
Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic (2010) - xSwag
http://www.economist.com/node/17723223#
======
drobilla
Someone needs to write a "why getting a job in industry is a waste of time"
rebuttal to this tired argument to illustrate how ridiculous it is to evaluate
everything with a single (and shallow) goal structure. After all, it typically
doesn't contribute anything new or meaningful to scientific knowledge,
therefore it is a waste of time (...).

I guess I shouldn't expect any better from The Economist, but not everyone in
the world just does whatever they can to make the most money possible,
ignoring all other considerations.

Assuming I'm making enough money to survive comfortably (which is essentially
guaranteed with computer anything, including grad school itself), I don't
care. What I get to work on, and what environment I get to work on it in, is
far, far, more important. Overridingly important.

This mentality (though usually not so extreme) is pretty common among math and
computing people, which is probably why industry is finally starting to notice
that workplace perks are very important. There are plenty of extremely
talented people who'd gladly take a 50% pay cut to work in a less shitty
environment...

~~~
anxx
I am planning on doing a PhD because of financial benefits in the long run.
Here's why:

\- Immediate respect. It is harder to question the authority of a (technical)
PhD. This is much more pronounced in 3rd world economies. Also Germany.
Basically anywhere besides the non-super-meritocratic US. This is a huge
benefit: my opinions are more likely to be listened to, my consulting fees are
likely to be higher and be more credible, career breaks (maternity) will not
set me back by much, because a PhD proves technical mastery of an area as well
as tenacity, responsibility, and independence - all of which non-PhDs will
continously try to prove to new coworkers and new management.

\- Universities are forever open, but not so with Masters. That gives immense
job security as a private university lecturer for the rest of your life, in
any country (flexibility to travel and find a job even in countries you don't
speak the language of). Private universities in rich countries pay a lot to be
able to say they have a, say, MIT-PhD on their faculty. I knew a person who
had a data-entry job and saw the faculty salaries in Saudi Arabia. The profs
were making 396$k/year, housing and living costs fully compensated by the
university.

\- Flexibility to find jobs forever (especially because of the university
thing). Normally I imagine it would be harder to be a salaried employee after
65 years of age. Nobody will hire you because it is so weird to have an
employee your dad's age. Ageism is real. But because you can always lecture,
you are pretty much unretirable.

The 4-5 year salary cut is nothing compared to a lifetime of these benefits
and zero anxiety about job prospects after 50. I personally want to work and
earn money in a respectable job well into my 80s.

~~~
crpatino
You have a very hard awakening in queue. Of course I can only speak of my
direct experience, in Mexico, but here it goes:

1\. Business people tend to mistrust highly educated people with no at least
as impressive industry credentials. The meme of the crazy scientist with the
head on the moon an no concern to real concerns runs deep and wide. Once you
have both the schooling and the provable hands on experience it starts to pay
off, but getting there is not trivial. Also, to make it pay it off you must go
into consulting, since no employer will think they can afford you full time
past some point. And to make it as consultant you need to pick an specialty
that provides hard qualitatively measurable value.

2\. Scratch that immense job security in the private university. As a matter
of fact, they tend to hire a lot of adjunct professors and post-doc lecturers
in order to avoid giving the sinecure for full professors. Public universities
and research centers are still ok, but you will have a hard time in any
education center whose bottom line depends on undergrad tuition.

3\. Don't count on the flexibility thing either. University may be happy to
hire part time lecturers with lots of industry experience, but not the other
way around. I had a very hard time crawling out of this particular hole and
have know others that never were able to make it back after a "short stint as
a teacher".

4\. Jobs prospect after 50 might be right, but you have to know how to play
your cards really well. It is not a given, and in any case you are probably
better off knowing your way in industry than relying on academia.

------
sgt101
It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in
terms of earnings.

I don't earn a huge amount, but I have a fantastic job, I live in a wonderful
place about 5 minutes from my office and doing my Ph.D. was the best thing
that I ever did.

I agree that you don't need one, and many people with one that I have met and
employed are fairly hopeless (in comparison to razor sharp and super talented
B.Sc. folk) but babe, if it floats your boat go for it.

Don't listen to the haters!

~~~
enraged_camel
>>It takes a certain poverty of mind to quantify the value of an education in
terms of earnings.

I don't know... If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching
my ass off to become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then
it better have more benefits than just personal satisfaction.

A fantastic job with good living arrangements do not require a Ph.D.

~~~
md224
> If I spend up to 7 years of my life studying and researching my ass off to
> become one of the foremost experts in a specialized field, then it better
> have more benefits than just personal satisfaction.

I respect your desire for more money in exchange for more commitment, but we
should also recognize that money is but one of many motivators, all of which
are ultimately in the service of increasing personal satisfaction.

~~~
enraged_camel
Perhaps this is a cultural difference. I am not American, and therefore I
don't really subscribe to the individualist perspective that everything
ultimately serves the purpose of increasing personal satisfaction.

------
disgruntledphd2
Ok, so I read the article (years ago, while in the midst of a social sciences
PhD, so imagine how _I_ felt :)), and I read it again.

Then, I vainly read the comments hoping that someone had made my point, but
alas.

So, a couple of propositions:

1) pay in academia is less than that in industry (especially in engineering
and computing) 2) more PhD's stay in academia. 3) Averages are affected by
extreme values. Note I'm using the mean here, as that's what all the studies
do (annoyingly enough).

Therefore, it would make sense that on an aggregate level, the salaries of
people with PhD's would not show an increase relative to those with masters.

Note that clearly this does not imply that doing a PhD is an (economic) waste
of time, as it may be that PhD's, conditional on being employed in industry
actually earn more than those with master's degrees.

Man, I hate the mean sometimes.

~~~
dcalacci
Yeah, it's likely that the values in the article don't really mean what they
are presented to mean due to average career choices.

This article would say something more meaningful if it included data only from
PhD's that attempted to go into industry.

------
Rhapso
I'm currently working on my PHD in Computer Science. All the doctoral students
I know have a very firm understanding that their degree is not the most
profitable idea. If we wanted money then we would not be trying to be
scientists. We pursue it because we love it and because we a curious.

~~~
BruceIV
Agreed. I'd be making twice (if not three or four times) as much if I went and
got an industry job instead of pursuing my CS PhD, but my stipend is
sufficient to live comfortably enough on, and the pay raise wouldn't be worth
the loss of autonomy to me.

------
kaeluka
I'm so sick of economists/journalists/outsiders implying that the reason to
study or, more general, to learn is income. I do it because it's giving me the
chance to pick problems I find interesting, try to solve them as best as
possible and learn a lot about myself along the way.

Also, where I'm doing my PhD, a starting salary as a PhD student is comparable
(slightly lower) with entry level programmer salaries.

edit: economists -> economists/journalists/outsiders

~~~
VLM
"I'm so sick of economists/journalists/outsiders implying the reason to"

They're not implying reasons, they're reporting it. Its all about how much
your culture values people with PHD / in the pipeline to get one. You may not
like what your culture is saying about you, but no point in blaming the
messenger.

Rotate into a (hopefully) nonpersonal analogy. Say a statistician reports that
your average ex-con makes 25% less than someone who hasn't been punished yet.
The proper response isn't against the statistician, or that the point of
prison isn't to make money, or that ex-cons used to make more money in the
good old days, the point is to observe that our culture doesn't particularly
value ex-cons, much less than most assume, and much worse than it used to be.

Like being a black sheep? Nothin wrong with being an individual. But don't
give someone a hassle for reporting the emperor has no clothes.

They're reporting outcomes, not processes. Reporting actual measured price not
self perceived value.

IF they were morally or ethically attacking because academia leads to poverty
etc etc ... you'd know. The tone of the article wouldn't be "hey guess what"

~~~
kaeluka
this article is very much an opinion piece. Subtitle: "Why doing a PhD is
often a waste of time".

Weasel words all over the place, invented problems (at least not backed with
anything): |Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level
skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things.".

I'm not reading further now as I'm sure you get what I'm trying to say here.

------
dumitrue
2 year-old story. Previous discussions:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2019665> [886 days old]

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503996> [46 days old]

~~~
ng12
True, but I think this deserves reconsideration considering the recent debate
about H1-B visas -- especially since the fact that there are (relatively) few
US-born PhD's is one of the major justifications for increasing the number of
visas awarded.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
On that note can anyone explain to me why immigration reform is a hot button
in us politics - surely if you want to employ someone from outside the US you
tell them to use Skype.

A plane ticket every six weeks will increase your selection far more than
anything congress can pass - especially for a hot coder with you know family
and commitments

Or is that it - let the cheap young single coders in ?

~~~
dumitrue
H1Bs can't vote you out of office so it's easy to be against them, the risk is
lower to lose political capital (especially if you frame the discussion in
terms of "protecting the jobs for Americans").

~~~
lifeisstillgood
But immigration laws one way or another do not stop a company in SV hiring a
fantastic JS coder in Helsinki

American jobs is the wrong term - google jobs, apple jobs, Facebook jobs - all
up for grabs by the best in the world

------
andydrizen
I finished my maths PhD last year. The concept that PhD grads earn less than
people who opted out of academia earlier makes a lot of sense to me.

PhDs grads aren't financially driven - they are mathematically driven - to the
extent of thinking about problems all day. Everyone I knew used to keep a
notebook and pen by the bed because waking up in the night with an idea was so
common. With this much passion, the desire to leave academia for a well-paid
industry job is low.

------
lifeisstillgood
That's not what PHds are _for_.

After a certain level of education we are not training the individual to
optimise their income - we select those who will be paid and supported to do
research to invent the next generation.

We need to grow grad students and professors of every science so that one of
them will have the breakthrough that keeps humankind on an upward trajectory

Ps It's two years old to you, it's brand new to me ;-)

------
jacoblyles
We need to open up the knowledge guild so that people don't have to get a PHD
to participate in new research. Open Access to scientific journals is a good
first step.

~~~
dumitrue
There's absolutely no requirement to have a PhD to participate in research
(grad students would never get to publish, though I understand this is not
what you meant). When you submit an article to a journal or a conference (at
least in my field), you don't get to (or have to) expose your credentials. In
fact, a lot of times the submissions are double-blind so the reviewers don't
even get to see your name or your institution.

If you have a crazy idea and the peer reviewers find it worthwhile publishing,
it'll make it into publication even if you don't have a GED.

Open Access is a completely orthogonal issue to this.

~~~
wmf
If you can't read the literature because it's behind a paywall that you can't
afford, it's very likely that any papers you write will be rejected for poor
form, lack of proper citations, and possibly being entirely redundant. I think
there are much bigger problems trying to perform research outside "the
system", but access to the literature is an issue.

~~~
anologwintermut
Most research papers are findable via Google. Authors post them online. The
better argument for open access is merely that universities shouldn't be
paying for or private parties profiting from providing access to publicly
funded research

Often times, the knowledge guild is actually never put down on paper. You,
sadly, need to be at a university where people are working on what you want to
be able to do anything. Papers are just waypoints.

~~~
vlasev
It's often such a PITA to find free research papers if you don't have access
to the paid journals. If it's just one paper, it's not such a big issue. The
trouble is one of scale. A researcher usually puts a lot of time into looking
for all the references and papers to read. If this researcher doesn't have
direct free access to these papers and has to look them up on google every
time, this increases the overhead significantly. We're talking about dozens of
papers just to get started well on a topic.

Here's an example. When I did math research last summer at my university, I
looked at 16 papers. It took a while to gather these even with my university
account with which I obtained the articles for free. If I had to google every
single article, it would have taken me much more time - at least double if not
triple the time.

------
fein
Well of course! PhD's are in the unfortunate position to be overqualified for
90% of the positions they would apply to, and too much of an education to
leverage for a higher salary. Industry experience is what makes the R&D rooms
at BigCo's tick, and academia doesn't pay that well.

Even a masters in CS is overkill these days. Most employers are looking for
entry level code monkeys in order to underpay, or industry hardened, bitter
individuals to act as leads and seniors (assuming they didn't promote from
within).

I have the opportunity to get my masters in CS for free, but I'm not sure if
the time spent is really worth it. I could either have another expensive piece
of paper, or add more code to my github account for future employment...
Whenever I decide to switch jobs.

~~~
drobilla
> I could either have another expensive piece of paper, or add more code to my
> github account for future employment...

You could always do both. Academics who can actually write good code are a
pretty rare commodity.

~~~
fein
I'm a developer at a state university: Free Tuition.

I feel guilty about not up and doing it already, but I'm only 1 year out of
college, and don't want to go back to that grind just yet.

I really have no excuse aside from "I don't wanna" right now, and that's a
pretty shit reason.

------
p4bl0
"Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time". I admit it, I didn't even read
farther.

Would it even come to mind to people writing this kind of article that one
might do a PhD by passion and interest? If one wants to do research and teach,
on one hand doing a PhD is the (only?) way to start doing this two-sides job
immediately after a master and on the other hand it's the better way to get
this kind of job after?

And even if one doesn't want to pursue a career in academia, one could
perfectly want to do some research in a first time and only after that get a
job in industry. Maybe one doesn't care that he is not paid more than if he
did get a job in industry right after his master, because he did something
that passionated him for a few years in between?

Seriously what's the point of this kind of article? A PhD is a fantastic
adventure! If people want to do a PhD let them. People don't do PhD to earn
more money, that's just a stupid idea.

EDIT: Ah! I'm happy to see that while I wrote this comment a few others with
the same idea were posted :-).

------
smutticus
The only thing this article convinces me of is the shallowness of The
Economist. The University of Pheonix offers PhDs and so does MIT. If the
University of Pheonix starts offering more PhDs each year and MIT keeps
graduating the same number, then according to TFA the USA would be doing
better in terms of PhDs. This is asinine reasoning and does harm to
educational policy in the USA.

PhD programs differ widely between schools and disciplines. If you're going to
pursue a PhD do some investigation. Find out what graduates from the program
are doing now. Do you want to do what they're doing? If so then consider a PhD
from this program. If not then either don't do a PhD or find another program.

------
gcheong
This title hardly seems to reflect the main point of the article which is the
problem of enticing more PhD candidates in order to acquire cheap research and
teaching labor. The fact that they may not earn more than with a Masters was a
fairly minor point.

------
zmmmmm
This doesn't surprise me at all. Most of the high paying jobs in software
development have almost zero academic interest. People with PhDs are
simultaneously far too overqualified academically and underqualified in terms
of raw industry experience to get such jobs.

One of the key reservations that I had before starting my PhD was how much it
would reduce my employment options and limit my earning potential; I did it
anyway. I don't know how things will work out, but I made peace with the fact
that I will in all likelihood be earning less after I get my PhD than I was
beforehand.

------
pgbovine
Since people often ask me this question, here is why I personally pursued a
Ph.D. in CS: <http://pgbovine.net/why-pursue-PhD.htm>

YMMV, though.

------
tychonoff
I obtained a PhD in pure math 30 years ago, and promptly went into computing
with no programming skills.

Mathematics allowed me to see things in a more general light, appreciate the
importance of elegant code, and work on interesting problems that others might
find difficult (eg. graph-theoretic constructions, encryption, etc.).

And it's really nice to formulate and prove your own theorems just to make
your code work.

Putting a $ figure on higher education is like setting the value of a hair
transplant.

~~~
vlasev
The right question to ask yourself is would have your experience been any
different if you worked on a Master's in pure math instead?

------
dcalacci
I think that although this article notes some important disappointments in the
way PhD students are treated, it is speaking to an audience that most likely
doesn't exist.

I don't think it's useful to compare the value of a successful PhD experience
to some amount of money. This is especially true for the people who would be
considering a PhD in the first place.

Whether or not someone pursues a PhD likely comes down to the personal value
they believe they will get from the process, not the projected economic
benefit.

On some level, it makes sense that the majority of PhD-holders do not have a
starting-gate income advantage over BS holders. In recent years, a BS has
become a gateway to the workforce.

I think this is partly because of the ease of hiring it presents to employers.
If someone is a college graduate, that serves as a soft guarantee of ability,
responsiblity, and education.

PhD work is by nature ill-suited to the workforce. Research positions are
rare, and finding an open opportunity that speaks perfectly to a unique
education will be difficult. Hiring a PhD student may only come with the 'soft
guarantee' mentioned above, and little else, if the position does not align
with the students' research.

------
fragsworth
Several possible reasons why there might be too many people getting Ph.D's:

1) It's the only way to get a job in certain really interesting fields

2) Ph.D's garner massive respect from peers

3) Disrespect for industry, there's a perception of tedium, and looking down
on people who are "code monkeys" or "project managers"

4) Some kind of academic momentum - it's socially and psychologically easier
to stay in college/academia than to switch to industry

~~~
vlasev
I have to disagree with you on points 1-3. They are the minor points. I think
number 4 should be on top of your list. Number 4 and then number 3 together
probably make up 90% of the real reason why people end up doing a phd.

~~~
fragsworth
Perhaps. But the minor points are the ones most Ph.D's _will say_ are their
reasons. The last one (social/psychological) is probably the least likely to
be admitted.

------
kirk21
Depends on what topic you are working on. Very often PhD's work on projects
for companies so that they have practical experience as well.

(disclosure: we are working on a tool for academics:
<http://bohr.launchrock.com/>).

------
misnome
If you are doing a PhD in order to earn more, you are doing it for the wrong
reasons.

------
cwhy
Yes, totally agree. Please, smart people who just want to find a good job for
money, do not take PhDs like no-brainers, and leave some vacancies for people
who want to do some real research......

------
suyash
I know some programmers with no college degree at all are making same salary
if not more than programmers that have phd's and the same number of years of
experience.

~~~
tsotha
As someone who has been involved in hiring (and sometimes firing) developers
for a few decades now, I have come to the conclusion whatever value advanced
degrees in CS have for the recipient doesn't translate into making him a more
productive coder. In fact, these individuals tend to get tangled up in trying
to zero in on the best solution for problems instead of the "good enough"
solution that would have taken a fraction of the time.

We don't pay extra for advanced CS degrees. In fact, we prefer to hire people
with EE, physics, and math degrees over CS in general.

------
michaelochurch
Sorry, but I see bad advice here. "Waste of time"? No, it's not.

Academia as a career, unless you're unambiguously one of the top minds of your
generation, is a bad idea. That boat has sailed and sunk.

However, a PhD in math or CS will make you eligible for higher-quality jobs
more quickly than a Master's degree. There's a certain prestige that PhDs have
that someone like me probably won't, and by the time you're 35+, it's almost
impossible to go back, due to a combination of financial problems and
admissions (you're now what is called "non-traditional").

I left a math PhD program for an internship on Wall Street. It was the right
decision for me, especially because it got me on the job market before the
Crash of 2008. Would I recommend that for everyone? No, I wouldn't.

By the time you are 40, whether you have a working brain or not will be a
function of the quality of work you did in your 20s and 30s. If you do a
decade or more of stupid work-- and the work most people get assigned is
that-- you'll have lost your edge. On the other hand, if you keep doing
exciting stuff, you'll be one of the sharpest people out there (and running
circles around young people falling flat on mistakes you've already made). For
your future, _interesting work matters_ , and a PhD is a powerful asset
(though it doesn't guarantee anything) in the battle for the scarce
interesting projects.

~~~
anxx
I find myself agreeing with you on many things. I first noticed your username
after the real-googler discussion and what you saw at Google is so similar to
what I saw in my job in a bank. Without external or positional prestige, there
is little interesting work for even the bright young staff engineers.

~~~
michaelochurch
Valve figured it out: let people move around the company at will.

[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/dont-look-
now...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/dont-look-now-but-
valve-just-humiliated-your-corporate-culture/)

[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-
companie...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companies-
open-allocation-is-your-only-real-option/)

Anything else falls down, both because the interesting work gets hoarded and
distributed as a political token, and because the best people find it easier
(after 3-5 years at most) to leave then to get the work they want internally.

Good companies are out there, but they tend to be slower growing. This ties in
to my r/K-selection analysis of capitalism:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1es505/corporate...](http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1es505/corporate_work_is_the_most_elaborate/ca3od3d)

