This topic is fairly personal to me, since - after I got bitten hard by the continental philosophy bug at the age of 18 - I really did aspire to go into academi

This topic is fairly personal to me, since - after I got bitten hard by the continental philosophy bug at the age of 18 - I really did aspire to go into academia and teach it. But I got to the point of applying for PhDs and something of the reality started to dawn, not least that there would be another three years of genteel poverty to endure before there was any hope of a steady job. I had the good fortune to take to programming at that time. The student loan situation is not quite so bad here in the UK (although it is worse now than when I was going through the system). Yet it clearly puts the humanities at a disadvantage. You don't need to have read Toqueville or Heidegger to see that taking on a six figure debt for the slender possibility of a poorly paid and stressful job later is a really bad idea. Add in the 'other' relevant numbers - "how many papers have you published this year?" and friends - and frankly I'm surprised that anyone is left to teach today's students. It sounds miserable, and also -from the student's point of view - must reduce engagement with the material.