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Surprisingly enough not every one of your prof's dozen grad students gets to be a prof. Fortunately there is a use for STEM PhDs outside the lecture hall. It's

Surprisingly enough not every one of your prof's dozen grad students gets to be a prof. Fortunately there is a use for STEM PhDs outside the lecture hall. It's like saying nobody should do math in school because there aren't enough math teacher jobs for every student

greeneggs 14y ago
The difference is that these people have spent large fractions of their lives preparing for careers that they can't get into. And they are generally very smart people, so it is to nobody's benefit for them to waste their time. You might also say, that they are very smart people, so they should know what they are getting into. That's valid, but it takes articles like this to spread the word. Many very respected people are not being fully honest about the situation, including Obama and everyone else at the top. Professors have every incentive to lie to prospective students; they need multiple grants to get tenure and every grant agency wants to be funding multiple students. It is certainly a pyramid scheme. In the short term, it is very efficient, because we get good science done for very little money. But in the long run, it might backfire; I honestly don't know.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  So failure is going to industry and creating technology that makes money and benefits millions. While success is to lock themselves away in a university teaching the next generation of smart people that the only thing they should aim for is to create the next generation of ......
- nn2 14y ago
  Universities are still extremely expensive, just with the people (grad students and post docs) who do most of the actual science getting very little of the money. It's just extremely unfair and calling it a "pyramid scheme" is charitable. Overall universities are just extremely inefficient. Where does all the money go to? The person in the article who went into an administrative job may have been onto something. Part of the problem is also the biology/chemistry bubble. In the 90ies these areas expanded extremely and now they are downsizing to more reasonable levels again. With CS degrees they would be better off.
  - wavesounds 14y ago
    I heard a report on NPR once that mentioned that the increase in "administrators" has been the major driving force in the increase in tuition. The system, hiring its own graduates in order to fudge the employment rate while increasing the cost of tuition to pay for those administrators, seems like a clear Ponzi scheme.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      That's the most infuriating part of it, and lines up with my own experiences in university. During my years there tuition exploded, but the faculty saw little to no additional hiring, and certainly our profs weren't getting major raises. Instead the administration exploded, with new assistants and managers appearing every day. The worst part was that it was still impossible as a student to get anything done. It took me literally 6 months to reschedule an exam (through processes clearly spelled out by school regulations, in fact). This was at the University of Waterloo, FWIW. In the end I had to threaten to sue the school to get them to do anything. In hindsight, it was entirely an empty threat, but it seemed to get me on an escalation chain somewhere. It took an additional month to get the exam set up. I have zero respect for the administration at my alma mater, nor any institution of higher education. As far as I am concerned, they are all leeches, subsisting off the good will and good work of the profs, post-docs, TAs, and students who are actually doing anything. "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" - to this date the post-secondary education system is the most egregious example of this quote I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.
      - rdl 14y ago
        What do university administrators do? Schools seem relatively simple to manage, since most of the labs are small scale enough to run themselves, with the university providing some basic infrastructure.
  - ericabiz 14y ago
    "Where does all the money go to?" Pensions: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-19/university-of-calif-dot-faces-mounting-pension-costs http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-19/university-of-cali... (That's one article about one university system, but most others face similar issues.) I've said it before and I'll say it again: College has become the most effective means of wealth transfer from Generation Y kids to the Baby Boomers...financed by the government, of course.
joshj19 14y ago
While this is true, the article also highlights the fact that many STEM PhDs are forced to work outside of their field, forcing them to throw away years of education. And also consider the statistic that a recent American Chemical Society survey indicated that 38% of new PhD chemists were unemployed.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

greeneggs 14y ago

The difference is that these people have spent large fractions of their lives preparing for careers that they can't get into. And they are generally very smart people, so it is to nobody's benefit for them to waste their time. You might also say, that they are very smart people, so they should know what they are getting into. That's valid, but it takes articles like this to spread the word. Many very respected people are not being fully honest about the situation, including Obama and everyone else at the top. Professors have every incentive to lie to prospective students; they need multiple grants to get tenure and every grant agency wants to be funding multiple students. It is certainly a pyramid scheme. In the short term, it is very efficient, because we get good science done for very little money. But in the long run, it might backfire; I honestly don't know.

excuse-me 14y ago
So failure is going to industry and creating technology that makes money and benefits millions. While success is to lock themselves away in a university teaching the next generation of smart people that the only thing they should aim for is to create the next generation of ......
nn2 14y ago
Universities are still extremely expensive, just with the people (grad students and post docs) who do most of the actual science getting very little of the money. It's just extremely unfair and calling it a "pyramid scheme" is charitable. Overall universities are just extremely inefficient. Where does all the money go to? The person in the article who went into an administrative job may have been onto something. Part of the problem is also the biology/chemistry bubble. In the 90ies these areas expanded extremely and now they are downsizing to more reasonable levels again. With CS degrees they would be better off.
- wavesounds 14y ago
  I heard a report on NPR once that mentioned that the increase in "administrators" has been the major driving force in the increase in tuition. The system, hiring its own graduates in order to fudge the employment rate while increasing the cost of tuition to pay for those administrators, seems like a clear Ponzi scheme.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    That's the most infuriating part of it, and lines up with my own experiences in university. During my years there tuition exploded, but the faculty saw little to no additional hiring, and certainly our profs weren't getting major raises. Instead the administration exploded, with new assistants and managers appearing every day. The worst part was that it was still impossible as a student to get anything done. It took me literally 6 months to reschedule an exam (through processes clearly spelled out by school regulations, in fact). This was at the University of Waterloo, FWIW. In the end I had to threaten to sue the school to get them to do anything. In hindsight, it was entirely an empty threat, but it seemed to get me on an escalation chain somewhere. It took an additional month to get the exam set up. I have zero respect for the administration at my alma mater, nor any institution of higher education. As far as I am concerned, they are all leeches, subsisting off the good will and good work of the profs, post-docs, TAs, and students who are actually doing anything. "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" - to this date the post-secondary education system is the most egregious example of this quote I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with.
    - rdl 14y ago
      What do university administrators do? Schools seem relatively simple to manage, since most of the labs are small scale enough to run themselves, with the university providing some basic infrastructure.
- ericabiz 14y ago
  "Where does all the money go to?" Pensions: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-19/university-of-calif-dot-faces-mounting-pension-costs http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-06-19/university-of-cali... (That's one article about one university system, but most others face similar issues.) I've said it before and I'll say it again: College has become the most effective means of wealth transfer from Generation Y kids to the Baby Boomers...financed by the government, of course.

joshj19 14y ago

While this is true, the article also highlights the fact that many STEM PhDs are forced to work outside of their field, forcing them to throw away years of education. And also consider the statistic that a recent American Chemical Society survey indicated that 38% of new PhD chemists were unemployed.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]