Dave_Berry

"The life of an academic who pays hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition and lives off stipends and scholarhips is becoming more financially treacherous. A skyrocketing number of Americans with Ph.D.s say they are facing a reality in which they are turning to food stamps to survive.

One in six Americans received food stamps or other public assistance last year, but the number of people with a Ph.D. or Masters degree who receive that aid has tripled in the past two years, according to government data.

In a story published by The Chronicle of Higher Education this week Ph.D. holders and students who are teaching on the non-tenure track in community colleges and universities bemoaned their prospects." ...

Growing Number of Americans with Ph.D.s Are Receiving Food Stamps and Other Aid - ABC News

csh123

It's a shame what our country has come to. The once renown PhD degree does not have the same reputation it used to. Until we start making sure our PhDs are employed, the education system is going to keep getting worse.

tomofboston

Here's an idea: produce fewer Ph.D.'s, expecially in fields where employment opportunities are minimal or non-existent.

broken_symlink

Someone pursuing a phd in film studies thinks he has learned a practical skill?

Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing what the break down is in terms of fields. How many of those phds studied something like engineering as opposed to film studies.

tetrahedr0n

So if we actually read the article, we have the following numbers:

These numbers are utterly negligible. I'm not surprised they're using the "tripling" language, rather than the actual increase, since 20 thousand people is absolutely nothing.

Just for fun, the number of PhDs in the US is somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 million (based on the 2000/2010 census). So we're looking at an increase from 0.65% or so to 2.24%, at most.

Why? The purpose of the PhD isn't to get someone a job or stable employment. There are other paths for such goals.

tetrahedr0n

I don't get this either - what does our education system have to do with PhDs? Why would employing the very small number of unemployed PhDs change anything with the educational system as a whole.

XaviFM

^^That statement reeks of irony, don't try to understand it lol ^^

NovaLynnx

You should NOT be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a PhD (or masters, for that matter, or a bachelors!). They are likely including online PhD programs from Walden and other universities that don't offer partial/full funding. If I had a large amount of undergrad debt, I wouldn't pursue a graduate degree right away until I paid it down some (as I'm doing now), unless my grad program was very likely to land me a solid job quickly.

I also wonder if the completely unemployed PhDs are due at least partly to poor self-marketing, or a lack of desire/ability to move wherever a job is available (such as those who already have families and go back to school - their ability to job hunt is limited by where they are able to move, if they can move at all). There are so many factors to consider that are not mentioned in this article. Especially if you really did invest hundreds of thousands of dollars!

The guy mentioned in the article is also a poor example. He is 51 years old with a wife and kids to support - of course it will be much harder to survive on a stipend than someone who's in their 20's with no spouse or kids. People have to consider this, and whether they're willing to take such sacrifices when they pursue higher education.

Roger_Dooley

This article is a good example of how you can always find a statistic to support the desired headline. Based on the 360K getting aid from a total population of 2.2 million advanced degree holders, here's an alternate headline and intro:

I think if we take any population we'll find a few percent that fail to live up to expectations or fulfill their potential. Maybe more than a few percent. 1.6% seems quite low, perhaps because completing an advanced degree is a filter, even if imperfect, for the ability to complete what one starts and stay somewhat focused for a period of years.

We think of CompSci majors as highly employable, but I've encountered inflexibility and poor career planning there, too. Some years ago I tried to convince a guy who was a COBOL programmer to start diversifying his skillset into something more current. (COBOL was obsolete even then, but some companies still needed to maintain old code.) Like an art history major who can only think of himself as an art history professor, he wanted to keep doing COBOL because that's what he was trained for and good at. A year later, he was unemployed and, even worse, almost unemployable.

The successful people I know always have backup plans if their initial plan runs into problems.

hudsonvalley51

And if you want to read what the PhD's themselves are saying about this article:

Don't send students to grad school--PhDs on welfare

tetrahedr0n

The Chronicle forums are a great place for information, but people reading those boards should be aware that the vast majority of posters are in the humanities, where employment prospects have been dismal for decades.

The typically very negative tone of the discussions there reflect that.

mythmom

When I started my PhD in 1977 I did so with much trepidation. And yes, snarky posters above, it is in the Humanities, English literature to be exact. I knew that it was very difficult to get a job. I'd had jobs already -- social worker, banquet hall manager, but for various reasons I got laid off, no, not fired.

So I drifted back to my first love and strongest skill. I had graduated with honors, the only one in my department to do so, so I knew I had some aptitude for the subject.

When I finished my course work I did have some difficulty finishing the thesis, but I eventually did. (One best in country, but that's a different story.) I was one of those poor at marketing myself or negotiating the publishing world. Still, I have been employed for 27 years at the same institution and tenures for 22. I know I contribute to the lives of my students in ways the cynics above could never imagine.

Just last week I saw a light bulb go off in the mind of a student who suddenly realized that his writing really IS too wordy, that a strong verb does not need an adverb. Together we cleaned up so many of his over qualified sentences (he was working on a political science paper) that suddenly his points were clear and his thinking became even clearer.

I saw an entire room of students who came into class not knowing what an image or a symbol were discourse with confidence about the imagery in the JOY LUCK CLUB and how it elucidates the theme of the book. Thinking with greater subtly will benefit them in many areas of life. I do this for 150 students every semester.

It's a modest contribution for life's work, but it is meaningful. I could not be doing this if I hadn't taken the risk of getting a PhD.

Both my children are entering funded PhD programs, one in Art History and one in History. They each have alternate careers planned should they not find academic jobs. One tried law school first, but she missed the purer study of academia. Law schools can't guarantee their graduates jobs either.

Not every mind is suitable to STEM, and Humanities PhD's ensure the continuous transmission of cultural knowledge.

I am afraid for my children, but I totally support them.

texaspg

"Based on the 360K getting aid from a total population of 2.2 million advanced degree holders"

Just want to point out it is 360k out of 22 million and not 2.2.

"Of the 22 million Americans with master's degrees or higher in 2010, about 360,000 were receiving some kind of public assistance, according to the latest Current Population Survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau in March 2011. "

The issue is not always what you get your degree in but whether you are willing to make a living doing whatever it takes and not be attached so much to a degree. Most people change careers several times during their lifetime and many have a career that they never even majored in or even remotely related to their degree.

I wonder why someone needs to pursue a Ph.D. in film studies (?) at age 51 while having so much hardship raising kids, being poor, and working at a college. It is a choice this person made and so he is living with the consequences. In the end, it is not the level of the education or major but the choices one makes along the way that can keep one poor.

juillet

That's what the academy will tell you, but quite frankly it's bull. Nobody goes to get a PhD because they think it'll just be fun, without any intention of working with it. I'd wager 99% of people who get a PhD get one because they love research and scholarship and want a career in it. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. Make no mistake - just like any other degree, a PhD is a credential to do work. The academy just tells us that it's not so that they can continue to hire cheap labor.

At the same time, though, I can't really understand someone who gets a PhD in film studies, especially with that many barriers. The job market is already horrible in that field for the most single, mobile person - it's going to be worse for someone who is going to face age discrimination and may be geographically tied down by a family.

I agree with tetrahedr0n, though, in that most posters on CHE are in the humanities. I frequent those boards and there are fewer STEM and professional PhDs. There's one accounting professor who notes that accouting is practically begging people to be professors, and the shortage of nursing professors is so great they are accepting people with MSNs.

Sure, but you started your PhD in 1977, and presumably finished sometime in the early to mid 1980s. The job market is vastly more competitive now, and there are far fewer tenure-track jobs - most jobs out there now are temporary positions and adjunct/part-time ones. Let's not pretend that the job market in history is not abysmal right now. Life as a tenure-track professor can be very rewarding...if you can get the job. I think the estimate now is that only 1 in 5 English PhDs will come out of this with a TT job.

I would also not say that a PhD/academic study is "purer" than law school. First of all, there's research in law too, and second of all, anyone who thinks academia is about the pure life of the mind should probably reevaluate their decision to get a PhD in the first place, because they will likely be unhappy.

bluebayou

The problem is that we produce too many PhD's in the aggregate. (Too many JD's, too.) The only way to make sure that they are employed is to make less of them. Close PhD programs. Close law schools. And that is the sole responsibility of the "education system".

Alternatively, eliminate tenure so the current crop retires sooner, enabling new jobs to open up. (But that too, is the responsibility of the education system.)