"The reality is that less than half of all doctorate holders — after nearly a decade of preparation, on average — will ever find tenure-track positions" That d

"The reality is that less than half of all doctorate holders — after nearly a decade of preparation, on average — will ever find tenure-track positions" That doesn't sound too bad at all. Presumably some percentage of doctorate holders do not want "tenure-track positions." Some might be good at things other then academia to which their academic expertise is useful. Some are probably already wealthy or old & do not want to work full time. Some are just not very good at being academics. You have that in every field regardless of training. Being a history researcher is probably a less wonderful career path then Laws or engineering but I assume the students know this going in & prefer history anyway. Besides, I know several PHDs working as academics with comfy 6 figure jobs that I would never hire for anything. This article seems to be assuming that all PHD candidates are all of the highest "quality" and that even the bottom 10% would be flying high anywhere else and are wasting their talents in Academia. That's just not true. I'm sure that many are. These get their cushy professor jobs or do something else that they like.