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I don't think the real issue is saturation. The problem is that universities aren't interested in tenured positions. So if you want to teach your only option is

• thedufer 11y ago
  Aren't you just saying that the field of tenured professors is saturated? That is, there are more people looking for such jobs than there are available.
  • karmajunkie 11y ago
    It's a lot more complicated than merely a blanket statement of "saturation". The entire industry has changed in some pretty fundamental ways in the last 15 years, and for many if not most of the academics caught up in this, it did so well after they were committed to the endeavor. The problem is not one of just saturation but exploitation of cheap labor caused by artificially constraining the demand (in this case, tenured professorships). Would you say that the market for software developers after the first dotcom implosion was merely saturated and all the out of work devs had chosen careers poorly, joining a saturated market? The two phenomena are not dissimilar.
    • thedufer 11y ago
      > Would you say that the market for software developers after the first dotcom implosion was merely saturated Yes, I sure would. > all the out of work devs had chosen careers poorly, joining a saturated market? I would, although obviously only of the devs who had decided on the job after the crash (given how short it was, this applies to very few). Tenured professorship, on the other hand, has been in decline for a long time and clearly not a good financial choice for close to a decade, if not longer.