When I read this, all I could think was: "we need fewer graduate students".
Want to know why American students don't enter PhD programs? Ask one: to get a PhD in this country, you must forgo five or more years of income and savings, live like a pauper, and lose many opportunities for early career development. Meanwhile, you get to watch your undergraduate classmates buy cars and houses, take authority roles in their companies, and accumulate significant retirement savings.
And what do you get in exchange? The obligation to work long hours for 3-5 more years, in a $40k/year post-doc (usually in an expensive city), with the long-shot possibility of finding a professorship somewhere (hopefully, somewhere near your spouse!) There, you'll work your ass off for six more years, in the hopes of not being permanently fired from the only job that you're qualified to do. And as an extra-special bonus, your job security rests largely on your ability to beg for money from the government...here's hoping that the NIH/NSF/DOE/DOJ grant budgets don't decline!
Is it really any wonder that Americans don't want these gigs? The economics of the professorship don't make sense for people from an affluent society. If you want more American students to take an interest in academia, you've got to stop flooding the market with cheap labor.
"Is it really any wonder that Americans don't want these gigs? The economics of the professorship don't make sense for people from an affluent society. If you want more American students to take an interest in academia, you've got to stop flooding the market with cheap labor."
I agree with you the problem is demand and supply mismatching. But the current system is built on the demand of cold war. After cold war, most of the demand disappear.
It is another good lesson of governments have absolutely power to distort demand and supply of market.
So one way to solve the problem is to increase demands for graduate students. But I think so far no one has idea how to do that. The money and time lost in graduate school is almost the same as running start ups. But the payout for startup maybe better than graduate school.
Want to know why American students don't enter PhD programs? Ask one: to get a PhD in this country, you must forgo five or more years of income and savings, live like a pauper, and lose many opportunities for early career development. Meanwhile, you get to watch your undergraduate classmates buy cars and houses, take authority roles in their companies, and accumulate significant retirement savings.
And what do you get in exchange? The obligation to work long hours for 3-5 more years, in a $40k/year post-doc (usually in an expensive city), with the long-shot possibility of finding a professorship somewhere (hopefully, somewhere near your spouse!) There, you'll work your ass off for six more years, in the hopes of not being permanently fired from the only job that you're qualified to do. And as an extra-special bonus, your job security rests largely on your ability to beg for money from the government...here's hoping that the NIH/NSF/DOE/DOJ grant budgets don't decline!
Is it really any wonder that Americans don't want these gigs? The economics of the professorship don't make sense for people from an affluent society. If you want more American students to take an interest in academia, you've got to stop flooding the market with cheap labor.