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Rank: Advanced Member
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Joined: 5/29/2009
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Mark Taylor, writing for the New York Times on April 29, 2009 stated that higher education in America has become a boondoggle, essentially becoming the equivalent of Detroit with all its maladies. Quoting from his article: "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)."Has it really come to this or does he overstate the problem? Certainly, costs are that high, but is it a useless investment? What about the sub-specialization argument? Are we really preparing people for nonexistent jobs? You tell me...
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Rank: Guest
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I have to agree with Mark Taylor. An equally interesting article by John Sutherland, writing for the Guardian in 2003, says: Departments and universities are innocently proud of the armies of PhDs they graduate. It is a certificate of worth. The more the worthier.
It is also totally, hideously, irresponsible. And, most damagingly of all, it does not - in the jargon of the PhD regulation - substantially add to the store of human knowledge. We are not intellectually richer for this huge output of doctorates.
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Some 1,000 PhDs graduate annually in English in the US. They compete with graduates from other English-speaking cultures (England, for example). They also compete with the 600 plus who didn't get jobs last year, and the 600 the year before and so on. With the outsiders and the knock-on effect, some 2,000 to 3,000 qualified young hopefuls, PhD scrolls in hand, will be "on the market" in 2003."Seems a ridiculous state of affairs to me. However, another view is: so what if people want to get their PhD? Is it the State's business. Sutherland writes as if it is the State that produces PhDs as opposed to people deciding to get their PhDs. Which is the right view?
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Rank: Guest
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Guest wrote:so what if people want to get their PhD? Is it the State's business? Sutherland writes as if it is the State that produces PhDs as opposed to people deciding to get their PhDs. I think a more socialist view of education prevails in Europe. If everyone wants to get a PhD and can pay for it, it is no one's business. The State does not (or should not) determine how many PhDs are produced, anymore than it should determine how many MDs or CFAs are produced. Let the market decide, let the people decide. That makes the most sense. If you agree with this, then the entire premise of the article is flawed. Are there actually any countries that directly or indirectly determine the number of PhDs in total or by area?
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