have to have all research published in a common language.
If Esperanto were going to take off, it would have happened decades ago. English isn't going anywhere, it's the official language of countries that cover half the world's population. Besides, Interlingua is easier to learn than Esperanto. Like almost all speakers of Romance languages and English speakers with a decent vocabulary, I can read it as is, and I've never studied it. (That doesn't help those from otehr language groups, but then Esperanto isn't any easier for them, so it doesn't matter.)
I sprinted through the article and it seemed to confirm many of the things that we've been saying here for some time. The degree will likely help your career but in terms of raw earning power, will you ever get your money back? And does that even matter? Maybe you've just always wanted a certain sort of position and now that you've got your PhD you've gotten your wish. Do you really care that you've got some debt? Maybe you're happy enough with your new job that you're willing to live with the debt. On the other hand, if you have a PhD and you're driving a cab and umpiring little league games on weekends in order to pay the bills then you might have some "degree-regret". Think carefully before you dive into that pool. As for the language thing, esperanto is dead. English will win for now and then Chinese will take over. In the end a new global language will emerge that will be a combination of English, Spanish and Chinese.
I think Chinese writing is too hard for people to pick up casually. I bet that languages that spread as a second language are those picked up best casually. Of course I have no reference for this.
According to this blogger, China will soon be the biggest English speaking country: "China is soon to be the worlds largest English speaking nation, and India will pass them. Soon the United States will be the third largest English speaking nation in the world! ..." China- Soon to be World's Largest English Speaking Nation? - Yahoo! Answers The Chinese community here is growing fairly quickly because of our trade links with China. I recently had coffee with a Chinese friend and I think we may have understood very third sentence. We might have trouble with Chinese, but I think they have as much trouble with English. Mind you I am a native speaker of English and I still have trouble with it.
''English is the international language. Or, I should say, broken English is the international language.'' -- Akira Nambara
