Blogs and Stories
Is a GED More Valuable Than a PhD?
In an economy where everyone is overqualified, having an advanced degree is virtually worthless.
For six years, Rebekah slaved at Boston University for her PhD in American Studies. Her plan: work in New York as a museum curator. She pictured chatty, engrossing interviews with like-minded creative types. “Everyone would be so pleased” with her PhD, she thought. Yet eight months after graduating, Rebekah is unemployed and considering a gig at a public library that requires only a GED.
The demand for humanities PhDs has long been tight—for four decades, the number of jobs requiring them hasn’t kept pace with the number of people earning them. But by all indications, recent university hiring freezes and evaporating grant money have reduced the world’s most elite degree to junk-bond status.
“I have thought, ‘Am I going to have to be a waitress?’ Everyone in the field thinks about what else they can do.”
On the Modern Language Association’s Job Information List, a bellwether for PhD employment trends, the number of job postings is down 21 percent, the steepest decline in the list’s 34-year history. One attendee of last month’s annual MLA convention in San Francisco, where doctorate graduates can score interviews for tenure-track professorships, found the event rendered “somber” by the scarcity of opportunities. The same air permeated last week’s American Historical Association conference. “Job candidates who a year ago had goals of four or five interviews here were thrilled to have one,” reported InsideHigherEd.com.
“This is certainly the largest dip [in jobs] we’ve seen, percentage-wise, since we began tracking in the 1970s,” says Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA. “It really is disheartening to see so many well-prepared people in search of so few jobs.”
Rebekah could be a poster child for the current PhD despondency. She’s written more than a hundred networking and cover letters during her eight-month job search, and trolls 44 employment websites on a daily basis. Three jobs that fit her specialty recently opened—then two of them were canceled when grant money dried up. “I went in for the interviews, then got word that the searches had stopped,” Rebekah says. “I do have moments of regretting [getting a PhD] because now I’m applying for assistant curator jobs that I could’ve gotten beforehand.”
She even applied for a job as an archivist for the Girl Scouts of America. “As a kid, I was kicked out of the Girl Scouts, which I obviously didn’t mention in my letter,” she says. “I never heard back. It was probably obvious that we weren’t exactly a match.”
“It took six years to write my dissertation, but getting employed feels impossible right now. There’s something a little sick about that,” says “Liz,” another freshly minted PhD who didn’t want her name used. After spending a decade earning her English PhD at UC-Berkeley, she began her job search in September by applying for 40 different tenure-track positions; she’s since received notice that those searches have been canceled. “There are a lot of folks in despair. Several PhDs I know are in counseling.”
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Here's a tip: Prison guards in California earn in the six figures. Government pensions are fabulous.
The universities are to blame for this. They use graduate students as cheap substitutes for faculty to teach undergrads. They are simultaneously producing more PhDs, while having fewer tenure track positions into which these PhDs can be hired.
This article touched a nerve. I labored in a doctorate program for a long time, only to drop out when the dissertation proposal was nearly complete. I regret that decision to some extent, not because of what the degree might have conferred in the job market but because of how completion of the degree would have given me a sense of personal satisfaction.
That said, the problem is much deeper, as the title of the article certainly questions. Even without that advanced degree, I have been struggling for almost a year to find a job that matches my talents. The Internet, I would venture to say, coupled with the current global economy, confers an eerie sense of the "world is flat." It is hard at any level to stand above the crowd in one's search for anything. I've been in my present career for about thirty years, and it has been a wonderful experience. Working on the PhD helped me immensely do better on my career track in an intellectual sense, but as far as competing for a job now, that effort has contributed nothing. BUT, neither has the experience I've had for the past thirty years helped me to get a job in my current field.
I would not, however, trade anything I had done in the past to make myself a smarter, wiser, or more competent person. I continue to learn things I don't know, whether they give me an edge careerwise. What I have learned is that the edge comes through how would presents oneself to others, and that makes one more valuable in whatever job one takes on at the time.
*Shrug* Most of my MA and liberal arts PhD buddies didn't work in the fields they studied for, or maybe not the exact positions. From what I know they were disappointed but became pretty happy with the eventual turn of their careers. What do you know when you're 22 about what makes you happy in a profession? That takes a while.
I'm completely mystified by so much writing I see about this recession - did the one in 2002, let alone the one that dragged on for most of the 80s (for those of us off Wall Street), and the early 90s not stick in the collective memory? The one in the 80s seared my brain and has helped me through the last three (so far).
If you missed it, here's what to expect: it gets bad for a lot of people. If you're one of them, you have to get very flexible about what you'll be doing professionally, recognize the compromise is just for the duration of the recession and the slow uptick to recovery. You might have to learn new skills. It's not personal. It's not fair. It just is. And it's not forever.
Keep your chin up, enjoy life as you can (it's amazing how cheap fun is with friends) and think long-term.
Realize another recession is inevitable and learn your lessons so you're prepared for the next one: pay off the student loan, don't get into consumer debt, collect lots of savings, think up a second source of passive income, live far below your means (this last one is the most important).
Then the economy improves and so do the opportunities.
You thrive.
And then, something goes wrong in the economy.
Repeat.
Good luck!
Students are also to blame for not thinking about job prospects when choosing what to study. Read all the great literature you want, but when you decide to spend upwards of $100,000 on your education (whether that money comes from you, the university, or some sort of grant) you need to think long and hard about whether you will end up employable. this nation is not producing enough scientists and engineers. why don't students take a much closer look at those fields? it's because we think of school as a fun thing to do, not training for employment. the worst tragedy are the students who took out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to get these degrees and are now not only unemployed but also burdened with debt for the rest of their lives, debt that cannot even be erased by bankruptcy.
Don't blame universities for being more efficient-- unless they are compromising on the quality of the education.
Instead, think about the usefulness of one's investment in education. In order to command a higher salary in a capitalist society, education must provide the ability to do something more useful to others. Is there any wonder that humanities disciplines produce more educated workers than an economy in recession actually needs?
My recommendation is to invest in skills that society values right now. Petroleum engineers and doctors have no shortages of work, I'm told.
@cjbrownfield: The efficiency of the universities is clearly creating a moral hazard. They are producing too many PhD students for the market to absorb, and they know this. They should take fewer students and use the saved resources to hire additional full time faculty. Then the supply of humanities PhDs would better match the demand for tenure track faculty in the disciplines.
@wildvineyard I don't know how to say this...but you're DEAD WRONG. I think I'm somewhat qualified to make that assessment because I have a sister with a Ph.D., a brother-in-law (her husband) on his second Post Doctorate and a brother who had to extend his Post Doctorate because he couldn't find a job.
What are their degrees you will ask? Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry, and Molecular Biology (post doc on cancer research), respectively.
My brother's problem finding a job is probably the recession, but my sister and brother-in-law graduated two to three years ago and could only find post doctorate positions - and not many.
Right now, they are not out of a job, thank God, but my sister is definitely underemployed and my brother and brother-in-law should be able to do better their a post-doc positions.
Every time I hear a politician encouraging young people to study sciences I cringe. How about creating some jobs first?
When my sister's son said he wanted to be a doctor like his parents, she said: "I hope you don't, it's a waste of time."
She's encouraging him to pick up baseball.
This has been bad for awhile. In the 1990's, I went to college after I had married and had a child (backwards, I know). I attended the nearby community college--very backwater. But guess what! I had PhD professors almost all to myself as the other students weren't terribly interested and the classes were small. My literature professor was amazing--he had studied poetry with major poets. Yet, he was adjunct and making almost nothing with no benefits.
I work-studied in the human resource department and saw adjunct professors with advanced degrees coming for their (very low) paycheck, sometimes in obvious frustration. One declared that she had to buy some food for her and her daughter. It was awful to witness. The tenured professors at the school--and I would guess around half were PhD, only made around $34,000 a year. About the same as the guy who did all the lawn stuff for the school.
Fast forward. I had to move to a state university to finish degree. Go into meeting with counselor who tells me not to attend the university because it simply wouldn't be worth my money. I had already taken all the basic courses and only needed courses in my major but no classes were available in anything I needed.
I did try this university, but I was stunned to be in a huge auditorium with 200 people and a STUDENT teacher.
There weren't enough jobs even then. I really feel badly for these students now.
Someone mentioned science and math. People who go into the sciences aren't doing much better from what I understand. Those science degrees aren't going to guarantee you a decent income because you are competing with the rest of the world and they will work for much less.
Math? I do hear there is a need for math teachers. If you are good and math and want to work with teenagers all day.
As someone who is currently working on their PhD in what is, on the face of it, a fairly useless subject (theoretical linguistics) - this is frightening, but I expected. I began my graduate studies in 2007, and I didn't know this recession was coming, but I was already prepared to swallow the idea that employment doing exactly what I wanted might be difficult at first.
What is disparaging about some of the other comments here is the attitude that higher education, unless its in something "useful" like medicine or engineering, is a waste of time.
First of all, the reason there is always a demand for doctors or engineers (that outweighs supply) is because these fields are difficult and very time consuming. Not everyone has the chops to go through a grueling residency, and not everyone is mathematically minded enough to succeed as an engineer (I'm certainly not).
Second, the great minds in the humanities contribute a lot more to society than they're given credit for. Understanding history helps us to learn from our mistakes, and the study of art, language, and the social sciences help us understand what it is to be human. Though this may sound like a luxury pursuit, it is worthwhile. For example, while the doctor may toil to find the physical cause of autism, it is behavioural psychologists and linguists doing research at the PhD level that help to develop actual therapies that allow people to live with autism. Without linguistics, search engines we rely on everyday like Google would often return gobbledygook.
That being said, it's up to the individual student to make sure they are marketable when they are done with their degree - and they'd be wise to make sure they have possibilities other than academia commensurate with their qualifications.
phds will be fine. get a life.
I have been doing business courses, which are a combination of all kinds of things, math, accounting, economics and I think the ability to refrain from making assumptions based on bias is a big one. That is a real skill.
When people say you are entitled to your opinion, opinion is often an assumption, and can be damaging. The other one I hear it is just your point of view, even though a person who has actually looked at outside data, and researched the situation really has done a lot more than just examined the situation from the surface, which is similar to making an assumption. Making assumptions can destroy businesses. Look at what happened in Madoff case, I am sure a lot was assumed. I just completed a fourth year auditing course, and I still can't figure out how that Ponzi scheme was not detected sooner. Cause I took auditing i am very interested in that. So on that bag lady blog someone comments in such a negative way, I wouldn't want to hire someone like that.
I find people with just a liberal education, some of them I think are on that bag lady blog, tend to act like social workers even if they are not employed, treating people like they are so stupid, if they miss a word, or spell a word backwards, and are not that liberal any way.
While I certainly empathize with the plight of job seekers in a challenging economic environment; I am struck by these highly-educated peoples' obstinacy coupled with noblesee oblige when confronted by the supply/demand imbalance in the job market. As I was a "ward of the state" (foster care...), I was a student at more than 20 different schools until I matriculated with my GED. I believe educational attainment is important. However, in general; I think there is an insular quality & self-reinforcing perspective of elitism, and intent to maintain the status quo (in a stratified class system where is the incentive to increase the competition for the same coveted jobs?). I will paraphrase Clark Kerr (the former Chancellor of the University of California system before getting axed by Bonzo...) who posited that: "it is impossible to quantify the benefits realized by society of: a healthy, well-educated populace, but that the benefits far exceeds the cost of same." What used to be thought of as "the Academy" is now little more than a networking resource.
I am not an accolade of Emerson (Essays on Self Reliance), or worse Ayn Rand; that being said, there are job opportunities available, and if you use your education to better the society (teaching k-12 for example) you live in, you and society will benefit.
I was once trying to research the connection between the oil crisis, middle east crises, and the crash of 2008, and the energy crisis, middle east crisis and the crash in 74, I put a request for a search related to if there was a deal made between the saudis and the US around 1973 and 974.
The librarian came back with links about currency pegging, and acted like I was stupid to be focusing on 73 and 74, even though the crash happened in 74 which I was comparing with 2008
That is what I find is typical of people that come out with a liberal education, they appear bored, they act superior, and they turn things into a gong show, they counter produce what you are trying to do cause they think you are stupid they are smarter. And there is a huge lack of respect.
It is the same thing, when I got hurt trying to get newspaper out of the bin I rent, to avoid getting a $100 fine. I landed up with a huge scar on my cheek. Of course it is still there. I had a chain on the bin, and the doctor in the walk in clinic said to me, who put you in charge of the garbage, even I was the owner of my business, and I rented the bin, I was the one who would have to pay the fine. I got rid of the bin. Resistance is futile. In that case it wasn't about a liberal education, but it is still about acting superior to someone cause you probably do have more formal education. The issue of ownership is ignored.
Same with the barrier in the driveway, someone with more formal education, has made it so much harder, and they don't even seem to get out of their cushy little office to even ask us if it is worse or better.
They wonder why the economy is collapsing. Possibly they will do more studies on it, in their cushy offices. They will never ask us though, will they?
While I certainly empathize with the plight of job seekers in a challenging economic environment; I am struck by these highly-educated peoples' obstinacy coupled with noblesee oblige when confronted by the supply/demand imbalance in the job market. As I was a "ward of the state" (foster care...), I was a student at more than 20 different schools until I matriculated with my GED. I believe educational attainment is important. However, in general; I think there is an insular quality & self-reinforcing perspective of elitism, and intent to maintain the status quo (in a stratified class system where is the incentive to increase the competition for the same coveted jobs?). I will paraphrase Clark Kerr (the former Chancellor of the University of California system before getting axed by Bonzo...) who posited that: "it is impossible to quantify the benefits realized by society of: a healthy, well-educated populace, but that the benefits far exceeds the cost of same." What used to be thought of as "the Academy" is now little more than a networking resource.
I am not an accolade of Emerson (Essays on Self Reliance), or worse Ayn Rand; that being said, there are job opportunities available, and if you use your education to better the society (teaching k-12 for example) you live in, you and society will benefit.
It was the same thing when I traded the currency, I compared oil charts, with US currency charts, they appeared to go in opposite directions. Oil and Canadian currency same directions, so that was the basis of my decision which is still earning a gain. (And partly why I did the research on 74 to compare to 08) wink wink.
You wouldn't believe what i went through moving the money from one currency to the other, one manager told me I was going to lose money and I should leave this complex stuff to the experts. I guess the way people let the experts like Madoff to continue to "allegedly" invest their money. Who is crying now, and who just got a new sound system?? :)
Where do they get their information from? Once they have their degree, do they put it on their wall and give up on cause and effect causations?
I think what you have to do is make your own opportunities.
I did that with switching currency over.
I checked the charts, US currency and Oil prices went in opposite directions, and Canadian currency and oil prices went in the same direction.
Partly why I was doing research on 74 and 08.
I was told by the bank manager, I was better to let the experts do the complicated investing. I guess alleged experts like Madoff.
I am still making a gain. Look who is crying now and who has the new sound system.
You have to do the research, grab an opportunity, otherwise you will miss it. And realize it is about the future, the changes in the future can be opportunities.
And you have to be out for yourself, or you might get stepped on by all the unemployed phds.
Pinkcrickets is right that education is valuable for it's own sake. And I deeply respect your desire to help autistic kids because I have one. So...thanks for doing what you're doing even in the face of this sour economy.
Exploora,
I've met a (very) few people like you--bright thinkers operating outside the mainstream. When I've been lucky enough to come across someone like this, I've always come away with new ideas. I hate it that people are making you feel inferior and unheard. There have been so many geniuses who operated on the margins of society and didn't follow the mandates of their days. I guess I'm telling you that you seem smart---don't let a few silly posters on a blog make you feel bad.
If you teach in a public high school you can get paid extra for that PhD, probably more than you'd get teaching at a small college, along with health insurance and a pension. And you'll do some good for students that need you.
In nowhere Texas, I earn just under $50k a year. Starting salary is 40K. Local college professors earn less and have fewer benefits. I also don't have any publishing or research obligations.
The downside? I teach in a public high school. Believe me, I earn that 50K. This isn't ivy-covered academia.
I just want to add to the PhDer -- congratulations on attaining such a difficult goal! It says a lot about your smarts and discipline, and I hope your passion too.
One of my main life goals is to get a PhD is when I'm in my 60s, when probably I'm as wise and curious about another untouched aspect of life as I'm going to get.
I just think the opportunity to spend that much time and effort to learn, discuss, write and defend a thesis about one specific area has to be one of the best experiences in life.
Kai - Great article! This is Tara - we used to work at nymag together. If you read this please get in touch - have been trying to find your email to no avail.
People do not take responsibility for their lives. This is the same thinking that leads to people who agree to a contract for mortgages with balloon clauses that they ultimately could not ever afford. What has history taught? Certainly not this.
How could you watch the news and not know there were consequences of National Economic Irresponsibility.
I only have a university BA but have swallowed all of my pride in this economy when it comes to looking for a job. But I seem to be overqualified for the jobs I apply for; my next step is to literally start knocking on doors which will be very difficult for me as I am not good at "cold calling" but I see no other choice. My girlfriend and I who both have kids in college have determined that all kids should go to technical schools and/or apprentice with a tradesman in addition to college so that they will have something to fall back on in these difficult times.
veronicaxy---I hope you do get to pursue your advanced degree! My literature courses never got me a job, but the class enriched my life by introducing me to so many great writers.
susumar--Best of luck to you with your job search. I've been picking up work by filling in for businesses that have employees who are out for this or that.
Also, your idea about tech school is smart. The tech school here told me that they have a waiting list for some of the classes that pay the most--and that people on the list have BA's. Of course, this was last year, so it could have changed by now. At the time, I heard machinists were in demand, but since then there has been a major layoff at Aloca.
I earned my PhD in December of 2005. I returned to school as a third-semester sophomore as an adult, with two kids, a dog, a house and a divorce. I got my bachelor's and thought, Good, now I can work at McDonalds. I returned for my masters and through, Good, now I can be a line-supervisor at McDonalds. I got my doctorate and now I am qualified to stand outside McDonalds with a tin cup, saying, Can you spare a quarter for some fries?
I did not get a teaching certificate while pursuing my doctorate, because my doctorate is in education. This, however, means that I cannot be hired as a public school teacher. I have yet to be hired as an education professor because my BA and MA are in fine arts. In other words, since 2005, I have applied for over four hundred jobs, and have yet to find one. I have a stack of 'thanks but no thanks' letters eighteen inches deep. I have been rejected by chain discount stores as over-qualified.
That tin cup gig at McDonalds is looking more and more real every day. I am under-employed, making less that $12 an hour, and cannot pay my bills. I haven't a clue what is next for me, but sometimes I think I would have been better off with the dern high school diploma and nothing else.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.