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Will PhD training eventually scale to allow for more people to participate in research?

• jonathanstrange 4y ago
  That's a strange question because academia is totally overrun with people looking for postdoc positions. I've served in committees and issued calls. There are dozens to hundreds of candidates for every postdoc position, and at least half of them (usually most of them) are so qualified that they could even count as overqualified. It's painful to write the rejection letters, sometimes I even had to include a personal remark to emphasize that it was an extremely close call and that their application and CV were flawless.
  • neodypsis 4y ago
    Perhaps you are from a top institution, so, naturally, you'll get a lot of high-quality applications; which in turn influences your perspective. But in the grand scheme of things, the total number of PhD students must be very limited. There's certainly more demand than supply for such training. If there's an over supply of overqualified postdocs, maybe they could help train new PhDs?
    • jonathanstrange 4y ago
      > If there's an over supply of overqualified postdocs, maybe they could help train new PhDs? Why? That would merely increase the number of unemployed postdocs. There are already too many people with a PhD, not too few.
      • neodypsis 4y ago
        Not necessarily. Not all PhD holders want to become postdocs. Why restrict supply artificially?
  • dagw 4y ago
    There are dozens to hundreds of candidates for every postdoc position Are you at a University people will recognise the name of (perhaps even internationally)? I have a friend at a small department at a smaller university and his department sometimes struggles to even get 2 or 3 actually qualified candidates to their postdoc applications.