Did anyone even bother checking the author's numbers or methods? My biggest problem with this series of articles is that it's largely based on the "No commitme

Did anyone even bother checking the author's numbers or methods? My biggest problem with this series of articles is that it's largely based on the "No commitment" answer to a questionnaire given to postdoctoral students. His "Nothing" section is actually "No definite commitment for employment or postdoctoral study" ( here http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2011/pdf/tab42.pdf http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2011/pdf/tab42.pdf ) which: "Includes respondents who indicated "other" in all years and respondents who indicated "do not plan to work or study" in 2006 and 2011. Also includes 715 respondents for 2011 who indicated definite plans for "other full-time degree program." That 715 is 1.5% total, or 25% of the 6% difference between 2006 and 2011. I spent nearly all my time between 2006 and 2009 around grad students (mostly physics, but bio and engineering too). There was a fundamental shift in thinking in 2008, both for grad students and professors. Professors could keep grad students working after their PhD was conferred, in a position somewhere described as between a postdoc and student for a year or two, a longer holding pattern - because people were having a hard time finding jobs. This goes double for international students. According to this ( https://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/ https://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795... ), 23000 more doctoral students are receiving some sort of financial aid from the government than in 2007. Even if those numbers are increasing, the total percentage of people with a masters or higher is only 1.5% of the apparent population. According to BLS, there's ~3.2 million people with a PhD. That means there was an increase of people, from ~.3% to ~1% of total people applying for aid. (I'm probably off by a little bit because I'm using numbers from different years and estimating, but not by a factor of 2) So, we had an increase of 20,000 people applying for some sort of aid between 2007 and 2011 with a PhD. Cumulatively, if we were assuming that increase was purely from new grads and accurately portrayed the unemployment of a new grad, that would mean an increase of 5k year over year, or 11% of new graduates. But to say that was all new graduates would be doing quite a disservice: There has been major cuts in research at national labs, universities, and all sorts of other publicly funded institutions. I'll admit, finding the right job is probably harder and takes longer today than in 2006/2007. I agree that we have much more foreign students who have a harder time figuring out what they will do after graduation, because of problems with visas and money. But at 2.5% unemployment and a median salary 50% higher than a bachelors degree, ( http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm ), I think it's hard to argue there's PhD bust. If I had more time I'd delve into this deeper, but I got to get back to science...