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> not really, because the people themselves decide to study PhD's > to alter your analogy: imagine there's space for 50 cookies in the cookie jar. 1000 cookie

by ardy42 8y ago

> not really, because the people themselves decide to study PhD's > to alter your analogy: imagine there's space for 50 cookies in the cookie jar. 1000 cookies bake themselves. 950 are going to be disappointed at their outcomes. Yes and no. The people did decide to pursue a Ph.D, but also they have to get accepted into a program to get one. It's like a job: I can choose to work at Google, but I can't unless they hire me. When the Ph.D programs themselves are the only groups that consume their graduates with their credential, they can perfectly balance supply and demand (and pretty simple at that).

marcus_holmes 8y ago
Universities are businesses. They sell qualifications. Their customers are students. If there's demand from their customers for the thing they're selling, then they sell it... they have no idea if the demand for PhDs in that discipline is suddenly going to boom. The example of Data Science is telling: from too many to not nearly enough graduates within a few years. In Australia we had the opposite with geoscience graduates. The mining industry was starved of them, they were earning a fortune the minute they graduated, then suddenly the exploration boom stopped and the place is full of unemployed geologists. How is a university supposed to predict this? And I don't get what the alternative is...? Only having the same number of PhD students as there are tenure places? Refusing to let people start a PhD unless they can prove they have a viable career plan that uses it?
- ardy42 8y ago
  > Universities are businesses. They sell qualifications. Their customers are students. No, sorry. That's wrong, and quite an impoverished way to look at institutions of learning (and many other institutions besides). The "universities" that think as you describe, the for profit colleges, are an unmitigated shit show. Almost all American universities that are worth the name are either explicitly non-profit or literally part of the government. They're not businesses, and for them to act like businesses is a mistake on many different levels. > The example of Data Science is telling Data science is not a purely academic discipline, which was such an important qualifier in my original comment that I italicized it. There's plenty of industry jobs for those skills, so those programs can follow a different path.
  - marcus_holmes 8y ago
    Data Science used to be a purely academic discipline, of interest only to other data scientists, until it proved useful to business. I'll admit that, say, theology or philosophy are probably only ever going to provide a career path in academia. But even then, you never know. And are you really going to say to someone who has a burning ambition to study philosophy "no sorry, we're full, go study something else"?

by ardy42 8y ago

marcus_holmes 8y ago

Universities are businesses. They sell qualifications. Their customers are students. If there's demand from their customers for the thing they're selling, then they sell it... they have no idea if the demand for PhDs in that discipline is suddenly going to boom. The example of Data Science is telling: from too many to not nearly enough graduates within a few years. In Australia we had the opposite with geoscience graduates. The mining industry was starved of them, they were earning a fortune the minute they graduated, then suddenly the exploration boom stopped and the place is full of unemployed geologists. How is a university supposed to predict this? And I don't get what the alternative is...? Only having the same number of PhD students as there are tenure places? Refusing to let people start a PhD unless they can prove they have a viable career plan that uses it?

ardy42 8y ago
> Universities are businesses. They sell qualifications. Their customers are students. No, sorry. That's wrong, and quite an impoverished way to look at institutions of learning (and many other institutions besides). The "universities" that think as you describe, the for profit colleges, are an unmitigated shit show. Almost all American universities that are worth the name are either explicitly non-profit or literally part of the government. They're not businesses, and for them to act like businesses is a mistake on many different levels. > The example of Data Science is telling Data science is not a purely academic discipline, which was such an important qualifier in my original comment that I italicized it. There's plenty of industry jobs for those skills, so those programs can follow a different path.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
  Data Science used to be a purely academic discipline, of interest only to other data scientists, until it proved useful to business. I'll admit that, say, theology or philosophy are probably only ever going to provide a career path in academia. But even then, you never know. And are you really going to say to someone who has a burning ambition to study philosophy "no sorry, we're full, go study something else"?