The obvious solution, while keeping the total amount of money spent constant (whether one wants to change that is another question) is to have fewer temporary positions and more permanent ones, giving people a permanent job at a lower age. When one goes to work in business or industry, the standard thing is a permanent job right away, perhaps after a trial period of 6 months. And these people have much less of an idea about what awaits them than someone in academia does. Any talk about temporary positions being necessary for one to prove one’s worth is bullshit. The only reason they exist is because funding agencies don’t want to make long-term commitments. Think of the people you know. Is there even one example of a person whom you thought was worthy of a permanent job in grad school, but later turned out a disappointment, or vice versa (not that the latter case would even have a chance of being observed—huge selection bias here)?

interesting, I have never thought of academia in the way you have presented it — that failure/not succeeding is a part of it. I wonder if academia could adopt, somehow, the business model of a Facebook — they’re making money off of selling NOTHING. Perhaps, with the advent of the internet, with the ability to make a living off of catering to the long tail instead of the thick part of the bell curve…perhaps school should be encouraging and helping those academics to build up a web presence, instead of being held down to one physical location (University, College, Country, whatever). That might mitigate some of the petty politics and the stupid tribalisms that can infect science? Hmm.

Being able to conduct research is useful. So is having a strong mathematical background, and the ability to think analytically. All phd graduates shouldn’t be expected to strive to become permanent faculty. They should strive to become strong researchers with the background and self-initiative to see problems through. The number of students isn’t a problem. However, viewing the career advancement of all those students as a collective process of attrition is a problem.

George

I have one of those financial mathematics degrees Math is just as bad … was talking about above, and it doesn’t surprise me to here that finance is a lot harder to get in to for folks with Ph.Ds in other fields.

I also have had the experience of working a Christmas season at Border’s about 12 years ago. Out of about 30-40 employees there, at least 6 had Ph.Ds in English. They were making minimum wage (or just above it) and stocking shelves. Brutal.

I would say, “there’s always Border’s”, but there really isn’t that anymore either.

The job market in math is less than ideal, especially in mathematical physics, but is on the whole very different than in physics. This year we had quite a few finishing Ph.Ds, and I believe they all found jobs, many of them quite good ones. As always, moving on to a tenure-track job is harder.

Entry-level jobs in math are somewhat different than entry-level jobs in physics, since they almost always involve some amount of teaching. On the other hand, they do pay better, with typical pay scale at top institutions this fall around 65K/year for fresh Ph.Ds. I’ve never heard of anyone trying to hire a math Ph.D. for 20K/year at a research university, this seems to be the kind of thing that occurs in physics due to the grotesque oversupply of Ph.Ds. there. There may be cases where institutions are hiring adjuncts to teach at that kind of pay, but that’s another story…

Each professor has on average ten students during his or her career.

Since physics is in a steady-state situation, the number of professorships does not increase.

Hence 90% of the physics students will not become professors.

This was obvious to pretty much everyone when I was a student in the 1980s. But it depends on the school, of course. If you’re from Harvard or Stanford your odds are better.

I’ll support academia once it’s publishing all it’s papers free to everyone, and provides equal opportunities to everyone for advancement. At the moment, it seems to be more about corrupt/selfish research “opportunities”, making money off students, and protectionism. In its current form, academia doesn’t deserve to survive.

http://cosmoaims.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/radical-research-iii-a-freelance-market-for-post-docs/

Brainetics is an educational program, was recently released. This is just a very controversial product, which sense, it does brainetics work items and your children are very advanced methods in memory.

With Brainetics It allows you to achieve it, but there are so many benefits. It, we can use our minds better, faster, and now we just need to spend 20 minutes a day to master these skills. Brainetics math tricks through the use of mathematics. This indicates that the figure is not just boring old numbers.

I’d also like to point out that I (along with 90% of the postdocs that I know) make $35-40K per year (I personally make $33K). Trust me, you can’t support even a tiny family on that wage. To add insult to injury, I was finally offered a postdoc for $20K/year next year! I have turned it down. Those NSF salaries that you are referencing only apply to the few who are lucky enough to get one.

I am leaving academia. For those who think that finance is a backup plan, I can also tell you (after a dozen interviews at multiple places) that the finance alternative is basically a thing of the past. They’re not hiring anymore. I currently know more unemployed quants than working ones. Furthermore, there are now so many specialized programs in mathematical finance that the approach “I have a PhD in physics/math, I’m smart, hire me” doesn’t work now.

In case you are thinking “maybe this guy isn’t good enough” I’ll say, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I am good – really good (since this is anonymous I can just be straightforward about it and say the truth). As somebody said earlier: there comes a time in life when you are done proving yourself. Science needs to make a commitment, because some of their best young people (yes, me included) are leaving.

I’ve never known a grad student in the sciences whose only alternative would have been McDonalds.

Again, all’s fair, as long as everyone knows what they’re getting themselves into. My impression is there’s little incentive for institutions to portray the nature of the beast accurately.

I’m afraid that in the end all we can really do is give people the best possible information: as complete and and as nuanced as we can muster — after that it really is up to them.

I’m the step-father of one of those 17 year-olds you mention (actually 18 now). He’s off at a top school doing a math/computer science undergrad major. And, although he’s extremely smart, he really is inexperienced, introverted and somewhat idealistic (don’t know if this last thing is all that bad — someone should keep idealism alive, and, for the most part, it won’t be people my age).

Anyway, here’s the thing: for a very long time we’ve had very little effective control over, or even substantial influence on, his decisions. We talk, sometimes he listens, sometimes he’s right not to listen. Sometimes he talks with and listens to his peers, his teachers and his close friends. I hope he investigates everything and processes all the information he comes into contact with.

Perhaps institutional changes can be engineered by reducing the number of school slots or by increasing the number of job positions, and that would be important facts and circumstances he could consider.

But here’s one thing that I know for sure: if he decides he wants to go on and do graduate work and then a post doc, it will be his decision, no one else’s. He’d have it no other way.

Once obtaining a pHD the only real chance a scientist has of ever following up on their own scientific ideas is to become a faculty member, because working for another professor usually means researching someone else’s ideas. Many scientists have great ideas, but are not suited to running large research groups. Science and progress would be favored by providing greater opportunity to do truly some truely independent research by experienced scientists that have passed through the Post-doc process, but do not have the desire to run a large research group or become full faculty members.
Increasingly grants are given to larger and larger projects, and the few grants given to independent single researchers, are generaly only avalible in the first few years after their pHD.

No, we shouldn’t. We’re talking about introverted, somewhat idealistic 22 year olds with no knowledge of the real world who spent the last 17 years of their life studying. For them, stayng in a rut and going on studying is an extremely attractive option, even if there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, even if they are informed of it.

Look, I fully agree that there’s a problem: academia is ultimately a Ponzi scheme. I just don’t think that telling more people they can’t get PhDs is the solution. Instead we need to be clear with people from the outset about their chances of staying in the field of their PhD, their options afterwards, and the opportunity costs of following your passion for a little while. After that, shouldn’t we let people be adults and make their own life choices?