https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-im-planning-to-leave-my-ph-d-program
Most graduate students can identify with the author of this article and his lament, "My family can't live on $17,000 a year" but his story raises two questions in my mind:
• you knew what the stipend was when you enrolled in the degree program so why is it now so problematic that you feel the need to withdraw after four years in? Leaving might make sense after the first year; you may rightly conclude that "this is not for me" and walk away, but leaving after four years?
• the author does not say, but leave the program to do what exactly? What is the better or more attractive option than completing your degree? Few employers are aggressively recruiting PhD dropouts so what does he plan to do now? As the sole bread winner, he still has a wife and child to support. I confess that my imagination is limited, but it is difficult for me to envision a professional path that makes more financial sense than finishing his doctorate. Leaving school might make sense if you have family money to draw on, or if you have funding to launch your own internet start-up, but clearly neither of those are available to the author.
Your thoughts? If you know people who leave a degree program after several years in where do they land?
Quote from: simpleSimon on August 24, 2022, 06:24:16 AM
https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-im-planning-to-leave-my-ph-d-program
From the article:
Quote
Each semester had been growing in financial difficulty, but I never wanted to admit that I might not make it to the end. While there's relief in not having to test the nearly nonexistent job market, what I mostly felt in the moment was failure.
When did this person realize that the job market was "nearly nonexistent"? Was that before or after
going into debt to be in the program? Why not just buy lottery tickets instead? One could spend the same amount of money but not have to waste the time and could find some modest employment while waiting for the draw.
I cannot speak for the student, and in fact, since I have an adblocker installed, I cannot actually read the article.
That said, I can come up with answers to your questions.
What has changed? Well, perhaps living on $17000 rather than just thinking about living on $17000 has changed the student's opinion. Maybe something has changed in his life (e.g., having children) or his partner's life (e.g., losing a job). Maybe his fellow students from university or his friends have got well-paying jobs, so the difference between him and his peers has grown. Maybe the student has become less enchanted with the degree itself, making the benefits of sticking it out less obvious. (It is one thing to grin and bear $17000 a year for the sake of a career one loves, but to do it for a career one is ambivalent about is much harder.)
Where now? Without knowing what the degree is in (and whether the student gets a terminal master), I cannot say for sure. However, it in many fields it is not "difficult for me to envision a professional path that makes more financial sense than finishing his doctorate". I am in history. I went though several years in grad school barely earning anything. Then I went through about a decade after grad school ranging from barely earning anything (as an adjunct) to making mediocre wages in an insecure job (as a visiting professor). It is only almost twenty years later after earning my doctorate--and some 25 years after entering grad school--that I have a decent salary and job security.
If I had dropped out of the grad program in history after four years, I could have gotten an office job, or learnt a trade, or various other things--the same thing most of my non-grad-student peers from university did.
While I am happy in my current situation, it would be wrong not to recognize two things: 1) I would not have got where I am now without a lot of hard work, but also quite a bit of luck; 2) it would have been more financially sound to have never gone to graduate school or to have gone into another profession.
I say good luck to the student.
I'm with jerseyjay here. It's a sunk cost fallacy if you don't see an employment outcome that is better with the degree than your options without it. Extra years on the degree without a benefit means fewer years earning full time cash and more years accruing interest on debt. One of the wisest things my mother told me when I started my PhD was that, if it wasn't working out, I should quit. I shouldn't waste years on it if I had other opportunities. She gave up opportunities in journalism (back in the 70s, when journalism was a viable career path) to pursue her degree in English literature, and in the end never finished the degree anyway. She always regretted that, and didn't want me to make the same mistake.
In the end I did finish the degree, get the academic job, etc., but it was helpful to know that my family would always have my back if I decided not to finish. Sort of 'permission to quit' always in my back pocket if I needed it.
I agree that the author should have realized some time ago that supporting three people, including a child who needs daycare, is absurd on $17,000 per year. But $17k in 2018 is the equivalent of about $20k in 2022, so the author's pay has effectively been cut over the course of his program. (Do any PhD programs give cost-of-living increases? I've never heard of it if any do.) Add the birth of a child, which may or may not have been planned, and the financial picture has changed significantly over four years -- but perhaps just gradually enough to create a boiling frog scenario.
In my own case, I attended graduate school full-time, always with a stipend, while my spouse worked outside the home. That meant our average per-person salary was adequate to support ourselves and our dependents. Otherwise I simply wouldn't have gone to graduate school.
Whatever the merits or demerits of the small stipend, it seems from the article that the person in question really wanted one hell of a lot: Married to a non-working spouse, has child who requires daycare and all at a very young age. He seems to have many wishes, only one of which is earning a PhD. He is wise to quit.
Going to school is like being married: If you're going to drop out or get a divorce, do it early!
[One thing I found puzzling was the university's requirement that one not work outside while dissertating. It wasn't all that long ago that it was normal to finish one's course work and then got a job and dissertated while on the job. More recently, one could do that, even if one wasn't forced to do that.]
Quote from: dismalist on August 24, 2022, 08:42:20 AM[One thing I found puzzling was the university's requirement that one not work outside while dissertating. It wasn't all that long ago that it was normal to finish one's course work and then got a job and dissertated while on the job. More recently, one could do that, even if one wasn't forced to do that.]
At the risk of a slight derail, I'll note that my university has a classification that allows ABDs to do whatever we like while finishing the dissertation, but at the cost of losing our full-time status, university-sponsored health insurance, funding eligibility, etc. Library access and email are about the only things we keep, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, it costs only a couple hundred bucks per semester. I'm currently using it to finish my dissertation while employed full-time at another institution. So it is still possible, at least at some places.
The author appears to be very blindered. While it is nice to have students who fully focus on their dissertation research, but if the focus is so extreme as to preclude awareness of the surrounding world the student will be in big trouble. The department might be trying to ease this student out of the program if the latter is the case, and the student isn't quite getting the drift.
CHE, and especially IHE, seem to like publishing opinion pieces from grad students and recent grad students who get stuck in this wilful ignorance. Do the pieces serve as warnings of patterns to avoid, or do they build solidarity among the like-minded?
@filologos: Yes, we increase our graduate stipends annually to adjust for COL, as do our competitors. As a consequence, typical stipends are twice what this student is getting. That is the norm in my part of academe.
Quote from: Hibush on August 24, 2022, 08:49:21 AM
The author appears to be very blindered. While it is nice to have students who fully focus on their dissertation research, but if the focus is so extreme as to preclude awareness of the surrounding world the student will be in big trouble. The department might be trying to ease this student out of the program if the latter is the case, and the student isn't quite getting the drift.
CHE, and especially IHE, seem to like publishing opinion pieces from grad students and recent grad students who get stuck in this wilful ignorance. Do the pieces serve as warnings of patterns to avoid, or do they build solidarity among the like-minded?
@filologos: Yes, we increase our graduate stipends annually to adjust for COL, as do our competitors. As a consequence, typical stipends are twice what this student is getting. That is the norm in my part of academe.
At any rate, the student had a dream that he wanted to pursue so badly that it led him to make some very poor choices. Walking into a program knowing that he would be trying to start a family while making $17,000 a year? His family deserves better. And in this time of low unemployment, he ought to be able to do better, with his level of education and presumed research and writing skills. Sorry about the lost dream and sunk opportunity cost, but you've got to do what's right for your family. I didn't even have a family to support when I finally had to admit that PhDs aren't for the likes of us who have no family wealth to fall back on. You can have a good life without the degree.
He's right to point out the scandalous disjuncture between what his institution charges in tuition for providing an education, and what those actually delivering the education are paid.
I've posted it before and will post it again:it is hellishly difficult to talk young wannabe academics out of rolling the dice. The stars are just too bright at that point.
My guess it would have been more rational to have not begun the PhD program to begin with. The poor student has sunk time and money into an expensive and questionable endeavor with only the experience and (maybe) a terminal master's to show for it.
But while it might have been better to have not begun the program, that doesn't mean it is still not wise to stop now.
Quote from: jerseyjay on August 24, 2022, 02:42:08 PM
My guess it would have been more rational to have not begun the PhD program to begin with. The poor student has sunk time and money into an expensive and questionable endeavor with only the experience and (maybe) a terminal master's to show for it.
But while it might have been better to have not begun the program, that doesn't mean it is still not wise to stop now.
Maybe... but after four years in the oven one has to wonder why he doesn't just suck it up and finish. How much longer was he planning to be enrolled? Certainly not another four years. He should be finished in one more year. Quitting that close to the finish line is a big mistake in my view—especially in the absence of some extremely attractive alternative.
Quote from: simpleSimon on August 24, 2022, 03:32:04 PM
Quote from: jerseyjay on August 24, 2022, 02:42:08 PM
My guess it would have been more rational to have not begun the PhD program to begin with. The poor student has sunk time and money into an expensive and questionable endeavor with only the experience and (maybe) a terminal master's to show for it.
But while it might have been better to have not begun the program, that doesn't mean it is still not wise to stop now.
Maybe... but after four years in the oven one has to wonder why he doesn't just suck it up and finish. How much longer was he planning to be enrolled? Certainly not another four years. He should be finished in one more year. Quitting that close to the finish line is a big mistake in my view—especially in the absence of some extremely attractive alternative.
The author is in English. Five years would be blazing fast in my humanities field (not English). He could be looking at 2 to 4 more years, depending on how much his program and advisor value reasonable completion timelines.
And how much he's already completed, which may not be much, or much of much value. It's a fine time to quit, provided you aren't actually close to done.
But trying to suppoet three, one of them a newborn (which is hella expensive) on a single stipend is insane. Trying to add in daycare on top of that just isn't going to work. If you want to swing it, you have to be the daycare.
Yes, if he was four years into an English PhD, he had at least two--and probably three or four more years to go. And the prize at the end could be working as an adjunct, which makes being a grad student look good (because as a grad student you might get health insurance and subsidized housing).
Probably it did not make a lot of sense to start getting a PhD in English to begin with. But I would still probably advise him to quit, if he wanted to. And I am not sure an aborted PhD in English is any less employable, generally thinking, than a completed PhD in English. The only real jobs that would require a PhD are tenure-track professorships, and how many of those are there these days?
For what it is worth, many of the more ambitious people in my PhD cohort dropped out and did something else. And most of them did quite well for themselves.
It could be doable with SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. Head Start is available once the kid is older. Taking out loans to pay for daycare is insane for if his spouse isn't working. I understand respite care.
I don't know what familial responsibilities that bar full-time employment mean.
Quote from: jerseyjay on August 24, 2022, 05:57:36 PM
For what it is worth, many of the more ambitious people in my PhD cohort dropped out and did something else. And most of them did quite well for themselves.
One year at our graduation the invited speaker was a former PhD student who left the program and got some great career in Hollywood (yes, yes, that's another dice roll). The gist of the speech was, 'Welp, a PhD wasn't for me, but I had a great time while I was here, made some good friends, put the education I got to good use, and I have no regrets. Remember to explore all career paths!'
At the time---and possibly still---I thought that the speaker was invited more because Hollywood!shiny, than academia!prestige (since no PhD). But in retrospect, I also think it's a really good idea to remind people that there are other career paths, even if I'm not at all sure how much that reasoning featured in the decision to issue that particular invitation.
A bit late in the day if you don't hear the speech until you're sitting in the auditorium in your gown and tam, to be sure.
Quote from: Mobius on August 24, 2022, 09:11:22 PM
It could be doable with SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. Head Start is available once the kid is older..
The question is, what is "it"? At the end of all this sacrifice and hard work the student would get, what? A chance to adjunct at the local community college?
I don't think anybody should have to go onto welfare (or into never-ending debt) to pursue education. But to do so for a degree that is likely not all that valuable is even worse.
(I have nothing against an English PhD per se. If somebody where to tell me they were going to do this for a history PhD, I would strongly advise them against it.)
Quote from: Mobius on August 24, 2022, 09:11:22 PM
It could be doable with SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. Head Start is available once the kid is older. Taking out loans to pay for daycare is insane for if his spouse isn't working. I understand respite care.
I don't know what familial responsibilities that bar full-time employment mean.
They can mean many things. Whatever it is, it reduces the family's options. That may not be fair, but it is their reality. It's better to bow to reality late than never. If he's lost only four years to grad school, he should still be quite young enough to retrain for a new career. He could even pursue a professional Master's of some sort, which should be quite doable for somebody who has already proven the ability to do Master's-level work. Though I'd advise working in the field for a time to see whether the aptitude and interest are really there, and get a foot in the door, before committing to another grad program.
I don't wish to seem callous. I've been in this situation of having to give up on the PhD dream myself. It's an awfully hard row to hoe, even without the additional consideration of being responsible for a family. The good news is that there can be life beyond such a failure. It's best to start pursuing the new possibilities sooner rather than later.
I have a PhD in English and this writer's stipend is equal to or often less than I was I was earning in the 1990s in a similar program.
I left my uni for a full-time job (two, actually) and then completed my diss later. That's not a fun route, but a lot of us have taken it. Of course the program doesn't want students to do this, as it benefits from their poorly-paid labor when they stay on campus, but individual faculty may be more supportive.
Given the current job market, finishing the dissertation later would likely be a passion project, not an employability one.
Quote from: apl68 on August 25, 2022, 08:07:29 AM
I don't wish to seem callous. I've been in this situation of having to give up on the PhD dream myself. It's an awfully hard row to hoe, even without the additional consideration of being responsible for a family. The good news is that there can be life beyond such a failure. It's best to start pursuing the new possibilities sooner rather than later.
I think one problem is that we confound getting a PhD with the dream of being a professor. Obviously, you (usually) need the former for the latter, but most people who do have English (or history) PhDs will not become full-time professors.
I think it is harder to learn this lesson after you get your PhD than before. I got my PhD in history, after quite a bit of personal and financial sacrifice. It took more than a decade to get a tenure track job--and that by luck. I was over 40. I guess my story has a happy ending--except that there are so few history jobs, I am essentially stuck where I am forever. I like where I am, but compared to my friends who chose other professions, I cannot say that, in retrospect, deciding to do a PhD in history was the best choice. If I had not got my current job, I would have definitely thought it was a bad choice.
I am happy that I earned my doctorate. I had fun researching it, and I like history. I like teaching and being a professor. I like seeing my book on my shelf. But I tell my students that they should not pursue graduate education in history.
As I said, I think it is better to learn this before starting a PhD. But better to learn it 4 years in rather than 10 years in.
Quote from: apl68 on August 25, 2022, 08:07:29 AM
Quote from: Mobius on August 24, 2022, 09:11:22 PM
It could be doable with SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid. Head Start is available once the kid is older. Taking out loans to pay for daycare is insane for if his spouse isn't working. I understand respite care.
I don't know what familial responsibilities that bar full-time employment mean.
They can mean many things. Whatever it is, it reduces the family's options. That may not be fair, but it is their reality. It's better to bow to reality late than never. If he's lost only four years to grad school, he should still be quite young enough to retrain for a new career. He could even pursue a professional Master's of some sort, which should be quite doable for somebody who has already proven the ability to do Master's-level work. Though I'd advise working in the field for a time to see whether the aptitude and interest are really there, and get a foot in the door, before committing to another grad program.
I don't wish to seem callous. I've been in this situation of having to give up on the PhD dream myself. It's an awfully hard row to hoe, even without the additional consideration of being responsible for a family. The good news is that there can be life beyond such a failure. It's best to start pursuing the new possibilities sooner rather than later.
We know stipends are bad, but was the stipend the issue or their family circumstances? We got by during my doctorate. We were broke, but qualified for SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid, so that helped a lot. If one partner can't work at all, it is going to limit your options even if they were working FT.
It sounds like this student was both willfully ignorant and a little misled. The students notes that they have no health care - that is not the norm at many grad programs and is something they should have looked into before starting. The stipend is low, but until students unionized, the graduate stipend at the University of Indiana was a low as $19 K.
If you have a young child, the partner really needs to earn $55K or more in order to make day care financially viable. I've known several PhD candidates whose partners didn't work precisely because it was actually more affordable to stay home. It sounds like medical bills were also an issue and I think that's where this person chose poorly. I can't believe anyone would start a multi-year graduate program that did not offer health care.
At the same time, I think graduate programs should have frank discussions with applicants about what purchasing power the stipend has and how current graduate students make ends meet. They should have to publish the average amount of debt students take out to attend, the average completion rate and length and career outcomes and loan default rates. Students should receive financial counseling on how much debt is sustainable and the kind of repayments they will have to make.
I wish this person well and hope they find a fulfilling career.
Quote from: wellfleet on August 25, 2022, 08:53:14 AM
I have a PhD in English and this writer's stipend is equal to or often less than I was I was earning in the 1990s in a similar program.
I left my uni for a full-time job (two, actually) and then completed my diss later. That's not a fun route, but a lot of us have taken it. Of course the program doesn't want students to do this, as it benefits from their poorly-paid labor when they stay on campus, but individual faculty may be more supportive.
Given the current job market, finishing the dissertation later would likely be a passion project, not an employability one.
As a trailing spouse, I finished remotely too. In some ways I found it much easier to do the work as an adjunct with a spouse working as the bread-winner.
Of course, we do not have children, which really changes the equation, and I had a phenomenally wonderful chair who worked with me remotely.
I would say that since a PhD in English is not very valuable in the non-academic job market the student should not get the degree if the student is close to finishing because the student might be tempted to enter horrible academic job market and waste precious time or end up as a struggling adjunct.
Quote from: artalot on August 25, 2022, 10:48:39 AM
At the same time, I think graduate programs should have frank discussions with applicants about what purchasing power the stipend has and how current graduate students make ends meet. They should have to publish the average amount of debt students take out to attend, the average completion rate and length and career outcomes and loan default rates. Students should receive financial counseling on how much debt is sustainable and the kind of repayments they will have to make.
Yes, they should, and make universities at least partially liable for student loan defaults.
As a child of a perpetual graduate student, I am grateful for the various governmental support programs that helped keep food on the table in my youth. However, I do think that there are unreasonable expectations by some of the current generation of graduate students. Graduate students are still *students* and should not expect to be living a comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle based on their stipend alone. Indeed, graduate student stipends reflect the fact that the contracts are for half-time work (20 hrs/week). If you include the fact that compensation includes tuition remission, graduate students earn significantly more for those 20 hrs/week than entry-level workers in most fields (and most definitely more than adjunct professors in their fields). Having said that, I do understand that low stipends and long time-to-degree programs can have a significant negative impact on students' life and livelihoods. Increasing salary and reducing time-to-degree is a winning combination that all programs should strive to achieve.
Half-time work? Really?
FWIW, our stipends didn't include tuition remission. It made that 21.5k/year even more meagre. (That's common in Canada, but not in te US.) I'm surprised about the half-time claim, though. Do you mean in terms of TAing?
Quote from: Parasaurolophus on August 25, 2022, 10:55:25 PM
Half-time work? Really?
FWIW, our stipends didn't include tuition remission. It made that 21.5k/year even more meagre. (That's common in Canada, but not in the US.) I'm surprised about the half-time claim, though. Do you mean in terms of TAing?
The half-time work is for the TA/RA duties. In my field it is common for the RA research to be similar (i.e., identical) to the research students are doing for their dissertations, but they are only on contract for 20 hours per week. If they are working on research not related to their dissertation (and if they are a TA), they are only expected to work 20 hours per week on that activity. The remainder of their time is spent on their dissertation research (or classes), which they are completing in the auspices of being a student. Indeed, at my current institution, students must sign up for credit hours associated with their dissertation research, so the split between paid work and student work is a bit more explicit than elsewhere.
Also, the tuition remission is much more of an issue in the USA. As an example, I had an external fellowship for my first year of graduate school. The check that corporation wrote to the University was much much bigger than the check they wrote to me!
The tuition remission for grad student assistants is mostly administrative slight of hand. Even with that, the schools a getting a fantastic deal for cheap, exploitable labor. I've never felt obligated to give my graduate alma mater a red cent when their alumni begging letters come by. They got their money's worth and more out of me and my fellow teaching fellows.
It is not slight-of-hand to my grant!
When I got my doctorate more than a decade ago, the stipend was $11,000 in a state known for its low cost of living. Fellowships got me up to $17,000. I was lucky to get a part-time job with excellent health insurance. Other students in my program weren't as lucky. They took on debt loads that destroyed their health, their marriages, and the well-being of their spouses and children.
People in my discipline have been talking about the unethical system of graduate education for a long time. Despite that, faculty members across the country eagerly recruit people to be drawn into an endless cycle of exploitation. My department is one of many second-tier graduate programs that churn out poorly trained students who "love" the humanities but have few real skills. I don't want to exploit people, so I take on a tiny number of graduate students. The repercussions for tenure are obvious for those of us who make that decision.
Pannapacker's essays on graduate school ("Just Don't Go") need to be in circulation again. Dreams of a tenure-track job don't put food on the table.
Quote from: Brego on August 26, 2022, 08:57:44 AM
I don't want to exploit people, so I take on a tiny number of graduate students. The repercussions for tenure are obvious for those of us who make that decision.
I applaud your ethical decision. Re the tenure situation (and promotion thereafter), have you considered explicitly framing your decisions to be intentional / selective about the graduate students you take on in the light of being ethical, transparent, non-exploitive, etc.? I am sure you are in a position to write powerfully and positively about this, and the T&P committees will take that on board.
Quote from: poiuy on August 26, 2022, 10:01:11 AM
Quote from: Brego on August 26, 2022, 08:57:44 AM
I don't want to exploit people, so I take on a tiny number of graduate students. The repercussions for tenure are obvious for those of us who make that decision.
I applaud your ethical decision. Re the tenure situation (and promotion thereafter), have you considered explicitly framing your decisions to be intentional / selective about the graduate students you take on in the light of being ethical, transparent, non-exploitive, etc.? I am sure you are in a position to write powerfully and positively about this, and the T&P committees will take that on board.
I would not recommend addressing this in a tenure document (where an up or out vote is expected) since it is a political landmine. In essence, this statement implies that those who do take on students (i.e., the majority of the senior faculty voting on the tenure case) are behaving unethically, opaquely, or exploitively. Even worse, it can be taken as a negative evaluation of the quality of students at that institution.
Regarding the later, we all know colleagues who think along the following lines: "We all know our students are above average! Who are you to say that they are not! If you don't respect our students, you should not be a professor here. Tenure denied!" It is not worth the risk.
Quote from: Brego on August 26, 2022, 08:57:44 AM
When I got my doctorate more than a decade ago, the stipend was $11,000 in a state known for its low cost of living. Fellowships got me up to $17,000. I was lucky to get a part-time job with excellent health insurance. Other students in my program weren't as lucky. They took on debt loads that destroyed their health, their marriages, and the well-being of their spouses and children.
People in my discipline have been talking about the unethical system of graduate education for a long time. Despite that, faculty members across the country eagerly recruit people to be drawn into an endless cycle of exploitation. My department is one of many second-tier graduate programs that churn out poorly trained students who "love" the humanities but have few real skills. I don't want to exploit people, so I take on a tiny number of graduate students. The repercussions for tenure are obvious for those of us who make that decision.
Pannapacker's essays on graduate school ("Just Don't Go") need to be in circulation again. Dreams of a tenure-track job don't put food on the table.
Sigh, we've been here before. For some reason, whenever these discussions come up, there's a lot of rhetoric and not a lot of nuance, and that essay is a good example of it.
1. Can we stop talking about"lotteries?" It's a bad metaphor. In a lottery, your chance of winning the grand prize in a lottery is infintessimally small. The most recent good data on history phds showed that about 40 percent of those who received their degree between 2011 and 2013 had tenure track jobs. That's not great, but it doesn't really fit with the idea of a lottery.
2. The whole discussion is infected with the idea that failing to get a tenure track job is a life ruining calamity. Ironically, that comes out of grad school and academic cultures. Even though many of the people writing quit lit are railing against these cultures they can't seem to break out of them. A lot of the people I went to grad school with do have tenure track jobs. Of the rest of them, a few are working for think tanks or non profits, some are in private sector jobs, a couple teach high school, one or two work in higher ed outside of the field. A few others are full time stay at home parents. Only a few of us are adjuncts like me and nobody is living under a bridge.
I'm not really sure why anyone thinks hyperbole is going to convince anyone to reconsider grad school. When students ask me about grad school, I'm not particularly encouraging. I want them to know the realities-which should give anyone considering grad school considerable pause. We can do that without resorting to misleading rhetoric.
From the AHA's 2022 jobs report:
"For those who graduated from a PhD program in 2017, 27 percent (231 of 860) were employed in TT positions four years later in 2021. This contrasts starkly with the data from earlier cohorts. Of those who earned their PhDs in 2013, for example, 54 percent (511 of 944) were employed in TT jobs after four years." For people graduating from a program not in the top 30, the success rate is 7%.
I'm not a historian (or a statistician), but 7% seems pretty bleak, at least in my opinion.
Quote from: Brego on August 31, 2022, 01:09:54 PM
From the AHA's 2022 jobs report:
"For those who graduated from a PhD program in 2017, 27 percent (231 of 860) were employed in TT positions four years later in 2021. This contrasts starkly with the data from earlier cohorts. Of those who earned their PhDs in 2013, for example, 54 percent (511 of 944) were employed in TT jobs after four years." For people graduating from a program not in the top 30, the success rate is 7%.
I'm not a historian (or a statistician), but 7% seems pretty bleak, at least in my opinion.
It's not quite the same definition of the numerator and denominator -- not people, but rather dollars -- but looks to me like Las Vegas is a not at all a bad deal by comparison to the higher ed lottery. [In what follows, "winning percentage" means the house's gross profit margin, i.e not counting the house's costs.]
The winning percentages Las Vegas Valley casinos enjoy on slots vary from about 1.3 percent to 12.5 percent depending on the denomination played. In general the house enjoys its lowest winning percentages on slots from 25 cents and higher with the exception of Megabucks, from which the casinos get their highest winning percentages.
Compared to the Las Vegas Strip, the casinos in North Las Vegas have winning percentages that are 2 to 4 percent less on most slots from 25 cents on up. In theory that means that gamblers can make their money last longer in those North Las Vegas casinos.From here https://lasvegassun.com/news/1999/jul/11/playing-the-percentages/ (https://lasvegassun.com/news/1999/jul/11/playing-the-percentages/) Also talks about different sorts of gambling venues attracting different types of players. Just substitute the word "student" for "player", or "PhD" for "player", and we get the picture. And to complete the picture, the longer you stay, the more you spend on ancillaries!
Of course, as far as I know, going gambling in Vegas is not financed by the government, and certainly gambling losses are not.
i think a lot of people are not even applying for the tenure track jobs they can probably get. My school, increasingly, has to close searches after not having enough applicants, or the person we do hire leaves after a year or two. This isn't just in CS. We have English and Comp people leaving as well.
Quote from: Brego on August 31, 2022, 01:09:54 PM
From the AHA's 2022 jobs report:
"For those who graduated from a PhD program in 2017, 27 percent (231 of 860) were employed in TT positions four years later in 2021. This contrasts starkly with the data from earlier cohorts. Of those who earned their PhDs in 2013, for example, 54 percent (511 of 944) were employed in TT jobs after four years." For people graduating from a program not in the top 30, the success rate is 7%.
I'm not a historian (or a statistician), but 7% seems pretty bleak, at least in my opinion.
Of college baseball players who get drafted by a pro team, how many make it to the majors within four years? Seven percent probably starts looking good.
Quote from: Brego on August 31, 2022, 01:09:54 PM
From the AHA's 2022 jobs report:
"For those who graduated from a PhD program in 2017, 27 percent (231 of 860) were employed in TT positions four years later in 2021. This contrasts starkly with the data from earlier cohorts. Of those who earned their PhDs in 2013, for example, 54 percent (511 of 944) were employed in TT jobs after four years." For people graduating from a program not in the top 30, the success rate is 7%.
I'm not a historian (or a statistician), but 7% seems pretty bleak, at least in my opinion.
And this data is a reflection of survivorship bias -- it doesn't account for the students who enrolled but never completed the degree. Supposedly (because programs don't want to track it) the attrition rate is often around 50%.
If more people apply for job x, more people won't get it. That would of course increase the number of unsuccessful applicants, and reduce the percentage of new grads who got a job. Like it or not, after a wee bit of time on the job market, one should be able to realistically ascertain which jobs one might have a potential chance of obtaining. FT TT academic job applications are also not what they were when oodles of Baby Boomers got easy employment 50 years ago-- they are time-consuming and often expensive, and run the risk of overtaxing one's references as well... why do this for jobs you are just not likely to obtain? As to job searches that 'have to be cancelled for lack of applicants' (my paraphrase), exactly why would this happen, unless there literally were no applicants who met the listed job ad criteria?
Quote from: Hibush on August 31, 2022, 05:29:50 PM
Quote from: Brego on August 31, 2022, 01:09:54 PM
From the AHA's 2022 jobs report:
"For those who graduated from a PhD program in 2017, 27 percent (231 of 860) were employed in TT positions four years later in 2021. This contrasts starkly with the data from earlier cohorts. Of those who earned their PhDs in 2013, for example, 54 percent (511 of 944) were employed in TT jobs after four years." For people graduating from a program not in the top 30, the success rate is 7%.
I'm not a historian (or a statistician), but 7% seems pretty bleak, at least in my opinion.
Of college baseball players who get drafted by a pro team, how many make it to the majors within four years? Seven percent probably starts looking good.
When getting into professional sports is the comparison for getting a TT job, you've already jumped the shark.
Quote from: Brego on August 31, 2022, 01:09:54 PM
From the AHA's 2022 jobs report:
"For those who graduated from a PhD program in 2017, 27 percent (231 of 860) were employed in TT positions four years later in 2021. This contrasts starkly with the data from earlier cohorts. Of those who earned their PhDs in 2013, for example, 54 percent (511 of 944) were employed in TT jobs after four years." For people graduating from a program not in the top 30, the success rate is 7%.
I'm not a historian (or a statistician), but 7% seems pretty bleak, at least in my opinion.
None of it is great, although that number is first of all for programs out of the top 30-which is quite low-I would advise students to only apply in the top ten or so. It also is for people who completed their degree in the last two years. Increasingly in the humanities, visitor positions and postdocs have become common for recent graduates. I know a lot of people who had visitor jobs out of grad school and secured tenure track positions after a couple of years.
The more concerning number is the drop in people who are getting tenure track jobs four years later. It's hard to tell how much of this is temporary disruption caused by the pandemic-and how much is permanent. You could just have people whose job searches got delayed by the pandemic and that cohort will catch up in the next couple of years. I can also imagine you may have more people who dropped out of academia. If you were in a visiting position in 2020, the jobs you were applying for mostly cancelled their searches, your contract didn't get renewed and when the job market resumed next year, the situation in higher ed was fraught and uncertain, I can imagine many people might just decide to go do something else.
Or the shifts might be more permanent, we'll just have to wait and see. The numbers are actually pretty bad, but they still get exaggerated. More broadly, I just don't like the idea of professors telling students what to do and not do with their lives. Anybody going to grad school in the humanities, needs to understand that they can't expect to ever get a tenure track job and prepare for that. There are things they can do maximize their chances and minimize the harms if things don't work out-don't go to a school outside of the top tier of programs, don't accept an offer without full funding, make sure your stipend is reasonable, select a subfield with better job prospects-but they can do all of that and still not get a tenure track job.
Somebody who is prepared for all of that going in is going to probably be ok even if they never do get a tenure track job.
Quote from: Caracal on September 01, 2022, 06:54:38 AM
Anybody going to grad school in the humanities, needs to understand that they can't expect to ever get a tenure track job and prepare for that. There are things they can do maximize their chances and minimize the harms if things don't work out-don't go to a school outside of the top tier of programs, don't accept an offer without full funding, make sure your stipend is reasonable, select a subfield with better job prospects-but they can do all of that and still not get a tenure track job.
Somebody who is prepared for all of that going in is going to probably be ok even if they never do get a tenure track job.
All good advice. Some of these stories give the impression that some students are still either not getting it, or not listening to it if they do.
For the job searches delayed or cancelled due to lack of applicants, well, its just what I have said, and what you said. There aren't enough applicants to proceed. That is to say, in a very small pool (less than 5 sometimes), often there isn't anyone good enough to interview, and when there is, they sometimes take the job, then leave. I am not claiming that this is anything but probably a bad sign for my school, just saying that there are probably quite a few people out there who could apply but don't. Maybe some have good reasons not to, and I'd rather they not if they don't want to be here. But then some of the same people might be saying "there aren't any jobs for me." I don't have any proof that this is happening. I just throw it out there as a hypothesis.
And I would certainly also add that Caracal's and apl86's advice applies to most students in the natural and social sciences as well.
Quote from: Ruralguy on September 01, 2022, 07:25:31 AM
For the job searches delayed or cancelled due to lack of applicants, well, its just what I have said, and what you said. There aren't enough applicants to proceed. That is to say, in a very small pool (less than 5 sometimes), often there isn't anyone good enough to interview, and when there is, they sometimes take the job, then leave. I am not claiming that this is anything but probably a bad sign for my school, just saying that there are probably quite a few people out there who could apply but don't. Maybe some have good reasons not to, and I'd rather they not if they don't want to be here. But then some of the same people might be saying "there aren't any jobs for me." I don't have any proof that this is happening. I just throw it out there as a hypothesis.
I've read enough quit lit and have read statements that there aren't enough jobs in places they want to live, which is usually a large university town or on the coast. Unfortunately, there are also fewer TT lines, but we know that application pools for many rural places are small.
Quote from: Mobius on September 01, 2022, 01:04:15 PM
Quote from: Ruralguy on September 01, 2022, 07:25:31 AM
For the job searches delayed or cancelled due to lack of applicants, well, its just what I have said, and what you said. There aren't enough applicants to proceed. That is to say, in a very small pool (less than 5 sometimes), often there isn't anyone good enough to interview, and when there is, they sometimes take the job, then leave. I am not claiming that this is anything but probably a bad sign for my school, just saying that there are probably quite a few people out there who could apply but don't. Maybe some have good reasons not to, and I'd rather they not if they don't want to be here. But then some of the same people might be saying "there aren't any jobs for me." I don't have any proof that this is happening. I just throw it out there as a hypothesis.
I've read enough quit lit and have read statements that there aren't enough jobs in places they want to live, which is usually a large university town or on the coast. Unfortunately, there are also fewer TT lines, but we know that application pools for many rural places are small.
Salary is likely to play a significant role. The ADP salary survey (https://payinsights.adp.com/) came out yesterday. People who stayed in the same job over the last year saw an average pay increase of 7%. Those who changed jobs saw an increase of 16%. If a college's salary increased are not keeping up with the rest of the job market, they are not going to be able to hire.
There's surely selection bias in those who obtained 16% raises, whereas for those with a 7% increase [tad less than inflation [8%+], there's a real wage cut.
Jumping jobs is not the answer for everyone.
Quote from: dismalist on September 01, 2022, 02:16:37 PM
There's surely selection bias in those who obtained 16% raises, whereas for those with a 7% increase [tad less than inflation [8%+], there's a real wage cut.
Jumping jobs is not the answer for everyone.
There is definitely selection there. But there are apparently a fair number of schools that have has 0% raises this year, and the same of continuing faculty for a number of years. Those are in trouble. Will the faculty at those schools grumble, thinking that is the inevitable norm or will they jump?
Though salary probably paid a role, we did get a 5% increase this year, though that was the first raise in several years. We've slipped in AAUP percentile, but those numbers are averages, not medians, and also don't take local COL into account. In any case, we're not low for academia, but definitely low compared to other jobs using the same experience, at least in some cases. But its probably location, some aspects of college mission, and teaching load that matter more to people than precise salary, so long as it isn't low for academia. Although I suppose there are some who don't realize there are higher paying jobs out there until after they've applied for tenure track jobs,
Quote from: Hibush on September 01, 2022, 06:13:38 PM
Quote from: dismalist on September 01, 2022, 02:16:37 PM
There's surely selection bias in those who obtained 16% raises, whereas for those with a 7% increase [tad less than inflation [8%+], there's a real wage cut.
Jumping jobs is not the answer for everyone.
There is definitely selection there. But there are apparently a fair number of schools that have has 0% raises this year, and the same of continuing faculty for a number of years. Those are in trouble. Will the faculty at those schools grumble, thinking that is the inevitable norm or will they jump?
That's a serious question. There are situations in which the 0% wage increase can save an institution. People in those situations have to figure out whether they're better off staying or leaving. Alas, I think that's where selection comes in. They can't all leave and get a 16% raise.
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
Usually job ads say something like "the successful candidate will show excellence in teaching and research and demonstrate collegiality." I assume that usually translates to "maybe, the person we hire at regional SLAC in biology doesn't need to be doing pathbreaking research, but they shouldn't be a fraud whose work is embarrassing," "we need someone who has more charisma in the classroom than a dead fish," and "if the first thing everybody says when we shut off the zoom chat is 'what a colossal a-hole, we aren't bringing you to campus."
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
You've never seen the "failed search?" We lost a line because the department could not find someone they liked better than what they got.
I've also seen it where all 5 finals rejected the campus.
There's a couple of threads on this somewhere.
5%? 16%?? The largest raise I've ever gotten, in more than 30 years of the tenure track, was 2.5%. And only in recent years, with the advent of the union, have raises come along every second year. When I was awarded tenure, I asked how much my raise would be. It was $350, which actually was a fairly high percentage of my tiny salary. State flagship here, incidentally.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 02, 2022, 05:46:32 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
You've never seen the "failed search?" We lost a line because the department could not find someone they liked better than what they got.
I've also seen it where all 5 finals rejected the campus.
Any idea if this was due to something unforseeable, (like a lower than expected salary offer), or just poor research beforehand by candidates ("Oh, this place is two hours from any airport!!!")?
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2022, 07:21:53 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 02, 2022, 05:46:32 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
You've never seen the "failed search?" We lost a line because the department could not find someone they liked better than what they got.
I've also seen it where all 5 finals rejected the campus.
Any idea if this was due to something unforseeable, (like a lower than expected salary offer), or just poor research beforehand by candidates ("Oh, this place is two hours from any airport!!!")?
The situations where I've seen this is in fields that are in high-demand. I think the computer science and nursing departments have had this happen, because the university is competing against non-academic employers and other universities that are more attractive in various ways.
Other than changing the nature of the school or the job (doubling the pay, halving the teaching load), there is not much the school can do.
However, it could also be a function of the committee not making their shortlist on the right criteria. That is, they might pick the people who are on paper the most qualified--more publications, more prestigious degrees, better experience--only to find out that these people were also picked by more attractive places.
In my field (history) this is very rare--there are usually many more applicants than jobs, so even our school can hire Ivy League graduates. Location comes into play here also: we are in a large metropolitan area, so historians, English professors, etc., sometimes want to work here not for us but where we are located. For higher-demand fields, this has the opposite effect.
Where I have seen it in history is in subfields that are in demand and have high entry barriers. For example, I have seen searches for Asian or Middle Eastern history fail because they require significant language knowledge and if they are a "hot" subfield, such specialists are harder to find. In most U.S. and European subfields, it is much easier to repurpose oneself: I've plausibly applied as an specialist in teaching U.S. and the World, the history of capitalism in the U.S., labor history, political history, social history, etc., as the latest fads cycle through, and I am sure other PhDs have done the same. If a search for a U.S. historian fails, then something else is going on other than not having a large enough pool of applicants.
To answer the question that Kaysixteen posed: what would be the justification for not hiring somebody, anybody, just because the committee did not find the person they really wanted. Assuming that (a) there is somebody--an adjunct, another full-timer, etc.--who can teach the courses now; and (b) the expectation that the line is not going away, I could see a department keeping the status quo instead of hiring somebody whom (a) they cannot imagine working with for the next 20 years or (b) they don't think is going to be able to get tenure. Because a search fails, in the bigger sense, if you end up with a colleague you don't like, who leaves after two years, or fails to get tenure.
Quote from: jerseyjay on September 02, 2022, 08:22:06 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2022, 07:21:53 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 02, 2022, 05:46:32 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
You've never seen the "failed search?" We lost a line because the department could not find someone they liked better than what they got.
I've also seen it where all 5 finals rejected the campus.
Any idea if this was due to something unforseeable, (like a lower than expected salary offer), or just poor research beforehand by candidates ("Oh, this place is two hours from any airport!!!")?
The situations where I've seen this is in fields that are in high-demand. I think the computer science and nursing departments have had this happen, because the university is competing against non-academic employers and other universities that are more attractive in various ways.
Other than changing the nature of the school or the job (doubling the pay, halving the teaching load), there is not much the school can do.
This still leaves me with my question: Is it the
committee who doesn't give a reasonable idea of expectations in their advertising so they attract people who would never apply if they knew the situation, or is it the
candidates who don't seriously look at the information out there and just apply automatically?
Given how much time and resources get put into searches, these wasted ones are probably more costly than most institutions can afford.
We are what used to be referred to as a "safety school": students will apply to (say), one or two "dream schools," the flagship state university, and us. They apply to us because they don't particularly want to go to our school, they would prefer that than not getting in anywhere. And if they end up going to our school, many plan on transferring out as soon as possible.
I think it is similar for some applicants. They apply for our jobs because they would prefer to work for us than not have any job at all. Sometimes it is easy for a committee to determine who these people are. But not always. And I would imagine (because as I said, we don't have this problem in history) it is hard to not short-list the "best" candidates even though they may not end up taking the job. There also may be an element of self-delusion on the part of the committee about the attractiveness of our school.
The first situation (students applying) creates problems for us, because it makes if very difficult to determine how large the entering class is going to be (because we admit many more students than who attend), which makes it hard to plan how many sections to offer. The second situation makes it hard to hire. But both of these seem to come with the territory of being the type of school we are.
A dept. of seasoned faculty is much more likely to have one or two people who are *looking* for overloads to help them out financially (due to lack of raises) rather than hiring someone who just won't work.
I have to say its the *candidates* who are either not doing enough research on us, or just making unreasonable demands (for a small institution). A number of first choicers for TT positions here have asked for a TT position for a spouse or partner. This is nearly impossible for us to swing, though I can think of several couples who came here, and then one of the members of the couple who didn't originally have a job finally also got a TT job here several years down the line. But, most of the time they reject the job offer when we don't hand over a guaranteed TT spot to spouse/partner. They might not even be running the job by their spouse until they get an interview.
I've been on search committees at small regional universities where you get people who might have a doctorate but don't have any teaching experience (worked for a non-profit) or taught high school for 20 years. We're just reluctant to hire those folks because most can't adapt to being a professor, even if research expectations are minuscule. Also have to wonder why someone wants to work for us after teaching high school for that long. Their HS teaching salary as a Ph.D. after all those "steps" is usually a lot more than what we can offer.
Quote from: Mobius on September 02, 2022, 12:33:39 PM
I've been on search committees at small regional universities where you get people who might have a doctorate but don't have any teaching experience (worked for a non-profit) or taught high school for 20 years. We're just reluctant to hire those folks because most can't adapt to being a professor, even if research expectations are minuscule. Also have to wonder why someone wants to work for us after teaching high school for that long. Their HS teaching salary as a Ph.D. after all those "steps" is usually a lot more than what we can offer.
Well, my mother became burned out teaching HS and applied (at my suggestion, actually) to the SLAC where I was then a student. She did not earn her PhD and so could not be a professor, but she became a mainstay of the foreign language department for the next 25 years. She not only taught but accomplished a high proportion of the department's service responsibilities. Depending on the institution, a HS teacher can work out quite well as a college instructor.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2022, 07:21:53 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 02, 2022, 05:46:32 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
You've never seen the "failed search?" We lost a line because the department could not find someone they liked better than what they got.
I've also seen it where all 5 finals rejected the campus.
Any idea if this was due to something unforseeable, (like a lower than expected salary offer), or just poor research beforehand by candidates ("Oh, this place is two hours from any airport!!!")?
I posted about this elsewhere. No one ever spoke to the candidates about why they did not accept an offer that I know of, but I suspect it was because the SC picked top-tier candidates for our fourth-tier school out in the cow-infested health. It might also be that the school was a toxic hive of lunacy, resentment and defensiveness----and that may have come across. It certainly did when my wife had her interview there.
And yeah, our salaries were terrible out there. I am sure the money was part of the problem.
Quote from: apl68 on September 02, 2022, 03:30:25 PM
Quote from: Mobius on September 02, 2022, 12:33:39 PM
I've been on search committees at small regional universities where you get people who might have a doctorate but don't have any teaching experience (worked for a non-profit) or taught high school for 20 years. We're just reluctant to hire those folks because most can't adapt to being a professor, even if research expectations are minuscule. Also have to wonder why someone wants to work for us after teaching high school for that long. Their HS teaching salary as a Ph.D. after all those "steps" is usually a lot more than what we can offer.
Well, my mother became burned out teaching HS and applied (at my suggestion, actually) to the SLAC where I was then a student. She did not earn her PhD and so could not be a professor, but she became a mainstay of the foreign language department for the next 25 years. She not only taught but accomplished a high proportion of the department's service responsibilities. Depending on the institution, a HS teacher can work out quite well as a college instructor.
We've got one of those.
Hu's great and very nice. We think hu may be downsized in November. Bummer.
I'd wager a majority of HS teachers can teach most lower division undergrad classes better than me. And that's like 2/3 of all teaching assignments.
Quote from: fizzycist on September 02, 2022, 06:40:39 PM
I'd wager a majority of HS teachers can teach most lower division undergrad classes better than me. And that's like 2/3 of all teaching assignments.
Weeeeelllll...my experience with H.S. teachers (and Ed.Ds) is pretty hit-or-miss.
As I writing center coordinator, I worked with some H.S. teachers----was not impressed.
I was in a theater group with a junior high English teacher-----and I was astounded, even for that level, with what hu did not know about English.
I've worked with a number of ed majors----some, I am sure, were going to be great in the classroom; some had flunked down from other majors and were looking for summers off.
This is not to say that all TT Ph.Ds are fabulous or even widely knowledgeable----but they did have to go through qualifying exams and a lot of course work and then write a diss.
And then I remember my own H.S. days, lo those many years ago----I shared some space with some real dudes as well as a few who changed my life in the right sort of way.
Our department's former H.S. teacher is teaching in the ed department, which makes sense and this why hu is so good, I believe.
Quote from: jerseyjay on September 02, 2022, 08:22:06 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 02, 2022, 07:21:53 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 02, 2022, 05:46:32 AM
Quote from: kaysixteen on September 01, 2022, 08:57:08 PM
Ok, say there are only 5 applicants for the job, and all of them meet the minimum ad-listed qualifications for the job. If the job really is 'open', that presumes that the school actually needs someone to fill it, teach the classes etc that the job entails. What would therefore then be the justification for refusing to hire any of the five, just because, well, the dept had been hoping for someone they'd like better?
You've never seen the "failed search?" We lost a line because the department could not find someone they liked better than what they got.
I've also seen it where all 5 finals rejected the campus.
Any idea if this was due to something unforseeable, (like a lower than expected salary offer), or just poor research beforehand by candidates ("Oh, this place is two hours from any airport!!!")?
The situations where I've seen this is in fields that are in high-demand. I think the computer science and nursing departments have had this happen, because the university is competing against non-academic employers and other universities that are more attractive in various ways.
Other than changing the nature of the school or the job (doubling the pay, halving the teaching load), there is not much the school can do.
However, it could also be a function of the committee not making their shortlist on the right criteria. That is, they might pick the people who are on paper the most qualified--more publications, more prestigious degrees, better experience--only to find out that these people were also picked by more attractive places.
In my field (history) this is very rare--there are usually many more applicants than jobs, so even our school can hire Ivy League graduates. Location comes into play here also: we are in a large metropolitan area, so historians, English professors, etc., sometimes want to work here not for us but where we are located. For higher-demand fields, this has the opposite effect.
Where I have seen it in history is in subfields that are in demand and have high entry barriers. For example, I have seen searches for Asian or Middle Eastern history fail because they require significant language knowledge and if they are a "hot" subfield, such specialists are harder to find.
Which gets to that point about not all subfields in disciplines being the same. There's not a single humanities job market, or even a single history job market. Some fields really don't have a job crisis and people who get phds have a pretty reasonable expectation that they can get tenure track jobs. Those are often also fields where people who get phds are likely to have skills that would put them in demand outside of academia. Someone whose Mandarin (and English) is good enough to write a dissertation on early 20th century China is likely to be quite employable.
Quote from: Mobius on September 02, 2022, 12:33:39 PM
I've been on search committees at small regional universities where you get people who might have a doctorate but don't have any teaching experience (worked for a non-profit) or taught high school for 20 years. We're just reluctant to hire those folks because most can't adapt to being a professor, even if research expectations are minuscule. Also have to wonder why someone wants to work for us after teaching high school for that long. Their HS teaching salary as a Ph.D. after all those "steps" is usually a lot more than what we can offer.
Two words- "crowd control". One of the best things about working in higher education is
not having to take attendance or anything else of that nature. Students how up (or not), hand in assignments (or not), write exams (or not), and then live with the consequences. Not the instructor's problem.
Quote from: Caracal on September 03, 2022, 05:28:16 AM
Which gets to that point about not all subfields in disciplines being the same. There's not a single humanities job market, or even a single history job market. Some fields really don't have a job crisis and people who get phds have a pretty reasonable expectation that they can get tenure track jobs. Those are often also fields where people who get phds are likely to have skills that would put them in demand outside of academia. Someone whose Mandarin (and English) is good enough to write a dissertation on early 20th century China is likely to be quite employable.
That's true about basically any advanced degree. If the only real market for advanced degrees is being an instructor
for those advanced degrees, then the market is always going to be way oversupplied, unless each instructor only produces
one graduate in their entire career, i.e. replacing themselves.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 06:41:10 AM
Quote from: Mobius on September 02, 2022, 12:33:39 PM
I've been on search committees at small regional universities where you get people who might have a doctorate but don't have any teaching experience (worked for a non-profit) or taught high school for 20 years. We're just reluctant to hire those folks because most can't adapt to being a professor, even if research expectations are minuscule. Also have to wonder why someone wants to work for us after teaching high school for that long. Their HS teaching salary as a Ph.D. after all those "steps" is usually a lot more than what we can offer.
Two words- "crowd control". One of the best things about working in higher education is not having to take attendance or anything else of that nature. Students how up (or not), hand in assignments (or not), write exams (or not), and then live with the consequences. Not the instructor's problem.
The ones I've noticed have tended to be jobhoppers at the secondary level. They might still get the step needed for salary increases, but I am going to question whether someone in their fourth HS teaching job would stick around.
Some thoughts about recent posts.
Caracal is correct about history subfields. As a PhD in US history, I am not sure I have any obvious skills for outside academia. Yes, I can write, I can assess arguments and evidence, I can talk to people, etc., etc.; but really, that is something that one would expect (though not always get) in any good liberal arts university graduate.
If I add on the fact that I am fluent in Spanish, have traveled throughout Latin America and Europe, and am familiar with Hispanic culture, I have some qualifications for jobs that require Spanish knowledge. But again, there are quite a few people with those jobs.
If I could say I read and speak Portuguese, French, and Italian, I would probably have the employment skills of a PhD in European history. There are things I could do, but there are also many people who have good European language skills. (Especially in a large metropolitan area.)
Somebody who speaks English, German, Bulgarian and Turkish, with some Arabic, Persian, and Russian--as an Ottomanist I know does--is in much better shape.
Somebody who can speak English, German, and Chinese, with some studies of Korean and Japanese--as an Asian historian I know does--is probably more likely to be able to get a non-academic job.
Also, within history it easier to move within subfields if know the language. I trained as a U.S. historian, but because I speak Spanish, have repositioned myself as a Latin Americanist as well. (I have published several articles on Latin American history, but I am not sure I would be able to teach at an R1, but I am good enough for our regional comprehensive.) The chances of my re-inventing myself as a Japanese or Chinese historian, even enough to teach at a school like mine.
In regards to high school teachers teaching university: I suppose this is somewhat field specific. We have hired several high school teachers as adjuncts. Several adjuncts of ours have become high school teachers. And I could see somebody with high school teaching experience being a good university teacher. At my school, a large number of history majors end up being teachers, so this experience might be a plus. All that said, the person would have to be able to meet the research requirements; would need to indicate that they understand the differences between high school and university teaching; and the person would have to explain why they are making such a career change. I think that this is a case where a good cover letter is essential.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 06:45:31 AM
That's true about basically any advanced degree. If the only real market for advanced degrees is being an instructor for those advanced degrees, then the market is always going to be way oversupplied, unless each instructor only produces one graduate in their entire career, i.e. replacing themselves.
Well, there are a ton of people teaching in college programs that don't offer graduate degrees. For instance, think of all the four-year colleges in the U.S. All of those instructors have to be trained by somebody.
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 06:45:31 AM
Quote from: Caracal on September 03, 2022, 05:28:16 AM
Which gets to that point about not all subfields in disciplines being the same. There's not a single humanities job market, or even a single history job market. Some fields really don't have a job crisis and people who get phds have a pretty reasonable expectation that they can get tenure track jobs. Those are often also fields where people who get phds are likely to have skills that would put them in demand outside of academia. Someone whose Mandarin (and English) is good enough to write a dissertation on early 20th century China is likely to be quite employable.
That's true about basically any advanced degree. If the only real market for advanced degrees is being an instructor for those advanced degrees, then the market is always going to be way oversupplied, unless each instructor only produces one graduate in their entire career, i.e. replacing themselves.
That would be true only if everybody who was an instructor was teaching PHD students. That isn't how it works. For example, in history there are 145 programs that grant PHDs and 1255 schools that give BAs. That's before you count 2 year schools, and places that don't give degrees in history but hire historians. On the other side, you have tenure track faculty at schools that give doctorates who don't supervise doctoral students because the school doesn't admit phd students in their area.
There is an oversupply obviously, but it's more complicated than that description.
Even you generously said there are 10K tenure track jobs in up to 20 fields (each having 10 K) , most pf those are locked out for years unless you get peopke leaving before retirement or grow. In some of thexe fields it would be a miracle to have 100 open jobs over all subfields in the field. Many of the niggest fields in the top 20 are producing many more docs than that. Granted, there are post docs and such, and of course adjunctification is probably the main reason why my numbers are probably far too generuous for even some big fields. but this thought experiment, even if you dont go full Pollymer and get all of the real data, shows how some fields might be very mildly balanced and others can be out of whack.
Quote from: Caracal on September 04, 2022, 04:35:47 AM
Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2022, 06:45:31 AM
Quote from: Caracal on September 03, 2022, 05:28:16 AM
Which gets to that point about not all subfields in disciplines being the same. There's not a single humanities job market, or even a single history job market. Some fields really don't have a job crisis and people who get phds have a pretty reasonable expectation that they can get tenure track jobs. Those are often also fields where people who get phds are likely to have skills that would put them in demand outside of academia. Someone whose Mandarin (and English) is good enough to write a dissertation on early 20th century China is likely to be quite employable.
That's true about basically any advanced degree. If the only real market for advanced degrees is being an instructor for those advanced degrees, then the market is always going to be way oversupplied, unless each instructor only produces one graduate in their entire career, i.e. replacing themselves.
That would be true only if everybody who was an instructor was teaching PHD students. That isn't how it works. For example, in history there are 145 programs that grant PHDs and 1255 schools that give BAs. That's before you count 2 year schools, and places that don't give degrees in history but hire historians. On the other side, you have tenure track faculty at schools that give doctorates who don't supervise doctoral students because the school doesn't admit phd students in their area.
There is an oversupply obviously, but it's more complicated than that description.
Sure, but that very same math means that the vast majority of PhD recipients will
never have a chance to supervise grad students. (And if some of those institutions that don't have grad programs don't have big (or any) research expectations, then it means that a lot of PhD recipients who are "successful" in getting faculty positions will have a
much more restricted role than the faculty that they have been observing. Many won't be happy with that.
Well that is absolutely true, but that's what the opportunities are if one wants to stay in academia. There really isn't much you can do about that.
Who Can Live on a Ph.D. Stipend?
By Eric Weiskott
Last summer I began an endless project: gathering comprehensive, up-to-date information about English Ph.D. stipends around the United States. I wanted to quantify the widespread perception that doctoral candidates are not earning stipends commensurate with their contributions to research, teaching, and service at their universities. To that end, I scrolled through program websites, emailed directors of graduate studies and graduate-school administrators, and polled current Ph.D. candidates. As the numbers rolled in, I compiled a spreadsheet to compute averages, medians, and ratios...
https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-can-live-on-a-ph-d-stipend
Quote from: simpleSimon on September 07, 2022, 06:17:26 AM
Who Can Live on a Ph.D. Stipend?
By Eric Weiskott
Last summer I began an endless project: gathering comprehensive, up-to-date information about English Ph.D. stipends around the United States. I wanted to quantify the widespread perception that doctoral candidates are not earning stipends commensurate with their contributions to research, teaching, and service at their universities. To that end, I scrolled through program websites, emailed directors of graduate studies and graduate-school administrators, and polled current Ph.D. candidates. As the numbers rolled in, I compiled a spreadsheet to compute averages, medians, and ratios...
https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-can-live-on-a-ph-d-stipend
That article references a similar effort in biology by a acouple of grad students. https://www-nature-com/articles/d41586-022-01392-w
The biology one definitely affects graduate recruiting in my field. My school is on the higher end, but we do pay biology grad students more than English grad students as this article describes.
My threshold right now is about $30,000 as the minimum a doctoral student should accept. Schools offering less than that are simply not competitive, and need to change their approach or lose their grad program. The latter will happen because informed and prepared students will shun those programs and the program quality will decline to the point that it is unsustainable. It will not require any policy imposed from outside.
I think North Carolina and Auburn looked really bad in the comparison, and they have made changes, at least in my field. Florida appears to be shifting as well (home to one of the authors of the bio comparison). UF aspires to be a top research school, and they can't claim that with the stipends they had.
We'll see how things go in English. Publishing the data makes a real difference in institutional policy and grad student decision.