The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists—in 7 Charts

The Atlantic ^ | 02/25/2013 | Jordan Weissmann

[SeekAndFind]

Politicians and businessmen are fond of talking about America's scientist shortage -- the dearth of engineering and lab talent that will inevitably leave us sputtering in the global economy.

But perhaps it's time they start talking about our scientist surplus instead.

I am by no means the first person to make this point. But I was compelled to try and illustrate it after reading a report from Inside Higher Ed on this weekend's gloomy gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In short, job prospects for young science Ph.D.'s haven't been looking so hot these last few years, not only in the life sciences, which have been weak for some time, but also in fields like engineering.

The graphs below, drawn from National Science Foundation data and some of my own calculations, depict Ph.D. employment at graduation. It's not a perfect measure of the labor market for young science talent -- ideally we'd have data on graduates nine months or a year out of school, since some people need a little extra time to job hunt. But looking at these figures over time, it seems pretty obvious that there's no great run on trained scientists in this country.

First, the big picture. Here is the entire market for Ph.D.'s, including those graduating from humanities, science, education, and other programs. The blue line tracks students who have a job waiting for them after graduation. The green line tracks those signed up for a post-doctorate study program. The red line stands for the jobless (though a sliver of them are heading to another academic program).

[Agamemnon]

I see you are in CT. At which school are you doing your PhD?

All 4 of my kids are presently at UCONN in various stages of opposing their respective indoctrinations!

FReegards!

[SaraJohnson]

Student debt combined with massive cost of socialized medicine, researchers and government research in the US is a goner.

Many of our foreign rooted researchers are leftists... Payback is a bitch for everyone.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 2/25/2013. Thanks SeekAndFind.