[Bob]

From your linked article:

One survey found only 35% of students received realistic job-placement information from their departments.

It sounds to me that these departments are committing wholesale fraud. Regardless, shouldn't these PhD candidates be able to do their own independent job-market research??

[laurav]

Not so much fraud as a matter of head-in-the-clouds students not asking and departments not volunteering the matter. If you asked flat out, "What percentage of your PhD graduates landed tenure track jobs within a year, over the past 5 years?" someone would have to come up with that. But prospective grad students don't know to ask. And departments, which gain clout and funding within a university based on their size (number of grad students and such) are unlikely to mention it when choosing students.