
The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps - mikecane
http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/
======
dalke
When I was in physics grad school, some 20 years ago, I was paid $11K/year. As
a single male with no dependents, living in a room which cost $200/month, and
walking distance from classes and work, it was quite doable. Others, married
and/or with children, had it more complicated. Some students did get welfare.
The plan was that after graduation we would have access to much better paying
jobs. But some of my friends, PhD trained in chemistry or physics, still found
it difficult to find a job in their chosen profession. Many ended up with
postdoc positions, making more than the adjunct professors mentioned here, but
still with little money and little job security.

One may say they have "zero pity for highly educated people who do not
understand the basics of supply and demand in their chosen job market" - and
bear in mind that I'm talking here about people trained in the sciences, and
not humanities which is oft smirked at for its dearth of job prospects. But
the thing is, we as people get to decide what failure means. We don't need to
let one bad choice prove ruinously disastrous.

As jseliger's link points out, I, as a 21 year old who outside of a few summer
jobs had never been outside of the academic environment, really did not
understand the job market and options available to me, so made my decision on
rather limited information. I hadn't even realized, for example, that graduate
schools paid TA salaries. I thought I would have to apply for scholarships
like I did for my undergraduate education.

It worked out well for me, but it also felt like a lot of chance was involved.
Lady Luck could easily given a worse roll. I do not see my success as purely
my own achievement. I do not want my failures to be my own cross to bear, and
nor would I wish that on others.

Yes, I believe in funding a strong social safety net.

------
scarmig
This article is tailor made for a lot of Nelson Muntz-ish "HAHA"s.

1) Gloating over your own skills being in demand can be short-sighted. How
many of the people here were thinking, "wow, I'm really passionate about
medieval history, but I'll go into software development because that's where
the big bucks are?" I'd hazard to say none: people choose to do what they
enjoy, not what will make them money. Just because your passion happened to
line up with today's market discipline doesn't mean that anyone whose passions
aren't in that same direction are fools. (And do you really want a bunch of
people who have no innate skills in programming flocking to IT and CS in the
hopes of cashing out?)

2) That said, I'm not massively sympathetic toward her. Lots of people don't
have the ability to easily cease living off food stamps: she could find a job
to catapult her into the middle class in a matter of months. It's a choice on
her end. Though, it's not even clear that it's a poor choice, since she gets
to do what she loves and has enough money plus entitlements for food, shelter,
and medical care.

3) But to tease out some points even further... most people are more
interested in pissing on her choices than in figuring out how they can use her
situation to better the world. Wait, (ostensibly) great teachers in obscure
topics are out there in abundance working only a couple hours a week?
Shouldn't we be spending more time wondering "Is there an opportunity here?"
than wondering if her choices make her education worthless or if she deserves
our pity or not?

~~~
phamilton
I don't think people only have one passion. I personally have a passion for
pure mathematics and number theory. My passion for software and hardware comes
in a close enough second that I chose to focus my career on development rather
than pure mathematics.

I was all set to double major in mathematic when I got married. When my wife
and I had our first kid I decided to finish up a Computer Engineering degree
and enter the workforce rather than take an extra year to finish the math
major.

Sometimes you have to find something you enjoy enough. I absolutely enjoy
programming, but it still doesn't come close to how fascinating I find number
theory.

Everyone has options, and they make (or should make) their choices fully aware
of the likely outcomes.

~~~
dxbydt
i read the article twice. something in it really hit home with me. i have an
offer from a prof at the local univ to pursue a math phd, and i might do so in
the fall. my employer is ok with it, so i get to keep my job as well. however,
its a fairly useless part of math ( useless in the GH Hardy sense ) in
commutative algebra, specifically prufer groups (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCfer_group> ) Now, I could do something
"useful" and closer to finance, like stochastic calculus and stats and applied
pdes & so forth...but my heart's not in those things. it feels like what i do
anyway at work, so why would i do more of the same out of choice ? some of the
comments below make me quite queasy. see, supply-demand is not a normative
ideal. "One of the things you are are supposed to learn in economics is to
avoid extremes. It is never all or nothing. Everything has advantages and
disadvantages. And any way you jump has an opportunity cost because there are
lots of things you would like to do with your limited means. So life is about
trade-offs between rival objectives and you should optimise rather than
maximise. " - so said Ross Gittins, and there's much more where that came
from.

so this supply-demand thingy - its just something that happens to accurately
describe the current state of the world, or more particularly the usa,
especially in a bubble where it is infinitely more preferable to drop out of
college and pursue ruby on rails than stick it out for a lousy diploma with
your name on it. but if an athlete wanting to compete in the olympics
mistakenly walked into a circus and started jumping through hoops, the crowd
would throw coin at him. he can then collect that coin & settle down, get
married, raise a family, get a drivers license, buy an automobile, pay
municipal state and federal taxes & so on. but that just means he's become a
clown, not an athlete. it is unfortunate that athletics is non sexy and
training to be one involves grueling practice for years and years in isolation
with no attention, no fame, no coin. but to dodge that work and passion
because of what society chooses to value at a particular point in time is
quite defeatist. none of what we do in cs today would have been considered
useful in the 20s and 30s. church and turing would have clearly been better
off working in the railroads or digging an oil well. yet they did what they
did, and here we are... so, respect. you never know what the future holds for
medieval history or english literature. i spent 3 semesters as a film major
before i dropped out, and i must say it was a royal blast. repeatedly watching
blondes strip and run towards the beach in their red bikinis while their
breasts bobbed up and down, and the professor of film studies pausing the
remote at the critical instant when a tad bit of cleavage was visible and
saying "hey, _this_ is why baywatch was a hit" and all of us students
scribbling down "must place camera on sand level and tile up to show cleavage
in beach shots" - i mean, nothing beats that. no amount of fancy research in
STEM will match the pure adrenaline that passes for film studies. so there's a
reason people in their youth pursue these non-lucrative fields, so lets not
rain on their parade.

~~~
phamilton
Completely true. My argument isn't to avoid the one thing you are truly
passionate about. It's to understand the realistic results of that pursuit. If
I hadn't gotten married while still in school I probably would have gotten the
double major and perhaps gone to graduate school in mathematics. But my
priorities shifted. I found choosing a close runner up in order to better my
family life to be superior. Just as I would probably pass up on a promotion
that would require me to travel 30% of the time. For me my family is a
passion. For other people, having a nice house and nice toys is a passion. As
you said, it's all about optimizing rival objectives. For me that optimization
between my interests and having a family is software development. That is
purely from my perspective, but it's a choice I have made and there are
consequences of that choice, both seen and unforeseen.

And that's the point. Once we make a choice, we must accept the consequences.
The article indicates there was some sort of agreement between life and
students that says "If you study hard and get an advanced degree you won't
have financial troubles." Since that wasn't the case, the world seems unfair.
There is no such agreement. I'm not raining on the parade of students studying
things that interest them. I feel strongly that their studies are beneficial
and they become better people and better members of society because of them.
But they were never promised financial success and not having it is not a
breach of contract in any way shape or form. That's why this article rubs this
crowd the wrong way.

------
sadlawyer
This isn't the half of it. Many PhD programs are funded, and most people going
into them know they're studying things for the joy of learning about them and
are not necessarily going to find work easily, especially at lower ranked
schools.

Try going to one of the top ten law programs, taking out an enormous amount of
debt, dealing with 3 years of opportunity cost etc., in what's supposed to be
a professional program that tracks you onto finding good paying work, and then
finding out no one wants your professional services.

Not whining ... I made my bed, it's made of student loan bills, I've got to
sleep in it. But you can be damn well sure that I shout from the rooftops
about the very dubious investment proposition that even "elite" educational
programs offer these days...

------
javert
_Ms. Bruninga-Matteau does not blame Yavapai College for her situation but
rather the "systematic defunding of higher education."_

In fact, it is the systematic _overfunding_ of higher education that has led
this person to getting a degree that is worthless.

Plus her own poor choices, of course.

~~~
WalterSear
Choices, in her partial defence, she did not make in a vacuum.

I'm willing to gamble that at least one person indoctrinated her with 'follow
your dreams, and the money will come'.

------
phamilton
I think the underlying assumption in the article is that people who get an
education are more entitled to a high paying job than those who don't have
such an education.

That entitlement is a huge question. Why should they be entitled to higher
paying jobs? Because they worked hard to get there? I used to work 12 hour
days as a construction worker making $10/hour. I work half as hard as a
programmer as I did as a construction worker, yet I earn 8 times as much. In
the 4 years of school it took to get here, I can't even pretend that I worked
harder than my former colleagues did. Clearly how hard we work isn't the only
factor in our wages.

So what is this entitlement based on? I'm not asking what wages should be
based on. We almost all agree that you should be paid according to the value
you add. My question is why it is (or why is it supposed to be) surprising
that someone with a PhD in medieval studies can't find work. What is the
assumption by the general public based on?

~~~
Cadsby
I'd substitute the word "entitlement" with "expectation". And it's not hard to
see why they'd have it. I'm 29, and I can clearly remember getting the message
from every corner of society that more education = higher income/earning
potential. From every teacher, guidance counselor, and regular adult in my
life the message was the same. College education means financial security.

------
yummyfajitas
The racial overtones of the article confuse me - should I be more sympathetic
because the literature professor is white?

~~~
scarmig
That's what immediately jumped out at me. Which is sort of funny, because the
majority of people on Medicaid are white, IIRC.

I attribute it to, on the reporter's part, two parts laziness to one part
subconscious racism.

~~~
Cadsby
I think the article was seeking to address the widely held view that the vast
majority of public assistance recipients are black, and relatedly that they're
lazy, uneducated (by choice), and all around primarily responsible for our
nation's financial problems.

Of course this has never been true, and part of the point of the article was
that it's even less true today. Perception is very important in how people
view these issues. When people see someone they can relate to, someone that
looks like them, or their sibling, parent, next door neighbor, etc., it
becomes a lot harder to sit in judgment and be morally dismissive of their
circumstances.

I've lived in various parts of middle America, Tennessee, South Dakota,
Montana, and many of these people feel these programs should be abolished
exactly because of this misperception. Of course when you point out that their
grandma, or auntie or cousin is on Medicare, food stamps, etc., their
immediate response is - "Well I'm a hard working, Christian American, I
deserve these things. It's those OTHER people who are the problem."

------
YuriNiyazov
Does it make me a bad human being if I feel zero pity for highly educated
people who do not understand the basics of supply and demand in their chosen
job market?

~~~
sparsevector
I think the problem is more complicated than basic supply and demand. There is
a lot of demand for college education. Enrollment is higher than it has ever
been, and the people profiled in this article have jobs. The problem is that
in order to cut cost colleges are hiring more and more adjunct professors as
opposed to full-time, tenure track professors. It's not uncommon for these
adjunct professors to take on jobs at multiple community colleges in order to
make enough. The end result is that they are doing as much or more work than a
full time professor but for less pay.

~~~
wtvanhest
It is still over supplied. If it weren't then colleges would be forced to hire
tenure track professors to fill the positions since there wouldn't be enough
people to teach.

~~~
jbooth
Oversupplied compared to what? Just because there's no immediate industrial
benefit to medieval studies doesn't mean that there's no overall societal
benefit from liberal arts programs.

If you took a strict Econ 101 view of this, there would be no medieval studies
professors in the whole country.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
"If you took a strict Econ 101 view of this, there would be no medieval
studies professors in the whole country."

I don't believe that. (note that I am the guy who originally made the "zero
pity" comment) Knowing how society developed from medieval times into the
Renaissance is very valuable, especially from the point of view of someone who
studies history of technology, markets, and means of production. Within that
context, there is most definitely demand for professors of medieval studies.

The conversation really is about how there isn't enough demand for dozens of
medieval studies experts every year. Perhaps there would be demand for a dozen
every five years or so.

~~~
jbooth
Ok, so a dozen every 5 years, according to who? Nobody pays specifically for
medieval history education, it's usually part of a larger liberal arts
program, so there's pretty much zero Econ 101 factors in play as far as the
employment of medieval history experts.

Your contention that we're producing a couple too many, ok, I can buy that.
But the people in the article have jobs -- and it doesn't seem to stand that
the depts in question would pay more for medieval history experts if there was
a smaller pool of talent.

~~~
wtvanhest
There is some demand, that is why they exist at all. Most likely from people
who want to study it and don't care about the financial repercussions later.
Not all demand is created by rational buyers.

The bottom line is that if the price is low there is high supply relative to
low demand. Econ 101 factors are always "at play". While a more advanced econ
class may explain more complex pricing concepts, it really isn't necessarily
here since this basically a classic econ 101 example.

What is even more interesting is that every time someone graduates with a
history PhD they are in a position where they either go in to the field where
their low paid professors already work or go to a different job. The ones that
don't want food stamps take the second choice.

Those people who decide to sacrifice for the first 3 or 4 years out of the
program and take jobs to get experience in a new field which can yield higher
pay later will make more than those that stay in low demand history PhD
positions in academia.

------
dbecker
They make it sound like a new development, but this has been the Chronicle of
Higher Education's bread-and-butter topic for a long time.

I somehow got on their mailing list during grad school, and I've received
regular updates about the supposed oppression of the worlds PhD's and graduate
students ever since.

------
vectorpush
Supplemental skills are essential, even for us fancy-pants code warriors. On
the day they were awarded their degrees, the half dozen buddies I have who
graduated as computer science majors could barley fizz-buzz their way out of a
shot glass; it took a lot of studying, experimentation, and self-direction
_outside_ the classroom before they really came into their own as valuable
professionals.

Software is a lucrative career path, but a college education from most
universities is almost worthless on its face. Degree holders with a dim
economic outlook need to consider the value in supplementing their education
with a skill set that allows them to capitalize on their specialized
knowledge.

------
cageface
These people could come to SE Asia and actually make _more_ money teaching
basic English, in cities where the cost of living is 1/4th or less that of any
US city. The English teachers I talked to in Hanoi said they couldn't spend
their entire salary there if they tried.

------
ja27
Can't help noticing that she's unpacking her food stamp purchases in front of
a $300 KitchenAid mixer.

------
pchivers
Obligatory Thomas H. Benton link:

 _Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go_
<http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the/44846>

------
castillo157
What? No one needs an expert in medieval studies?

~~~
tzs
There's a Nova episode about the effort to prove that a portrait was a lost da
Vinci.

An important part of the investigation was Elisabetta Gnignera, a costume
historian and expert in renaissance hairdos, identifying the bound ponytail of
the girl in the portrait as being a style that only ever became prominent in
Milan, and only for a few years--the same years when da Vinci served the Milan
ruling family as artist and engineer.

I thought it was cool that there are people who are experts in renaissance
hairdos--and that their knowledge can actually be put to practical use.

(There is much more than the hairdo evidence to tie the painting to da Vinci.
It's worth watching the Nova episode if they show it again. The combination of
historical research and modern scientific analysis was quite intriguing).

------
rsanchez1
"...with a Ph.D. in medieval history..."

Say no more.

She's just lucky she had a Republican governor to blame for her economic
situation.

"Some are struggling to pay back student loans and cover basic living expenses
as they submit scores of applications for a limited pool of full-time academic
positions."

That's the real problem right there. If she went into higher education
expecting to make a comfortable living from it, she should've checked her
prospects first. I can't imagine there would be very many opportunities for a
medieval history doctorate.

