Has the college academic job market always been highly competitive and elitist?

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1

Has the college academic job market always been highly competitive and elitist?

It appears that the college academic job market is divided into tiers:

  1. The elite tier: a. The actual elite -- tenured faculty. Decently to well paid, with good benefits. Holds most of the power among faculty with respect to academic matters. High degree of job security -- the last to lose their jobs in a college or department downsizing. Make up about a fifth of college instructors. b. The probationary elite -- tenure track but pre-tenure faculty. Have passed the highly competitive hiring gateway into the tenure track, but must still pass another gateway to get tenure -- with an "up or out" result. Makes up about a tenth of college instructors, but many (most?) will not get tenure.
  2. The middle class: faculty without tenure, but on continuing employment or long term contracts, like many employees outside of academic jobs.
  3. The lower class: most adjunct faculty who are on short term contracts, or paid piece work style (by the course). Low pay and no benefits. No power.
  4. The aspirant apprentices: PhD students doing TA and RA work. While among the best and brightest in their fields, far more will graduate than will be able to find academic jobs, most of which will in the lower class. Tuition waiver and stipends pay around subsistence level.
  5. The visitors: some adjunct faculty are primarily working in, or retired from, non-academic (e.g. industry or government other than public schools) jobs. They may be hired as adjunct faculty to teach specialized electives where a non-academic perspective is useful. Motivated for reasons other than pay or benefits.

https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20Snapshot%20Tenure.pdf describes a shift toward more hiring in groups 2 and 3 versus group 1. But hasn’t it almost always been the case that, on a yearly basis, the total number of college faculty job openings (of any type) is far fewer than the number of PhD graduates, so that most in group 4 are unlikely to get any faculty job after graduation?

2

I got my PhD in STEM 25 years ago. The job market then was just as you describe. When I saw the writing on the wall, I made the switch to K-12 teaching.

One aspect you didn’t mention was that where you get your degree determines how high on the ladder you are likely to go at any given institution. A HYPMS grad will go further than a state school grad on average.

3

Yes. In fact, when academic jobs were decided by advisers picking up the phone and asking their buddies to hire their grad students, it was far worse.

Not only is academia prestige-ridden, but it still is racist. misogynistic, and intolerant. The entire tenure model is based on the assumption that a TT faculty member is a married man, whose wife stays at home, taking care of the kids and the household. That is why no allowances are made for family time or family leave. faculty like hiring people “like them”, and since the majority of faculty have been male and White, that is who they tend to hire. Women and minorities get a lot of interviews, but few offers. they also have a much more difficult time getting tenure.

Also, FT non-TT faculty are NOT “middle class”, they are the “working poor”. Middle class are the faculty at colleges which do not pay much. Many tenured faculty at comprehensive four year colleges or poorer LACs are making salaries in the mid $50,000-$60,000 range .

That is not true. Once you have been hired, your tenure is dependent on your grants, your publications, and how well you get along with your colleagues. In Engineering, a PhD from Berkeley, GTech, or Michigan >>> a PhD from Harvard, Yale, or even Princeton.

It may be true in a roundabout way in some fields. The awards one receives are generally related to the resources one has, and to the prestige of their department. Especially in humanities, the Ivies generally hire their own, AND the wealth and power of places like Harvard ensure that their people have very strong presence among the judges who determine who wins the awards (and who therefore have a strong bias to awarding faculty from their favorite universities). A tenured faculty member in Harvard’s English department almost certainly did their undergrad at Harvard (or a college which Harvard people consider “equivalent”), AND have much more resources for research support, AND, for a given level of research, are much more likely to win an award than faculty at a “lesser” university. So, in the end, in many fields, a graduate of some of the “elite” colleges is more likely to end up getting more prestigious awards, and higher professional positions.

HOWEVER, this is not the case in many many other fields. In Engineering, Ivies are weakly represented at the top, compared to places like Berkeley, GTech, UIUC, etc. It is true that MIT is well represented, but they are too few in number to dominate the top echelons of the field. The same is true in anything related to natural resources, performing arts, fine arts, and many other fields.

PS. I assume that by “going far” you mean in awards, positions in professional organizations, etc. I assume that you don’t see “advancing” along administrative positions as “going far”, since very very few of the academics with the top achievements in the field will actually ever want to be department head, dean, provost, chancellor, or president. In fact, very few academics see this as “climbing the academic ladder”. For most academics, dealing with administration is a chore at best, but more often it is seen as torment.

4

Many PhD graduates are simply not good enough for a tenure track position. So an oversupply is necessary to allow selection to take place.

5

Stipends for doctoral students do NOT pay subsistence wages.

6

In many disciplines (like mine), academia is often not the desired career track. Of those who completed their PhDs around me (30 years ago), about one-third sought an academic position. The rest chose a non-academic path. I never had the slightest bit of interest in academia.

7

Yes.

And it’s still incredibly racist, sexist, ableist, and xenophobic.

One of the many many MANY reasons I have no interest in a TT position after finishing my phd.

8

The college job market wasn’t always as competitive. The number of doctoral recipients has grown dramatically over the past 30 years, while the number of tenure track positions has remained stagnant. The college job market was less competitive 30-40 years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/upshot/academic-job-crisis-phd.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=The%20Upshot

9

TAs/RAs can make far above subsistence level when you consider the tuition waiver alone ($60k/ year at some places) can be more than the median income.

10

When my husband got his PhD at Berkeley in the mid 80s, his TAship did NOT include a tuition waver. He paid tuition, fees and books. He was NOT eligible for lower-cost university housing (that was for married students only.) However, his TAship was enough to cover tuition, the (very high for what it was) Berkeley rent on a modest studio, health insurance through the UC system, and enough money to keep his 1972 Superbeetle insured and running.

11

I will add, my daughter is now completing her STEM PhD. (She’s not interested in, and not pursuing a TT position.) Her funding includes tuition and access to the university health insurance. She doesn’t have a car, she takes the bus and in the summer rides a Vespa scooter.

She does NOT teach, she works full time at a research lab and fits her own research around the work. She’s expected to oversee experiments that require her to be on campus in the evenings, on weekend and holidays. She generally works 6-7 days a week, although usually her 6th and 7th day is not a full day, and she has some flexibility. This is not an arrangement that allows for an additional job.

Her stipend would not pay for rent on a studio in a good part of the city, she’d have to share or live in a sketchy part of town. She lives rent free, in my basement. But she’s got it all to herself, as opposed to the other people in her (top ranked) program who, if without a SO who pays some of the rent, have to share apartments with roommates unless they want to incur debts.

12

My son survived on his stipend by having roommates, doing several internships, and adding an extra TA position.

13

Twenty years ago my H sought out tenure-track positions at less-elite state schools and LACs precisely because he wanted a balanced life, financial stability (though not high earnings) and a career focused on teaching undergrads without pressure to produce research results or published work. He has solid academic chops himself, and had he stopped with his elite engineering BS degree and worked in industry he would be making a LOT more money. But that is not what he wanted and I think he has no regrets (except that I’m not 100 percent pleased with where we moved for his chosen career). But it’s a low- COL area, and the time off, job security and less-stressful lifestyle can’t be matched by an industry career or a more prestigious academic environment.

It’s not for everyone but it suits his conscientious-but-chill personality. He cares a lot more about being able to bicycle almost every sunny summer day than with status.

14

This may have been true 30-40 years ago. These days they get paid decently. About $3K per month in STEM. I had an impression it is far behind in humanities.

15

The following is a mish-mash of thoughts on this topics. It is a lot worse now because it used to be most faculty were tenured (I think I read more than 75% at most schools) with the rest adjuncts and that professors had a lot more power in colleges. Colleges had much smaller administrative branches. Now that is flipped and many colleges have 75% adjuncts and 25% tenured professors (again from what I read), and bloated administrations getting high pay. I think more and more college is run via a business model. I know many professors and also adjunct professors. It stinks for those who are great teachers and don’t have a real chance to ever get tenure. Also, I know many horror stories of staff being treated horribly by tenured professors, and of some departments where it is really socially like a caste system. I think this is very unfortunate and don’t have an answer, but I have great concerns with how things are being done at schools where things are flipped in this way and they are getting really super cheap labor out of adjuncts who are not on living wages.

People who get to be a tenured professor at any college are super fortunate. It is so very competitive that many excellent people are teaching at lower ranked schools. I always wonder about the idea that top schools offer better education. I don’t think that in terms of getting a great professor that that is necessarily the case. I went to a regional school to take classes required for my job and found the professors there were far better than those I had at a high ranked liberal arts undergrad school. Also, a person at this regional state school didn’t get tenure, left and got tenure an Ivy.

My friends who are adjuncts are afraid to push the administration to discipline students for clear cut violations because their ratings depend on student ratings. The have to pander to students, have to grade not too hard, or they won’t be asked back. What kind of messed up system is that? It happens in many places now from what I understand.

I think to get tenure one has to be good, but also very lucky and/or really darn good at playing politics. If people are not savvy about dealing with office politics, they can end up never getting tenure.

16

Not everywhere from what I understand. The ones at BU went on strike a few years ago. Boston is a pricey place to live, though.

17

I am a non PhD #2. I could make more in my profession not working in academia. I work at a satellite off campus and I do feel my work and opinions are undervalued. I spend more time with my students than any of the TT professors so it is frustrating to not be heard as a faculty member. Although I love my work and think I am very good at my job, I do frequently question my choice as what I do now is more physically demanding than I would like at this point in my career so I have to constantly weigh the pros and cons of staying in academia.

18

Has the academic job market always been competitive and elitist? In my quantitative social science field, there used to be academic jobs for all who wanted them. One of the bigger changes is that it used to be that 30 years ago international students could get hired for academic jobs, especially at smaller regional schools. Now the international students have a tougher time staying in the U.S. unless they can get data science type jobs in industry. Is the market just as elitist as it used to be? Sure, students from the top 10 programs tend to be getting the best jobs, but apparently many years ago the new professor labor market relied more heavily on phone calls to advisors. Now its easier to see who is out there and read their vitas and papers online so perhaps those old kinds of networks are less important (but still matter.)

19

It would be worth looking at whether the average time to get a PhD has changed. If a PhD now takes 8 years when it used to take 4, there’s a large change in the opportunity cost.

20

@MWolf Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean where you got your PhD degree determined how far you would go at an institution AFTER you were hired for a TT faculty position. I meant that where you get your PhD would partially determine which institution would hire you for a TT faculty position. As mentioned in the OP, there are a few tiers below TT faculty in academia.