GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).
Well I guess he is right, for every field other then science and engineering. Let's take biology or medical research, you need higher education to work in must industrial labs. It seems that there is a market for that. Or computer science for instance, the market may be tight now, but you can almost always find a job coming out of a Ph. D. program. It may not be the one you want, but there are jobs in industry, government, start-ups, wall street, and academia. For almost any science or engineering field to get the top notch jobs (not just academic ones), you must have a higher degree.
I agree with his point about the humanities. What is a Ph. D. in mid-evil history going to get you if you can't find an academic job? But, a Ph.D. in Bio-engineering will almost always get you a job. I can't blame Prof. Taylor for his opinion, but he is way, way off base. He needs to qualify his opinion for the humanities, and not make sweeping generalizations about graduate education across all fields. The view from the religion department is very different from the view at the computer science department. Perhaps Prof. Taylor should take a walk across the Columbia campus and tour the Mudd building and see what higher education in engineering and science is providing before attacking the system as a whole.
P.S. One of things he wants to get rid of is tenure. Which is odd because he is attacking the very institutions that provide his salary. If he wasn't tenured, do you think he would have the courage to speak this way? It surely would be a conflict of interest. With tenure, no conflict. This whole op-ed is rife with contradiction.
P.P.S And on another point, any worthwhile graduate student, esp. a Ph. D. student, would not have to pay for their education. They will work under a grant that pays their student fees and a stipend, otherwise there is no incentive to go back to school when you can get a job in industry (schools do compete with industry in engineering). Plus, most stipend are sufficient to live on. I for example am not taking on any debt in my pursuit of a graduate degree.
Re: your P.P.S.: Rich institutions like Penn generally can provide student stipends. Smaller, but still highly competitive schools (Tufts, Brandeis, etc. come to mind) have harder times getting grants (b/c their faculties and facilities are smaller), and cannot necessarily cover their grad students. This is particularly true in the humanities.
ReplyDeleteI read the NYT article yesterday. It was quite a downer.
Micah