> I always saw it as a really good deal to be getting paid to go to school! Ugh. You and I both know that PhD students spend very little time in coursework, a

> I always saw it as a really good deal to be getting paid to go to school! Ugh. You and I both know that PhD students spend very little time in coursework, and that the quantity and quality of that coursework in nowhere near the differential in their earnings. You later mention Software Engineering. Those jobs can be had with a BA/BS and no graduate coursework. So the earning differential is what? Lowest end 30K/yr and up to 100K/yr? Over 5 years, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's WAAAY more graduate coursework that the typical PhD student takes during their program. And that's assuming the employee pays for coursework. Do you know what I pay my "junior employees who just finished undergraduate"? At least six figures. AND our company pays tuition if they decide they want to take some graduate coursework. Which isn't exactly a rare benefit. I'm also highly confident I do a better job at mentoring than a huge portion of R1 faculty. Many of my direct reports have more first author papers than the average PhD candidate. Pay your junior employees what they're worth. Or, if you can't, at least pay into their federal disability/uneumployment insurance so that if they get hit by a bus and can't work they aren't completely fucked! Or, if you can't do either, at least be honest about how horridly exploitative the situation is, both with them and with yourself. Again, if R1 professors are not exploiting these poor kids, then why are R1 professors the ONLY mid-level managers in the entire country whose direct reports don't receive unemployment insurance? Seeking out the only exemption in the entire country to paying your direct report's Social Security, Disability, and Unemployment is absolutely absurd and horridly unethical if you stop and think about it for even a second. I don't know how people who work in the academic industry are able to convince themselves that what they are dong isn't reprehensible. I guess if you're smart enough it's easy to talk yourself into anything. > The several that I know do this by helping them find jobs --after-- before they are done. That's totally irrelevant. It's the years of absurdly underpaid labor that I would feel guilty about, not the job prospects at graduation. > And if the jobs are outside of academia, they are usually well paying (engineering, or software engineering etc, in the defense industry). I find that most academics who say this are full of shit and did very little to actually help their students find employment. I once had a conversation with a math professor who told me that he tells his phd grads to just "go into finance" if they can't find an academic job. This was in 2009. That aside, all of those jobs are available by simply dropping out after year two with a masters degree. Or, often, right after undergraduate. Again, I don't get how academics look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I'm glad I turned down the R1 TT.