<p>^This. I agree that salander’s picture is a little too rosy, although I do certainly agree that if you have an academic career as your goal you should definitely attend a top program (I would honestly say top 30, and top 20 if it’s a humanities or more impacted social science field). In addition to each professor mentoring more students than are needed to replace him, universities are cutting tenure-track slots, not contracting them. 70% of all classes are taught by contingent professors and when tt professors retire they are often replaced by adjuncts. Go hang out on the Chronicle of Higher Education forums and check out the Job-Seeking Experiences and Interview Process forums. Even some STEM PhDs are struggling, and sometimes spend as many as 5-7 years postdoc’ing before finding jobs.</p>
<p>Of course SOME people get jobs, even in a recession, but that anecdotal evidence in and of itself doesn’t mean the academic market is not bad. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of articles on this right now written by academics from all levels.</p>
<p>But there are definitely some fields with better academic markets - there are actually a shortage of business (especially accounting and finance) and nursing professors right now. In fact, many top-tier research universities have open, standing job ads for nursing professors right now, which is unheard of in other academic fields. Engineering and economics are also pretty good. And of course there are some PhDs that have a choice of competing in the academic market OR in industry - computer science could potentially be one of those if you do applied research that tech firms would be interested in.</p>