Math PhD Bubble: What % Get Tenure?

[Locrian]

http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/emp3/table3.htm

60% of the potentially permanent positions taken in 05 / 06 were in industry if I'm reading this correctly.

My bad, Vanadium had the link. You're interpreting it correctly, but it doesn't support Vanadium's conclusion. That 60% of potentially permanent positions were in industry in no way supports the notion that "Most PhD's move on to industry", since the number that are in temporary positions and then move to permanent ones (in either Uni or Industry) is not measured there. It's a subset of a subset, not of the later total.

 

[Locrian]

The AIP keeps statistics on exactly this sort of thing.

Sort of - they typically keep track of their member statistics, which doesn't always support peoples conclusions, since it's a select group. However, I do think I was clearly wrong when I suggested no one knew what percentage of physicists move to industry. I didn't think that through before I wrote it and apologize.

Strange as it may sound though, I still hold that the statement that "Most PhD's move on to industry" isn't actually supported by anything anyone has linked to here.

 

[Locrian]

Also if it is the case that "no one really knows" then this is really alarming and frankly irresponsible.

Maybe, or maybe it's just a very hard thing to keep track of. The problem is that there is tendency for extreme selection bias in dealing with students after their graduation. Those for whom things go well tend to be much more likely to respond to surveys, etc., and are also easier to track down.

My school also kept track of their graduates. However talking with the older PhD's, it became clear to me that many names were not on the list. People who couldn't get a job often disappeared. Maybe they got one, but no one knew. Your school may not have this problem, but this type of selection bias plagues post graduation data.

Typically what I find is that physics PhD's are dealt with this way: any percentages given are the percentage of those people who got a PhD in physics and stayed in physics. This is especially true of AIP stats, and it's why I'm deeply suspicious of claims that "most" physics PhD's did almost anything, because I think it's not an easy thing to know.

The particular AIP stats people are pointing to here are graduation surveys, and so differ from their member surveys. Maybe it gets past these problems. . . but note that they only had a 53% response rate to their survey. . .

 

[vanesch]

I really don't think that society has an oversupply of Ph.D.'s. There is a huge problem in that Ph.D.'s are being taught that the "normal" thing for a Ph.D. to do is to get a job in academia, but that's something different.

If you look at unemployment rates for Ph.D.'s. I don't know of any physics/math Ph.D. that has had any problem looking for a job, once they looked outside the academy.

I fully agree with you here. Although when one enters a PhD. programme, one is "still young and naive" in many cases, and as "good student" one has a kind of admiration for one's professors and would like to walk in their tracks, doing a PhD. is still a good education all by itself, independently of one's professional ambitions, but just on the grounds of personal, intellectual devellopment. It's an opportunity in your life, and in many cases (although indeed not always) it is an asset for one's professional life.

The problem is that if the solution is "make society less educated" its probably not going to cause good things to happen. The only real solution I can see is to make Ph.D. students and their advisors more aware of life outside the academia.

What I think is going to be really interesting is that if you have more Ph.D.'s outside the academia than inside, this will likely change the power structures within the academia.

Again, I agree. I think it is a good thing that high-level knowledge "diffuses" outside of academia, into civil society. There's no point locking up knowledge in some self-replicating little world called academia, where the only reason to learn something is to become a professor so that you can teach it to someone else who will learn it to become a professor to...

I think it is very healthy that, say, amongst politicians or administrative agents, there are some PhD. in philosophy.

Of course, a totally different question is whether for the student it is a good *investment* to go for a PhD. to "help diffuse" knowledge into society. I think it is, on the condition that you see it as a personal opportunity of intellectual enrichment, and not just as a career investment solely.

 

[twofish-quant]

My school also kept track of their graduates. However talking with the older PhD's, it became clear to me that many names were not on the list. People who couldn't get a job often disappeared. Maybe they got one, but no one knew. Your school may not have this problem, but this type of selection bias plagues post graduation data.

Yes. This is why the data that I have is useful since the professor that I knew tracked down every single graduate that had gotten a Ph.D. in the last ten years and found out what they were doing. In two cases, she couldn't get in contact with the Ph.D. holder, but was able to contact friends and find out what they were doing.

 

[mathador79]

Interesting discussion. I believe that there is indeed an oversupply of math phds. There are, simply put, many more phds being produced than there are available academic jobs. There are also many more postdoctoral opportunites than tenure track opportunities. And the bottom line is that the phd program is structured as a training program for an academic job.

I got my math phd a few years ago from a top university, got a research postdoc, published some papers, was awarded a government grant (PI), and still have not been able to get a regular position anywhere. I'm currently doing a second postdoc abroad, and needless to say am quite discouraged.

It's true that there are jobs other than academia which require people with mathematical skills, but they have little relation to phd programs, which usually provide close to zero practical training of any sort.

I've been looking into becoming a quant, but all the job ads I've seen want people with industry experience and a strong programming background. I know, I know, I should've prepared for this earlier, but I hadn't realized my "successful" academic career was about to reach a dead end. Now I'm thirty and looking at starting a new career with no practical skills or experience.

In my opinion, if graduate schools wish to continue overproducing phds, they should do a better job of preparing their students for the reality that many of them will not find suitable academic employment, and should provide alternative career counseling and job placement services.

Just my two cents.

 

[twofish-quant]

Interesting discussion. I believe that there is indeed an oversupply of math phds. There are, simply put, many more phds being produced than there are available academic jobs.

The system is pretty screwed up. One thing that I think will help a lot is if you force people to sign a piece of paper saying that they realize that if they finish the Ph.D. program, it is rather unlikely (i.e. 1 chance in 10) that they will end up getting a tenure track position.

If you go into the program realizing the real situation, then you can figure out what to do so that you have marketable skills when you get out. (Hint: Learn to program C++).

In some ways I was lucky because I figured out pretty early that the people running the system were either clueless or lying or a bit of both.

In my opinion, if graduate schools wish to continue overproducing phds, they should do a better job of preparing their students for the reality that many of them will not find suitable academic employment, and should provide alternative career counseling and job placement services.

I'm not that optimistic that the system will be able to do anything formally, because they'd be basically cutting their throats if they did, and systems of power simply to not cut their own throats. One thing that is interesting in looking at the Ph.D. surveys that I've seen is that most of the people with astronomy Ph.D.'s actually do end up doing science teaching and research even without a tenure track position. This is rather dangerous since if it turns out that you can get people to do teaching and research without being a formal professor, this sort of makes professors obsolete, so there is a very strong interest on the part of people with power to make it seem like the tenure track is the only track, but it isn't.

If you really want to see what the future of the university looks like. Look at University of Phoenix.

But I think the most useful thing to do is to just let Ph.D. graduate students know that there is a problem. You have some of the smartest people in the world, and once people realize what the real odds are, and that yes, the system is lying to them, most of them will figure out something rational.

Personally, I'm not asking the powers that be to do anything, except stop lying.

 

[vanesch]

The system is pretty screwed up. One thing that I think will help a lot is if you force people to sign a piece of paper saying that they realize that if they finish the Ph.D. program, it is rather unlikely (i.e. 1 chance in 10) that they will end up getting a tenure track position.

Well, when you're 25 - 30 years old, and in a PhD program, you might be considered intelligent enough to find out your job opportunities for yourself, no ? PhD students aren't mentally retarded people who need a protected work place. When you open a restaurant, nobody requires you to sign a paper that you realize that if you don't have customers, you might end up out of business. They didn't sign you a paper that you would end up with tenure either, did they ?

Of course, making some information of the real job market available can always help, but one shouldn't flee one's own responsibilities in the choices for one's career path. With kids, I agree, but not with intelligent adults.

 

[twofish-quant]

Well, when you're 25 - 30 years old, and in a PhD program, you might be considered intelligent enough to find out your job opportunities for yourself, no ?

No you aren't, if the people that you are trusting to provide that information can't be trusted to give it, and are actively lying about what jobs are available.

PhD students aren't mentally retarded people who need a protected work place.

But they are very socially isolated people living with a community in which they have very little real power, and they *do* need some protection because the people that are making crucial decisions are not unbiased. Everyone is an idiot savant. The fact that I know something about radiation hydrodynamical models doesn't mean that I have a clue about accounting, mutual funds, law or medicine. That's why I have to put some trust in people when I do certain things. In the case, of graduate schools, most students get their information about the job market from faculty, and I'd argue (with some personal experience) that this is a seriously bad thing.

When you open a restaurant, nobody requires you to sign a paper that you realize that if you don't have customers, you might end up out of business.

If you sign a restaurant franchise agreement or bank loan, you end up signing quite a few documents saying pretty much just that. Restaurant franchise agreements are pretty heavily regulated because people that sign those agreements have an overoptimistic change of them succeeding.

Of course, making some information of the real job market available can always help, but one shouldn't flee one's own responsibilities in the choices for one's career path. With kids, I agree, but not with intelligent adults.

I think this is non-sense. The problem is not that the physics community is merely not providing no information. The problem is that the community has in a number of situations been *ACTIVELY LYING* about the actual job market. Look at all of the white papers in the 1990's that predicted massive numbers of job openings in astronomy. When is the last time you heard someone testify before Congress saying 'we'll I think we have too many Ph.D.'s and we got to think about what to do about that before you give us several billion dollars." Anytime, someone leave the tenure track, people whisper that that person was just "not good enough."

There are huge amounts of subtle and not so subtle brainwashing that keeps the system in place, and the fact that senior faculty benefit from that system is why. It's very easy to design or evolve a system in which people benefit from something morally repugnant without having to accept any personal responsibility for it, and I think that's what has happened.

The attitude "It's not my problem that you believed my lies" is something that I'd expect from used car salesmen and peddlers of subprime mortgages. It's not something that I'd expect senior physicists to do. I personally expect the community to have more decency, integrity, and self-respect.

PROFESSORS ARE NOT USED CAR SALESMEN. Personally, I think that one of the *DUTIES* of a professor and a physics department is to make sure that their students have the skills to prosper. PROFESSORS ARE TEACHERS, and IMHO the skills that you need to do well in the job market is as much an important part and responsibility of the Ph.D. graduate education as technical skills.

The power relationship between graduate student and professor is profoundly unequal, and it's unequal because the professor presumably has more knowledge and experience and is passing down that experience.

If we go with the attitude the professors are merely used car salesman and the student has to just look out for themselves and can't trust professors to act somewhat in their own interests, that's fine...

We then really have to ask why professors have as much power and status as they do.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This is quite different from my experience. When I was a student we certainly didn't expect a permanent job in academia. Even if the faculty didn't tell us what reasonable expectations were, which they did, we could tell:

• We could see professors who didn't get tenure.
• We could see postdocs who couldn't get faculty jobs.
• We could see students graduate with the PhD equivalent of the "gentleman's C" - granting a doctoral degree for some work that wasn't the best, with the understanding that the student would not ask anyone for letters of recommendation for postdoctoral postions.

That said, there was an attitude among the grad students that "this can't happen to me" - they would believe that half of them would move to industry (which is about what it is) but they wouldn't believe that they would be in that half. And as it happens, 50% of them were right.

 

[twofish-quant]

This is quite different from my experience. When I was a student we certainly didn't expect a permanent job in academia.

We may be from different generations (gee, that makes me feel old). I started my Ph.D. in 1991 and finished in 1998. You can see lots of stuff from the early 1990's about the NSF going crazy because of the supposed shortage of scientists and engineers. Also this was at a time before the web and there were simply no forums like these. (You had USENET and sci.astro, but the discussion there wasn't very careers oriented.)

Part of the problem is not so much the statistics was that you ended feeling "dirty" and "inferior" if you didn't get a permanent job in academia. It took a few years for me to overcome that. It's a shame really, since if I hadn't gone through that, I probably would have stayed more in contact with the community, and would have ended up getting some more research done. The other thing was that actively thinking about ways of making my Ph.D. useful without an academic job was also something that was quite unusual.

It's stuff like this that makes me want to hit someone

http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v44/n18/phd.html

We could see students graduate with the PhD equivalent of the "gentleman's C" - granting a doctoral degree for some work that wasn't the best, with the understanding that the student would not ask anyone for letters of recommendation for postdoctoral postions.

This is part of the "subtle brainwashing." If you didn't go for the postdoc, you were inferior, and the thought that someone with decent research might go for something other than a postdoc was something that was rather unthinkable. Also it's important for people within a power structure to mark anyone outside the structure as a "loser" (and if possible have the people on the outside think of themselves as "losers"). If you have people outside a power structure that are willing to challenge it, then you have the threat of revolution.

Part of the reason I enjoy industry better than academy is that it's possible to fail, fail very, very badly, and still find your way back into the game.

That said, there was an attitude among the grad students that "this can't happen to me" - they would believe that half of them would move to industry (which is about what it is) but they wouldn't believe that they would be in that half. And as it happens, 50% of them were right.

I think the industry/academia distinction is rather misleading.

The numbers I've seen (from a complete survey of astronomy graduates) is that the number of people that go into fields that are totally unrelated to academia is about 30%. However only about 15% of the people that graduate get into tenure track research positions. What happens with the remaining 55% is that they get into positions that aren't "industry" but also aren't "academia." For example, there are people that end up working as system administrators at national labs with the understanding that they will be able to do part time research. There are people that work as supercomputer center support staff at a university. It might be "academia" but it's not what people normally think of. There are also people doing science journalism, teaching community colleges, etc.

It's curious that most of the people that end up in "academia", don't end up as tenure-track professors.

It's rather good news, because it really means that what people end up doing with a Ph.D. is far, far more diverse than what people except. The really, really good news is that no one I know with a Ph.D. ended up with a dead end job. Unemployment for Ph.D.'s right now is far, far lower than the national average. On Wall Street, people with physics Ph.D.'s tended to be the last fired and the first hired, which caused some friction with people with masters degrees.

One reason that I think that it's important for faculty to tell students that they probably *won't* get a permanent faculty position, and that a professorship is not "normal" but one option out of several is that if people told the truth about the Ph.D. job market, then it makes the Ph.D. much more attractive and the life of a Ph.D. more pleasant. You end up hating yourself less.

However, the problem is that if it were accepted that the professorship was not the "gold standard" for Ph.D.'s and that "industry isn't just for losers" then we are talking about some very, very massive and threatening power shifts. If tenured professors aren't smarter or better than "industry losers" then why do they have tenure and are immune from layoffs. Why not hire some people from outside the priesthood to teach intro calculus?

The fact that people within the academic power structure are rather afraid of asking some deep questions is why there is so much misery and hopelessness, but personally I don't think the system as it exists now is economically sustainable, and since I ended up on the outside, I'm not going to shed any tears to see it collapse.

 

[twofish-quant]

The reason I think the academic system is going to collapse is because a lot of the spending in the academy has been driven by the real estate bubble. You either had massive endowments which went to private universities or booming tax receipts that went to the public ones. This created a system that for a time allowed universities to avoid difficult questions and cuts.

That's gone... I've looked at the numbers and if you assume "standard growth" in the stock market, then universities are going to end up with big, big holes in their balance sheets. You can fix this with money from alumni and state and federal sources, but this means that professors are going to have to answer to alumni, corporate sponsors, and politicians in ways that most of them aren't used to.

And that's not even taking into account competition from for-profits like University of Phoenix. University of Phoenix scares me because unless someone comes up with some alternative, it's where higher education is moving toward, and it's not a vision that I think is appealing.

It's going to be interesting...

 

[symbolipoint]

twofish-quant wrote:

And that's not even taking into account competition from for-profits like University of Phoenix. University of Phoenix scares me because unless someone comes up with some alternative, it's where higher education is moving toward, and it's not a vision that I think is appealing.

Would employers of graduated candidates have an influence on this trend?

 

[twofish-quant]

Would employers of graduated candidates have an influence on this trend?

Not really. The problem with University of Phoenix is that as an educational institution, it's pretty decent, and I'd say that from a student point of view, the experience at UoP is better than at most traditional academic institutions.

That's the problem...

UoP is like McDonalds. From a student standpoint, it's pretty decent. You end up with a nice hot meal. From a worker stand point, it's total hell. What UoP has figured out is that you don't need many professors to run a university and you can do pretty much everything with adjuncts. The business model of UoP is to pay instructors chickenfeed, get large amounts of money from tuition, which students are willing to pay because the believe (usually correctly) that they will make more money from the education, and then put most of the difference in marketing and money for shareholders.

The problem is that it's a wildly successful model, and it's likely to dominate higher education unless people come up with competing models.

I think that the power of intellectuals and academics is that intellectuals and academics ask pretty tough questions and finding the truth no matter how uncomfortable it might be. The trouble with academia as it now stands is that for the system to work, you have to avoid asking tough questions and put everyone in a state of denial.

 

[mal4mac]

Which is why jobs in investment banks or medical imaging or whatever are perfect. I'm basically writing the same sorts of programs that I am in Wall Street that I did in graduate school. Only with more money.

How can you say working in an investment bank is perfect after recent happenings? Look at all the people who lives have been damaged because of the machinations of quants who never really knew what they were doing.

 

[hamster143]

The problem is that it's a wildly successful model, and it's likely to dominate higher education unless people come up with competing models.

The reason why UoP is a wildly successful model is because it dispenses with prerequisites and minimum requirements. It's a bottom feeder that admits people who wouldn't get into any other college. And it gets away with charging lots of money (more than many state university systems) precisely because its students can't get into any place that's more respectable.

I also have to question the assumption that education will allow UofP students recoup their tuition losses. When you have an IQ of 100, getting a four-year degree and getting $60,000 into debt is probably not a very good idea.

 

[twofish-quant]

How can you say working in an investment bank is perfect after recent happenings? Look at all the people who lives have been damaged because of the machinations of quants who never really knew what they were doing.

That's why it's important to have someone working in the banks that knows what they are doing. One reason that I feel good about my job is that by being generally competent, I helped keep the financial collapse from being a *LOT* worse that it was.

 

[twofish-quant]

The reason why UoP is a wildly successful model is because it dispenses with prerequisites and minimum requirements. It's a bottom feeder that admits people who wouldn't get into any other college.

Not true. The students that I taught would have no trouble in getting into the extended education divisions of most state universities or to most community colleges. However, they ended up at UoP because the it does the job of teaching those students better than most other institutions that I know of.

Personally, I think that admission requirements and prerequisites are bogus and that MIT ought to get rid of them. Open Courseware is a baby step in that direction.

And it gets away with charging lots of money (more than many state university systems) precisely because its students can't get into any place that's more respectable.

Nope. Students are willing to pay because for the topics being taught, the quality of education at UoP is quite high, and because the scheduling works. The thing about admission requirements and prerequisites is that they make for lazier teachers. There are far more incompetent teachers at MIT than at UoP, but MIT can get away with it since the students have more preparation.

Also, I ended up with a *LOT* of respect for the students at UoP. If you teach an intro class in any state university a huge fraction of people that you are teaching are not serious people, and they consider your class a mere annoyance so that they can get drunk.

also have to question the assumption that education will allow UofP students recoup their tuition losses. When you have an IQ of 100, getting a four-year degree and getting $60,000 into debt is probably not a very good idea.

First of all, a lot of students don't pay full tuition. A large fraction of the students that I taught were ex-military, and they were probably in through some GI Bill. Also a lot of people get reimbursed through their companies. If you don't have a 4 year degree, and you have to pay $60,000 to get a bachelors, it's probably going to more than pay off in your working lifetime.

Also, there is a maturity factor. Most people that go to college at age 17 just shouldn't be there, and it's a lot easier to teach a group of 35 year olds with IQ's of 100 than a group of 17 year olds with IQ's of 120, since a lot of your time with 17 year olds is going to be spent babysitting.

The thing that I find scary and depressing about the University of Phoenix is that as an educational institution, it works and works quite well. In order to get it to work, they've had to completely wreck the model of the professorship which exists in traditional academia, which scares me because if universities don't take UoP seriously then they are going to be seriously hurting in the next decade.

 

[hamster143]

I can fully agree that 35 year olds are more mature and they can be easier to teach to. But a qualified 35 year old would be more likely to go to, say, Cal State (state-subsidized full-time tuition for residents: $4000/year), than to Phoenix for 12-15k/year, unless the entire tuition comes from someone else's pocket (GI Bill) or they lack prerequisites to such an extent (perhaps a high school GPA of 1.8) that Cal State won't take them. Generally speaking, students don't assume that quality of education in Phoenix is superior to Cal State. One highly visible factor is student-to-faculty ratio, it is about 2x higher in Phoenix than in CSU, UC or almost anywhere else. That assumption would have to be common knowledge before Phoenix can start stealing students from Cal State. Instead, it's firmly stereotyped (perhaps a bit unfairly) as a diploma mill.

Phoenix may have an advantage in online and part-time degrees, because traditional schools don't always deal with these niches properly, but it does not have much upside potential in full-time area, unless it can break the diploma mill stereotype. And, to do that, they'd have to traditionalize to some extent.

If you don't have a 4 year degree, and you have to pay $60,000 to get a bachelors, it's probably going to more than pay off in your working lifetime.

Assuming that there's unmet demand for not-too-intelligent people with 4 year degrees. More than a third of all high school students graduate with 4 year degrees nowadays. It's not clear to me that our economy needs that many.

 

[twofish-quant]

But a qualified 35 year old would be more likely to go to, say, Cal State (state-subsidized full-time tuition for residents: $4000/year), than to Phoenix for 12-15k/year, unless the entire tuition comes from someone else's pocket (GI Bill) or they lack prerequisites to such an extent (perhaps a high school GPA of 1.8) that Cal State won't take them.

It's tough to attend Cal State if you don't live in California. Two things that UoP does do well are:

1) they have a schedule system that works much better for working adults, and
2) they also have tons of satellite campuses.

I don't know enough about Cal State to know whether or not they are competitive in this area. I *do* know that they are competitive in central Texas, because none of the schools here have something similar. There are night/weekend schools, but they work on the semester system.

The other thing is that the the scheduling system that UoP uses is very good for adjuncts. Practically all of the teachers are working professionals. Also UoP has been trying to compete with community colleges, but they seem to be doing much less well on this.

Generally speaking, students don't assume that quality of education in Phoenix is superior to Cal State. One highly visible factor is student-to-faculty ratio, it is about 2x higher in Phoenix than in CSU, UC or almost anywhere else.

This is odd, because the *effective* student-teacher ratio at UoP is higher than at every state school that I've seen. Typically, the student teacher ratio at UoP classes is 1:10, and you are e-mailing the teacher and he/she is e-mailing back constantly.

I'm very skeptical about this statistic. It may be that you can get Algebra 101 classes in CalState with 1:10 student teacher ratios, but I haven't seen it elsewhere.

Phoenix may have an advantage in online and part-time degrees, because traditional schools don't always deal with these niches properly, but it does not have much upside potential in full-time area, unless it can break the diploma mill stereotype. And, to do that, they'd have to traditionalize to some extent.

I don't think they have any intent to compete for full time college degrees for 17-21 year olds, but I'd argue that full time college degrees for 17-21 year olds is the "niche". The new economy is one in which if you are always in school, you are going to be left behind.

Also, I don't think it's going to be that hard to break the diploma mill stereotype. A huge number of people that I've seen with UoP degrees are people in human resources. UoP is playing the Harvard/MIT/Goldman Sachs game of getting their people in key places.

More than a third of all high school students graduate with 4 year degrees nowadays. It's not clear to me that our economy needs that many.

If that's the situation, then we really have to change the economy.

The cool thing about working at UoP is that you actually see wealth being generated by the stuff that you teach. If you teach someone that doesn't know basic algebra, some very basic algebra, and then they can make arguments in business meetings that they couldn't make before, that's generating value.

One thing that I did when I taught out UoP is to make things very practical. Here are two or three tricks with numbers that you can take back to the office right now and help your career with.

 

[twofish-quant]

Personally I think that the you must get your degree by age 21 even if you aren't emotionally ready for college is the thing that really has to change.

 

[Sankaku]

Personally I think that the "you must get your degree by age 21 even if you aren't emotionally ready for college" is the thing that really has to change.

(Quotation marks added for clarity)

I very much agree with this. I think the modern world needs a learning model that accommodates people of any age. The sheer number of people on this forum asking about returning to school testifies to this fact.

I think that only ~20% of the people in University at age 17/18 should actually be there. Go do something else and come back when you actually know what you want to do. Removing the stigma around returning to study in your 30's 40's or 50's would be an immediate help.

Also, look at the statistics for OU in the UK - I think that might be a viable alternative to UoP for respectable distance education.

 

[turin]

Now I think I want to be a "quant".