Great post. I wrote a long comment in this thread, where I went off on a bit of a tangent on how the US should institute a moratorium on funding for graduate student training, but I deleted it, because it felt overly negative and conspiratorial. You did a much better job of saying what I was trying to say, and backing it with numbers. Bravo.
Suffice to say that I agree that we're training far too many scientists in this country, and that somehow, we need to find a way to wean Universities (and industry) off the government dole. The problem is, after decades of subsidy for advanced research, the US is addicted to cheap intellectual labor in the form of under-employed graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. If the government were to drastically cut funding for these "training" positions, the university system would collapse.
My opinion is that the only way out of this conundrum, is to force industry to re-invest in R&D over the long term. That means no more licensing patents from university research programs that were developed using federal funding; no more "tech transfer" that allows corporate research to be done on campus for slave wages; and a slow dial-down in agency funding for applied research at universities (as opposed to basic science). Research and development has to be driven by market demand, if science is to be a stable career choice for intelligent students.
Suffice to say that I agree that we're training far too many scientists in this country, and that somehow, we need to find a way to wean Universities (and industry) off the government dole. The problem is, after decades of subsidy for advanced research, the US is addicted to cheap intellectual labor in the form of under-employed graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. If the government were to drastically cut funding for these "training" positions, the university system would collapse.
My opinion is that the only way out of this conundrum, is to force industry to re-invest in R&D over the long term. That means no more licensing patents from university research programs that were developed using federal funding; no more "tech transfer" that allows corporate research to be done on campus for slave wages; and a slow dial-down in agency funding for applied research at universities (as opposed to basic science). Research and development has to be driven by market demand, if science is to be a stable career choice for intelligent students.