
So You’re Getting a Ph.D.: Welcome to the Worst Job Market in America - jseliger
http://www.weeklystandard.com/so-youre-getting-a-ph.d./article/1059359#.VxVRECG6Ck0.facebook
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ReallyAnonymous
It'll take 20 years, but slowly over time, informed, intelligent people will
choose another profession. And then there will be no one qualified to teach.
And then the universities charging $90,000 a year tuition will panic.

The problem is that everything is a business, and with the managerial class
reaping the benefits of lowering the payroll, intelligent people are getting
steered away. Because there are a lot of Ph.D's currently out there, there are
some willing to do the work, but I guarantee that more and more will choose
other paths.

The internet and articles like this will deter them.

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pandaman
This is exactly how market works: when there is an oversupply of X the price
of X drops and X suppliers move on to something more profitable.

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johan_larson
If people were fully rational, sure. But they're not. Record companies have
been treating musicians like crap for at least a lifetime now, and there are
still people dreaming of record contracts.

Will the academic job market be different? Let's hope so. An early sign of it
would be dropping application rates to grad school programs, particularly the
less prestigious ones.

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pandaman
"Fully rational" in this case means "want to sell high and buy low". It's a
very low bar to clear, especially in the job market for PhDs.

>Record companies have been treating musicians like crap for at least a
lifetime now, and there are still people dreaming of record contracts.

If I understood you correctly, you are implying that musicians have better
options than signing with labels and are acting irrationally by doing so? I
disagree.

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spicerguy
This reminds me strongly of an article in the economist published in 2010 -
the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Made me glad (in a way) that
I didn't finish my own doctorate, although I did find the research very
personally fulfilling. article:
[http://www.economist.com/node/17723223](http://www.economist.com/node/17723223)

