[housewife101]

Is this a bad thing????

[flashbunny]

I'm trying to figure out why having fewer psuedo-intellectuals with letters after their name is a BAD thing.

Unless it's a field where it's actually required - then most of these Piled Higher and Deeper's just go on to live in the academic world, doing little more than getting by on tenure and taxpayer funds.

[SteveMcKing]

If only they'd stop giving out 4-year degrees so indiscriminantly, that would be nice too.

[radiohead]

Is this a bad thing????

Yes. For the technological and scientific future of the country, it is a bad thing.

Having said that, and being a former English & history major myself, I don't know why people get PhDs in these areas anymore. The fields are terrifically overcrowded and wages in them are low.

In my field, there are still jobs and the wages are high. In addition, almost everyone is completely funded, so there is little doctoral debt (that happens at the lower levels). Worse comes to worse, I can take my PhD to industry. Hard to do that w/a doctorate in early 17th century Englsih women writers.

[RightWhale]

It would be a bad thing, but the grad schools were created to populate the ranks of professionals required by the Industrial Revolution. In a sense, industry itself created the schools. If the schools are moving offshore, to China and India, it is only that they are following industry.