Ph.D.s in America on the decline

numbers runners

It seems necessary also to consider the current outsourcing of a large proportion of classes to adjunct teachers. The figure I heard--somewhere--was around 40% nowadays (teachers, not classes). Don't know what it used to be in the glory days when boomers were students and tenure was handed out like popcorn.

The source cited in an earlier post lamented that there were only about 1440 new English doctorates. If there are 1440 tenure-track openings in US English departments this year, I'm the Queen of Rumania.

 

I'm aware of the heavy use of adjuncts by community colleges and non-traditional schools (night schools, distance learning schools). But are you suggesting that this is the case with traditional schools as well?

 

In a smaller ratio, but the answer is: Yes.

This discussion of the baby boom retirement (specifically, those entering the profession from the late 1950s to the early 1970s) has been going on since the late 1980s. BTW, the term doesn't refer to the generation of professors but to the booming enrollments which required a massive influx of new hirings during this period.

I have yet to see evidence of this huge need for more faculty.

Part of the problem is that conditions have changed. Less tenure, greater use of adjuncts, greater use of young (less costly) faculty who are let go before tenure decisions have to be made. Mandatory retirement extended to 70. Concerned with their bottom lines, schools are also apparently not replacing retirements on a 1:1 basis.

All of these conditions, I think, have conspired against the kind of massive hiring which many have thought would result from the massive retirements.

marilynd

 

Yes. It's known as the "echo boom." If you plug that term into your favorite search engine you'll get a whole bunch of information. A lot of it seems to be related to marketing efforts aimed at this group as well as this group entering the workforce.
Here's just one:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_4_46/ai_73848314
Jack

 

Such mono-mania!

Actually, there is a rumor that a rarely read, mysterious document called "The Constitution" dictiates that "the regime" not originate spending bills. Instead, all spending bills originate eslewhere; I believe the culprit is called "The Congress."

Since "the regime" has yet to veto anything in almost five years, I believe the blame (or credit) belongs elsewhere too.

 

As usual, Orson is just trying to confuse the issue by stating facts.
Thanks Orson.
Jack

 

To respond to some previous posts:

The Leader of the Free World would like creationism to be taught to schoolchildren alongside evolution. Said Leader allowed Philip Cooney, an ex-oilman, chief of staff for the White House council on environmental quality, a lawyer not a scientist, to water down the Administration's scientific papers on climate change and to overemphasize uncertainties. Cooney had previously done the same sort of 'review work' for the Amer. Petroleum Institute.

Now for NSF budget. This is how things work: if you keep the agency's budget flat, while its costs are continuing to escalate, guess what happens? Fewer graduate students are being supported.

Who specifically is responsible for the budget? As most of this Board's readers are doubtless aware, the final budget is the result of action by both the legislative and executive branches. Currently, both are under Republican control.

In 2000, I voted for neither candidate, considering Gore too soft on terrorism and wanting to give Bush a chance. I still defend him to closed-minded detractors such as those who were in a funk when things were going well for us in Iraq. But to succeed in convincing anyone that Bush is not a walking monument to corruption and incompetence becomes a greater challenge daily. How he handles science is one of the countless ways he shows what he's made of and whom he reports to.

If the head honcho of Lichtenstein or of the Principality of Monaco were to opine that science class should teach creationism, one would laugh and shrug. If the Leader of the Free World says the same thing, it's a more serious matter, for reasons I needn't spell out.

 

So, after all the fluff is removed from your post, you're saying that you were wrong when you said that the budgets were cut. OK then we're in agreement.
Jack

 

Here is the data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (NSF, US DoE, NIH, NEH, USDA & NASA) for the past three years (2004 data are not yet available). This reports includes only research doctorates, not first professional doctorates:

Total Earned Doctorates:

2001 40,744
2002 39,955
2003 40,710

Doctorates Earned by US Citizens

2001 26,907
2002 25,936
2003 26,413

Doctorates Earned by Non-US Citizens with Permanent Visas

2001 1,822
2002 1,646
2003 1,631

Doctorates Earned by Non-US Citizens with Temporary Visas

2001 9,780
2002 9,707
2003 10,585

 

Thanks, Tony.

Doesn't look like an appreciable drop to me.

marilynd

 

The sums of the categories are less than the totals.

 

Look at the bigger picture. If you check Table 8 of this study, you will see that in 1998, US citizens earned 28,456 doctorates. So that's a drop of 7.2 % between 1998 and 2003.

In some fields, the drop was bigger. US citizen PhDs in the physical sciences fell 14.9% over this period. US citizen PhDs in engineering fell 26.0%.

Finally, note that it takes several years to get through the PhD pipeline. The 1998-2003 numbers above reflect people who decided to get into the pipeline during the 1990s. If (as many people suspect) PhD programs continued to lose popularity during the early 2000s, the resulting decline in PhD recipients will not be evident until the latter part of this decade (actually it may take even longer when you factor in the time needed for the government to compile the statistics)

 

Bigger picture

For a view of an even bigger picture, check Table 5 of the same study:

PhD degrees in Physics & Astronomy:
1973: 1,589
2003: 1,247

PhD degrees in Math:
1973: 1,233
2003: 994

PhD degrees in English:
1973: 1,414
2003: 929

PhD degrees in Political Science/International Relations:
1973: 908
2003: 759

PhD degrees in History:
1973: 1,216
2003: 940

The Golden Age of the PhD is long gone in many traditional academic disciplines.

 

CalDog makes some excellent observations here. It took me eight years to complete my doctorate, so the current decline may be more evident in a few years. If you really want to see the BIG picture, NORC has the last seven years of data (almost 1,400 pages worth) at http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/issues/docdata.htm

Bon appetite!

 

Some of the respondents did not report their citizenship.