A multipart series in the scientific journal Nature has reportedly stated that the system of awarding science PhDs needs to be either reformed or shut down. According to the article, the world is awash in PhDs. Most of them are being awarded after years of study and tens of thousands of dollars to scholars who will never find work in academia, the traditional goal for Doctors of Philosophy.
The cover article notes that in some countries, including the US and Japan, people who have trained at great length and expense to be researchers confront a dwindling number of academic jobs. They also face an industrial sector unable to take up the slack. Of people who received PhDs in the biological sciences five to six years ago, only 13 percent have tenure-track positions leading to a professorship, says Paula Stephan, who studies the economics of science at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
All together, 10 percent are working part time or out of the labour force entirely; 33 percent are in academic positions that don't lead to a professorship positions; 22 percent are in industry; and 20 percent are at community colleges or working in government or non-profit jobs, according to Stephan.
It's not necessarily the education that needs to change, but how the endpoint is presented, says Maresi Nerad, director of the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Studies have found that about half of the science PhDs end up working outside of academia in industry, government or at not-for-profits.
The glut tracks back to predictions in the 1980s that an impending wave of professor retirements and rising college enrollment would require a horde of new PhDs. This didn't prove to be true, but PhDs-track students flooded universities and then couldn't find jobs. One reason the overproduction of PhDs hasn't been dealt with is the economic incentives built into PhDs programmes in science.
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