Grant McCracken, whose scholarly work sits at the crossroads of economics and anthropology, speculates on why so many people keep going to graduate school when they know there are nowhere near enough academic jobs to accommodate them:

I think itís possible (and without the ethnographic work, I am just speculating) that some people take Ph.D.s that will never bring them academic employment with the full knowledge that it will never bring them academic employment. There are two possible reasons.

First, I think that people raised in the humanities and social sciences in the post modernist regime created by the likes of Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan, are inclined to see the world outside the university as unrelieved by the possibility of interest, hope, curiosity, surprise or engagement. (And here, in too telegraphic summary, is why: the postmodernists say that we canít generalize about the world because our analytic categories are unstable, but, whew, we donít have to because it is all about power. [And you thought I was cynical.]) This is perhaps a Stiglerian ìefficiencyî we have not thought about. The value of the degree is not the employment it is supposed to bring. It is its short-term prolongation of protected status.

Second, I think itís possible (and now I am entirely out on a limb, but surely thatís what blogging is for) that people take Ph.D.s is order to ìspikeî their careers. Once you have a degree in an exalted field (from, one hopes, an exalted school) and no employment, you have established grounds for an act of world repudiation. You can now claim to be worthy of higher things, to have be refused those higher things, to have been forced to retire from the world, and that you are now entitled to nurse, cultivate, and frequently vent an dystopic view. The world has done you wrong. You have replied by withdrawing from it, and no one can blame you. In sum, the value of the degree is that it allows you to disengage from the world with full justification.

Letís go back to the intersection of anthro and econ. Economics goes looking for the actorís rationality, the pursuit of advantage. This is almost always the smart thing to do, and anthropology does it too rarelyÖas if Adam Smithís assumptions are peculiar to our culture and should never be exported in the study of other cultures. Anthropology goes looking for the ways in which people build and embrace ideas about the world. It cares about behavior that is purposive because it makes the world make sense.

And thatís I think whatís going on here. This apparently irrational moment of consumer behavior, the purchase of a Ph.D. that will not bring employment, is actually knowing and deliberate. It is an act of self and world construction. It allows the individual to make certain claims to identity. It allows them to build and to occupy a certain understanding of the world.

McCracken's reflections sidestep the deeply worn grooves of this much-traversed topic by focussing on the Ph.D. not as a professional credential, but as certification for inhabiting the world in a particular (naively disengaged? terminally disgruntled?) way. Looked at that way, the degree is as useful if it doesn't lead to academic employment as it is if it does. Looked at McCracken's way, the degree is a kind of affective license, a lifelong permit to make certain kinds of pronouncements about the world, and to excuse--even dignify--behavioral patterns that tend not to result in the most stable, secure, or happy lives. McCracken's analysis may look cynical on the surface--but it may be more accurate to say that McCracken is proposing that the pursuit of the Ph.D., at least in the humanities and softer social sciences, is itself a deeply cynical act.

I don't think there's much debate that the academic labor crisis is turning academe's youth culture into a culture of cynicism. My hunch is, too, that the affective cynicism that pervades young scholars' sense of their positions bleeds into their attitude toward their work, affecting the topics they choose to study, the kinds of arguments they are interested in making, the nature of their commitment to their work, and so on. I'd love to hear readers' thoughts on this; anecdotes are more than welcome.

One reason behind the academic labor crisis is the reluctance for older faculty (those who have been tenured for 30+ years) to retire. When the senior faculty won't step aside, there is no room for junior faculty to enter academia or climb its ranks.

This is a problem all the way down the line: senior professors who hang on forever retard the pace of intellectual turnover, preventing new ideas from gaining currency in the classroom, for example, or dissauding graduate students from working in emerging areas of a discipline. As the bar is forever raised by those in a (self-interested) position to judge, tenure trackers work ever harder and publish ever more, passing along our well-earned cynicism to graduate students, who see such efforts go unrewarded.

Finally, Kahneman and Tversky won the Nobel Prize in economics for demonstrating that "people are incapable of fully analyzing complex decision situations when the future consequences are uncertain. Under such circumstances, they rely instead on heuristic shortcuts or rules of thumb." Rule of thumb here? Education is always useful.

The PhD as a consumer good? For me, YES, absolutely! I have just completed my sixth year of higher education, and I have signed up for another five years. Why, you ask? I enjoy the freedom of exploring and developing new ideas, learning new languages, reading great books, having quality conversations with my peers, sleeping in, and having time to go to the gym. I can enjoy all of the benefits of retirement while I still have energy and firm skin! The only difference is that instead of spinning tales from my youth I will submit myself to workshop respondents. Certainly, I do hope that my work helps people to see the world in new ways and to understand it better, but no one has that kind of guaranteeónot artists, not school teachers, not analysts. The academy appears to be the better alternative.

Of course, from conversations with my peers and with faculty I understand that one meets many poisonous characters on the road to the PhD, and again later in the upper-ranks of the academy. However, the world outside of the academy is also filled with such characters, so the two worlds are equal as I see them. The work-life balance appears to me to be ultimately the same, so the determining ground becomes ìwhich job is more enjoyable?î Exploring my ideas seems superior, if self-serving (and what choice isnít, Mr. Smith?). This is a rational choice, even if the market suggests otherwise.

When my father asked me what kind of impact the PhD would have on my earning potential I laughed and told him that five years from now I may be making LESS money than I did my first year after graduating from college in 1999óand that was before getting a professional degree! I must admit that there is a bit of a power play involved in my consumption of the PhD, and I agree with McCracken when he says, "This apparently irrational moment of consumer behavior, the purchase of a Ph.D. that will not bring employment, is actually knowing and deliberate. It is an act of self and world construction. It allows the individual to make certain claims to identity. It allows them to build and to occupy a certain understanding of the world." YES. It feels great retiring from the world and thumbing my nose at wealth and gorgeous opportunities, on my terms. I understand that this luxury good carries an appropriate price tag, but as a soon-to-be consumer of the PhD I see it as the deal of a lifetime.

I responded to this elsewhere as well. I think that, in the large part, people do not go into grad school planning not to get a job. Perhaps this is different in English or history -- the fields I've known any significant number of people in (linguistics, psychology, philosophy, chemistry, math, CS) people hope to get jobs. In chemistry and CS it was often industry jobs, but I don't know a single person who went in saying "wow! It'll be so cool to spend 5 years in poverty so that I don't get a job later and can reject the world! What an awesome plan!"

Although some students are well-informed, many aren't. If you're looking to apply to grad school, do you look up what people *leaving* it are saying? How many people in that situation do you know? Your professors are the success stories, as are the grad students you know. If they're TAing, they're usually not at the job search level. You don't really get what adjuncting is, or even how common it it, perhaps. Most professors don't go to their undergrads and say stop. Look at the situation in jobs. Go look up bitter people who are leaving.

And also, many of the people going to grad school were always among the best They were told, often, that when they went to high school or university that they'd have to try so much harder, people there would be smarter than them -- and it wasn't true. Why would it change for grad school?

There are two groups. There are the well-informed applicants and the less well-informed ones (about the job market and attrition, among other things). Looking at why people make this choice without separating these out misses a lot. The answers will differ, as they do for any two people in any case, but just because the former group is taking something into account that the latter doesn't know to.

So among that first group, the ones who know, why do they choose to go anyways? That's a good question. I can't answer it for everyone, but I think that the answer that they choose to do so in order to be rejected so they can reject the world is insulting to them. The other question is really how *many* people are in this situation, going there in full knowledge that there aren't many academic jobs, that there's about a 50% attrition rate overall, etc.

It's well and good to discuss why people make this decision given how few jobs there are, but simplifying the very complex reasons people make these decisions doesn't do any good.

Ah, responding at the same time. But there is a not-so-subtle difference between:

"you can now claim to be worthy of higher things, to have be[en] refused those higher things, to have been forced to retire from the world"

and

"It feels great retiring from the world and thumbing my nose at wealth and gorgeous opportunities, on my terms."

One is about being refused what you want (an academic job), the other about choosing certain things that society says aren't as important at the expense of those they say that are.

"Looked at McCracken's way, the degree is a kind of affective license, a lifelong permit to make certain kinds of pronouncements about the world, and to excuse--even dignify--behavioral patterns that tend not to result in the most stable, secure, or happy lives."

True enough, but hasn't it become standard -- even required -- practice for a professor to pronounce upon matters that fall far outside his or her range of academic specialization? One might argue that we probably shouldn't give special credence to a biology professor's beliefs about George Bush's foreign policy or an English professor's opinions on economic globalization -- but many do, simply because the title "professor" exerts a persuasive authority all of its own, one that automatically accredits any pronouncments made by any particular individual who bears that title. Professors actively encourage the belief that every professor is expert in everything, and that a professorial opinion always carries more weight than that of the educated layman -- even if the professor in question has true expertise only in the novels of Charles Dickens!

As for behavioral preferences, Western culture has long assumed that "intellectuals" are such a rarefied species that they must be forgiven the most absurd interpersonal, sexual, economic, and ideological peccadilloes. Professors certainly model for their students the idea that by attaining a certain intellectual stature, one becomes exempt from the rules that govern the world at large. So in this, we probably should not blame the young without first examining the behaviors and attitudes of those they seek to emulate....

I love the phrase the faux glamour of the ivory tower. Very apt.

http://www.17th-century.info/news/archives/000746.html

I don't know how to use trackback. Sorry. :)

I have another theory regarding the irrational choice of PhD candidates, and it is that it isn't that irrational. The question to ask is "how many humanities PhDs are unemployed for long periods after graduation". My suspicion is that the answer is "not too many". The job market absorbs them one way or another, as academics, journalists, technical writers, HS teachers, whatever. So the risk they are taking is pretty reasonable. I find McCracken's theory charming but I think it applies only for a few misfits.

I went to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in history on the premise that it would be fun and I'd learn things. I was right. Job prospects had absolutely nothing to do with my decision.

I have to agree with the comment by Michael above. I am finishing an English Ph.D. right now. I went to graduate school because I wanted to spend more time learning in an academic setting and enjoy reading, writing, and reflection. I have not enjoyed all my time in graduate school; I found many of my peers, and a fair number of the faculty, to be both intellectually and aesthetically disappointing. But all in all it has been a good experience. I wasn't interested in teaching when I began. I am not interested in teaching now. I find that the credential has been helpful as I have searched for jobs.

So all of us gainfully employed, but non PhDs can't enjoy reading and learning? Get a clue--with the kind of money I make, I can afford to vacation whenever and whereever I like, and someday retire. I'll have a lot more time, in a lot nicer surroundings to enjoy literature and learning while PhDs are trying to shoplift cat food. Staying in school because you want a library card is a great waste of money and time.

I think part of it is the same thing that leads people to buy lottery tickets - the feeling that they're the exception to the rule, that they're going to win over everyone else. Reality and thoughtfulness play little to no part in this kind of decision.

I never suggested that a doctorate is essential for all those out there who enjoy reading, writing, and reflection. Far from it. So quit jumping the gun with your attacks about my cluelessness, Kate. Congratulations on having a nice job and enjoy those vacations. I, and others like me, have made a conscious choice to take another path in life. I haven't done this to set myself apart or to shirk responsibility or whatever else (lottery tickets? Come on!) people seem to think. I made this choice because, for me, culture is what lasts and what matters most. I wanted to involve myself with something I have a great interest in and respect for - to immerse myself in it in depth for an extended period of time. Why do people find this so offensive? Why do so many seem to think it is wrong, perhaps even harmful? Is it the intensity of the interest? If so, why don't you hear the same criticisms of people who are passionate about the work they do in other fields? The truth of the matter is that many people "don't get" the study of the arts. They see it as impractical, as immature, as who knows what else. So be it, I suppose. But I think all of you comfortably employed, reagularly vacationing workers out there forget that it take a lot of courage to decide to undertake a long term project like a doctorate. It's something like running an intellectual marathon. Maybe you don't understand why people would bother to do it... but what's the point of trying to deny the person who undetakes the project his or her sense of accomplishment? Off-putting and mean-spirited, methinks.

I'm not sure I understand the implied link between graduate school (which need NOT be to the PhD level) and academia.

What makes it imperative that a grad school student choose academia as a career? There are hundreds of employers who employ individuals with advanced degrees.

Yes!

The discusssion has so far focused on what we get out of the pursuit of grad degrees and ambitions in careers: salaries, perks, social status, and the like. An intangible in understanding motivation, though, is the sense in which academe is a vocation, a calling, rather than an occupation; it's not so much about what we get out of it, but rather what we can give others through our service as educators. Scoff at such idealistic twaddle if you will, but the concept is time- and socially-honored. It may be a rationalization grounded historically in feudal social systems that gave no honor to mere merchants, but then some folks just find no inspiration in devoting their energies to figuring out ways to separate money from the people who have earned it. (I know, higher ed is just another way of doing the same, but it sounds good.)
I took the chance with eyes wide open, starting a Ph.D. program at age 36, in American history, knowing it was a miserable job market, after a first career (non-lucrative, but extremely fun). Now I shudder at my boldness/folly, but lo, middle-aged white guy gets the only job he applied for, and is quite satisfied in all ways: enough money to live on (with family), much autonomy, the pleasures of the intellectual life, interesting colleagues, and the sense of helping my students, of all ages, mold themselves into better people.

I've been looking a lot at some of the outside issues, for a taxonomy of the various paths. For the most party, though, I see only a few.

Important points:

[quote]" The job market absorbs them one way or another, as academics, journalists, technical writers, HS teachers" ... Posted by Kobi Haron at June 2, 2004 07:27 AM [/quote]

As long as high school teachers make more than the average college professor, that is a good point.

Next:

[quote]"I went to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in history on the premise that it would be fun and I'd learn things. I was right. Job prospects had absolutely nothing to do with my decision." [/quote]

Next:

Most graduate programs are self-financing to the point where most students leave them. If a program finances students through year six, most students last to year six. If a program has grants and TA positions through to graduation, graduation is much more likely.

______________________

With those background points, what do I see?

First, students with clear goals and visualization, leading to solid jobs. The best example is the core of Russian students who enter Business PhD programs instead of MBA programs, with the intent of finishing in three and a half years, and generally making that goal. The average pay coming out of the programs is about 110k a year ... with stipends all the way through.

Second, students who remain in the programs because they are a self-financed path that is enjoyable and rewarded socially. Classic risk and pain avoidance, with strong cultural reinforcement. Typical discounts of risk associated with kids (or why kids are much more likely to start smoking than 30 year olds).

That is really about it. There are subspecies, but talking with kids going into programs, with those who find themselves older, not much wiser, and leaving them, and you get a completely different picture. The blogosphere seems biased by the exiting individuals and scope and scale issues.

If all the old profs who are hanging on because retirement is too expensive and not enough fun were to leave tomorrow, in most fields that would make one years difference. Then the cycle would be right where it is today.

If all the adjuncts became tenure track, making $32k a year (assuming the budgets could take it and that there would be a way to finance the current group of students with TA positions to finance them through school) ... that would take care of another year's crop.

The oversupply is massive, endemic and systemtic.

The issues are not limited to academics, when you look at paths that seem to lead somewhere but don't go as advertised.

The Harvard Law School Class of '75 and the Class of '85 are the subject of an ongoing study by the Wall Street Journal (to be joined, I expect, by the class of '95).

At the ten year reunion for '75, all of the graduates had made partner (gotten tenure). At their twenty year reunion, the comparable class of '85 had no one who had made partner that the reporter was able to find. The partnership track in the kind of firms he was following had gone from 6 years to 11 years -- and from close to 100% to less than 10%.

Much of this is the fruit of egalitarianism combined with massive increases in graduate schools of all sorts (law school graduates have probably tripled in number since '65).

In other areas, there are serious issues. Studies of MBA students in "real" programs (a "real" MBA program requires at least a year or two of real world work experience of all applicants) reflect that the net change in income for getting an MBA is currently 0 (zero). It is an occassional topic at the Academy of Management (and it may have changed, I was only current as of three years ago).

There are a lot of ways to look at the WWII generation, especially as they prepare to bankrupt the country with entitlement programs that will create crippling deficits, but they seem to have mastered various forms of pyramids -- without intending to -- that generate benefits for the top while tapping the energy and work of those below.

It makes for a fascinating view, especially since there does not seem to have been any planning or agenda setting for most of the process, but it seems to have spread across most areas of life in the United States.

Far beyond what I was posting about.

What creates buy-in? Aside from the fact that in some areas and with some people the system works (heck, for a lot of us it seems to end up working)? Aside from the fact that things may yet work out (but oh, for a fiscal conservative running for president, I've a Republican co-worker who admitted she would vote for Bill Clinton to come back for that very reason)?

Interesting question.

Sheesh, I'm tired. Seperation anxiety, etc. (we've a child on a trip, the first time, and have the jitters).

I'm usually not this gloomy.

Ok, I have to weigh in here. I belong to the group of PhD students who knew going in what their prospects were like. I got an MA first to make sure I really wanted to do this. I also taught as an adjunct before starting my doctoral program. I'm getting a philosophy degree and have a teaching fellowship and an adjunct position. So I know exactly what the real world situation is, in addition to the research I did and continue to do. I have a good chance at getting a tenure track job because there are so few women in my field, especially with my specialization. I'm not worried about it. And if I don't get a job then I'll deal with it and find something else to do.

The main reason I'm 'buying the degree' is because of my passionate love for philosophy. I don't want to do anything else. I want to spend my days reading it, discussing it, teaching it and writing it. I'm pretty good at the teaching part and LOVE it. I can't imagine another career being as fulfilling. So, it's worth all the risks. And yes, I do think I'll beat the odds because I'm damned stubborn and I don't fail. I'm already teaching with only a masters completed.

Yes, I'm also retiring from the business/economic world. Not for the glamor of the ivory tower or out of rebeliousness but because the business world feels and looks like a prison to me. I've had 'real' jobs and they drove me insane. I can't live that kind of 9-5 paperwork shuffling, money-making life. My talents are of the intellectual variety so what is wrong with trying to have a career that suits my personality? I wish I could go to law school and make 125K and live a 'normal' life. But it's beyond my capacity to do so. I'd find myself so depressed that I'd lose any job I could manage to get. This isn't immature rebelliousness. I considered going to law school and worked for several law firms. That career does not suit me and I'm no good at it. My choice was fully informed and rational. Why is it so unfathomable that some people care more about how they spend their working hours(doing what they love and enjoy)rather than chasing the all-holy dollar?

Yet another beautiful comment by JL above.

Thanks, Phil.
I'd also like to add a bit about something that's been rattling around my mind for while. I think an acadmic career is akin to an artistic one. It requires the same degree of passion for one to sacrifice so much for something risky and not financially lucrative. The grad students who don't have that burning passion (and the artists) are the ones who will always drop out, quit or fail.

Aspiring to become an actor, artist, writer or other such 'irrational' and 'immature' career is not understood by people who don't have the passion for it. The ones who succeed are the ones who 'have to do it' because they can't be happy otherwise. I've heard many artists talk about their careers this way. They feel like they don't even have a choice. They are artists and they have to do their art even if it means living in poverty. For them, it is irrational to choose a financially secure 9-5 life of misery. I think the same can be said for many academics.
Are artists criticized the same way grad students are in the above essay? I think they usually are but most people excuse it because artists are supposed to be irrational and eccentric. So what is the difference? Scholars make a career out of their rationality, they're ability to reason and write and argue. Perhaps it is this seeming inconsistency that upsets people? (Getting a PhD is irrational so these people who claim to be rational thinkers and get paid to think must have something else wrong with them.) But, to the academic and the artist, they have made the rational choice for themselves. It appears irrational to others because they have different priorities from the norm. Just a thought.

JL, I like a lot of what you have to say, but I've known too many actor types. A good friend acted, directed some movies, got an offer of steady employment directing Italian movies and decided to go to law school. Did well, made it to faculty status and became disabled, and is now retired on disability.

I've also seen a lot of people who were passionate about fantasy roleplaying games and games in general, some of whom decided to follow their passion.

Some succeed, Sandy Petersen (a nice LDS guy, his wife is the relief society president in his ward) makes more money a year than his MD father. A lot just do pathetic work (ok, I don't respect their art, guess I have to admit it) and barely hang on.

I think it is much more complicated than a theory of natural merit based on purity of passion and dedication would imply. Not that I don't see a lot of psuedo and neo-calvanism.

The sort of thing "you can tell the elect by their success, and being elect means" "chosen of God" or "possessed of sufficient passion" or "subject to obsessive-compulsive issues" or "self-centered on their own desires" etc. Different metrics for different viewers.

I do think that academic pursuits, especially if one is in a solid program and with intelligent planning (like you seem to have -- the right field of study, a top 20 sort of program, etc.) make good sense, especially as they are basically self-financing.

On the other hand, MLA types from bottom 50% programs are just being turned into academic by-products at an alarming rate. I see the same thing with law schools in the bottom 25%.

I worked with a sharp attorney, but she had graduated editor on the law review of a poorly regarded program. Her career path was insurance claims adjuster to paralegal to assistant attorney to attorney (when she had been out of school long enough no one cared what program she had been in, only what her last job was).

I work with some claims adjusters who have J.D. degrees and either could not find work or who could find work in the 13K a year or so realm that awaits many. Obviously, even surviving as a T.A. and working through graduate school does as well as that, and working as a claims adjuster does even better.

On the other hand, I know of claims people in some areas who leave to become medical coders. That pays $14 to $20 an hour in Dallas.

So, migration, decisions, natural merit, etc., all seem to play into decisions, but I don't see a desire to become permanently disaffected as a moving force, though it made for a great discussion thread.