…and this is a 
The most daunting numbers I've seen yet
Category: Academics
Posted on: August 23, 2007 9:51 AM, by PZ Myers
This week's Nature has a horribly depressing article. If you're a graduate student, don't read any further.
Really, stop. I hate to see young biologists cry.
NSF data show that the number of students in US graduate programmes in the biological sciences has increased steadily since 1966. In 2005, around 7,000 graduates earned a doctorate. But the number of biomedical PhDs with academic tenure has remained steady since 1981, at just over 20,000. During that period the percentage of US biomedical PhDs with tenure or tenure-track jobs dropped from nearly 45% to just below 30%.
7,000 students per year casting a covetous eye on a total of 20,000 positions? You're all waiting for me to die, aren't you?
What about the post-docs?
Although numbers of applicants for postdoctoral fellowships awarded by the NIH increased between 2002 and 2006, the percentage who were successful dropped sharply (see graphic). And the average age of scientists earning their first R01 grant — the NIH's bread-and-butter grant to an independent researcher — has risen from 34 in 1970 to 42 now.
A suggestion:
A posting to an online careers discussion group puts the matter bluntly: "If you aren't thinking about 'alternative careers' before ever setting foot in graduate school, then you're being foolish."
The article does mention that the number of Ph.D.s going into industry has tripled in recent years, so it's not totally hopeless … but we are seeing a shift in the biology profession, that's for sure.
Check, E (2007) More biologists but tenure stays static. Nature 448:848-849.
Comments
But the way we talk about the profession hasn't changed. All the professors at my *large medical school* still talk like we're all going to be academics. While I would certainly like that, it just doesn't seem likely that any of us actually will be. Even if we wanted to go to a liberal arts school, and mostly abandon research, most liberal arts schools are hiring sessional teachers, not tenure track folks. Something around 40% of the teachers at the state school where I am are "temporary" staff who have been around for more than 5 years.
It's really even more depressing than that Nature article makes out.
Posted by: factician | August 23, 2007 9:58 AM
I can't remember the last time I saw a student or postdoc who was as driven to find an academic position as I or most of my colleagues.
They're ALL going alternative, mostly straight out of grad school---bypassing postdochood.
Good for them. Smart kids.
Posted by: me | August 23, 2007 10:05 AM
Yep, my PhD advisor and the senior faculty in the department when I was in school were definitely of the opinion that if you weren't thinking high-powered research tenure-track, you were a second class graduate citizen.
Posted by: Josh | August 23, 2007 10:06 AM
As factician pointed out, the biological science graduate programs seem to operate as if all students are on their way to becoming academics. I do think it leads to an unrealistic sense of hope among the students. It is not hard to look at the situation as exploitative, with false hopes driving the students on. I don't want to blame PIs too much; I see the universities as eager players, ready to get their share of the grant money, and not worrying that much of it relies on the labor of a servant class who will never be made master of the house.
Posted by: Comstock | August 23, 2007 10:06 AM
... and we complain that the US is behind other countries in science and technology. Looks to me that science degrees are becoming as devalued as other degrees. If there's no where to go after getting a degree, why would people (who have to eat and pay rent, after all) want to go into the sciences.
I can see mothers saying "what do you mean you want to be a biologist?! Honey, there's just no money or jobs. It's like being a professional football player. Sure, everyone wants to do it but the odds of making it in the field... well... don't you want a nice RELIABLE job... Like a HAIRDRESSER, maybe?"
Posted by: dorid | August 23, 2007 10:07 AM
"....the average age of scientists earning their first R01 grant -- ------- -- has risen from 34 in 1970 to 42 now..."
Crap! This is no "young researcher"! I am ancient, yet if I apply next year I'd only be 'average'?!
Posted by: coturnix | August 23, 2007 10:11 AM
You're right; I'm depressed now.
On the other hand, there's more to the world than the United States. I have no particular reason to remain here if I can make a better living elsewhere. In fact, there are a lot of reasons to want to leave a country where a large fraction of the populace thinks of one as "the enemy."
It's a big world out there. Perhaps we're in the early days -- or even the not-so-early days -- of what will eventually be seen as either a brain drain that impoverishes this country, or else as a successful effort to "drive the snakes out of Ireland."
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | August 23, 2007 10:12 AM
Depressing is right. I just passed 4 years as a postdoc (Genetics and Cell Biology), and with 3 pubs under my belt, and 4 more either in press or in the pipes I can barely get a sniff in the Academic world. An industry job is about my only hope if I'm not interested in an "alternative" career. It hardly makes the ~10 postgraduate years I've invested seem worthwhile.
Posted by: Drew | August 23, 2007 10:15 AM
Sigh. Maybe things are better in the UK though? That's what I'll keep telling myself.
Posted by: Ben D | August 23, 2007 10:18 AM
I have a question for you academic types. I'm in a science-related career, though not a scientist, so I'm curious as to how you folks view industry positions. Is it like selling out? Or can you be academically respectable working in industry?
Posted by: Mike P | August 23, 2007 10:20 AM
It's depressing, all right. And irresponsible and exploitative on the part of the universities, who for years now have been quite knowingly turning out far more Ph.D. recipients than there's a market for, and (with a relatively small number of departments being honorable exceptions) giving little more than lip service to career counseling. (The system is even more exploitative where postdocs are concerned, because they're still relatively cheap labor but, compared to grad students, far more productive.) Knowing the odds, I breathed a big sigh of relief when my sister (who I like to refer to as "the real scientist in the family) recently got tenure at Northwestern.
However, I am personally here to testify that there IS life after academia.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 10:22 AM
When I started in graduate school that was the prevailing sentiment. There's less of a stigma now. It's certainly easier to justify when you can finally afford to eat well and own your own home. :)
Posted by: Drew | August 23, 2007 10:25 AM
I don't think we should be too upset if there is an increased focus on industry as opposed to academia. We are going to be facing a lot of challenges associated with health care and an aging population. The biomedical industry needs to provide solutions to a lot of difficult problems and they will need good people to do the work.
Over the last several decades, there has been a lot of anxiety in the physical sciences with research being transferred to engineering departments. I still strongly support basic research and see it as highly necessary, but I have to admit that I have personally benefited from this transition. It took a lot of useful technologies out of the lab and made them commercially available.
Posted by: Tony Popple | August 23, 2007 10:25 AM
Ah, but that's the rub. We're all cheap labor (even the tenured profs to some degree). The system relies on exploiting the wide eyed dreamers that will work for peanuts and beer. Research would likely come to a grinding halt if we were paid handsomely (or even hourly). For my doctorate I routinely put in an 80+ hour week while being paid for 20. :(
Posted by: Drew | August 23, 2007 10:28 AM
Well, fuck. I should have listened to my friends and switched to CS when I could still make the big bucks. Well, I guess there's always doing something entirely unrelated...
Posted by: Randall | August 23, 2007 10:30 AM
And yet when one Discovery Institute hack doesn't get tenure its apparently the conspiracy of the century.
The situation in the US is actually quite good compared to a lot of places in Europe where there is a similar (or even worse) lack of permanent positions. Thats why you get a lot of europeans (and asians) adding to the numbers chasing your local positions in the US.
Its obvious we just need more 'framing' on this one to help us see it in a better light.
Posted by: MartinC | August 23, 2007 10:32 AM
I'm in a science-related career, though not a scientist, so I'm curious as to how you folks view industry positions. Is it like selling out? Or can you be academically respectable working in industry?
It's a very different lifestyle. The friends that I know who have gone into that route can barely talk about their work with me in the vaguest possible terms. I often learn more about what they do by reading about their company in newspapers than I do from talking to them.
I really enjoy talking about my work, and if I go that route, I will really miss it. There are some companies that still publish about their work, but there are precious few of them.
On the other hand, the friends that I have in industry aren't driving an 11 year old car and a 17 year old car like my wife and I... They have retirement accounts. And take vacations. My wife and I have been together for nearly ten years (5 as husband and wife) and we've only taken one vacation in that time... So it does look a little like selling out, because the monetary compensations are considerable (if I went to industry tomorrow, my salary would at least triple).
Posted by: factician | August 23, 2007 10:33 AM
I recently finished my undergrad biology degree, while working full-time as a programmer. Every time I look at grad school, it turns into 'I won't even be able to afford my mortgage'. I'm making almost 4 times the stipend listed for Molecular Biology grad students at the U of MN, and that was without a degree. I keep telling myself that it's about more than the money, but if the odds are slim I'd even be able to make progress in a new career, it makes it hard to justify a switch.
Are there any resources for what industry jobs are out there?
Posted by: Michael Vieths | August 23, 2007 10:35 AM
When I was in graduate school (not in biology, but in a field far less worthwhile, political science), I once spoke with a senior professor about the odds of getting a good academic job after earning my PhD (as that field had no real industry alternative).
He paused, sighed, and said, "Well, where there's death, there's hope."
Fortunately, I found (after five years and two MAs) that I hated the academic side of the field (as virtually all poli sci research is pointless academic bullshit, unlike that in biology). I wanted to teach. Having already gotten a teaching job (at a local community college), I left graduate school and focused my non-teaching time on entrepreneurial pursuits. Good call, by the way.
Best wishes to all the bio grad students out there. It's a tough field, but very rewarding for those I've talked to who stuck with it.
Posted by: cureholder | August 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Michael, I suggest you consider getting a Master's degree in a program geared towards preparing students for a career in industry. There are a lot more job opportunities at that level- many quite good- and the opportunity cost of getting the degree is far lower than for a Ph.D. I can't say anything more specific because my impressions of the market would be way out of date, but I just wanted to plant a seed.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Back in the mid '80s when I began to enquire about doing a PhD and what then I was reliably informed by several people that my career would be like this:
Get PhD
Get postdoc
Get another postdoc, probably
Get lectureship
Get tenure
Work
Retire
I was also told that I was at a lucky age, the cohort of lecturers who had been hired en mass in the early 70s with the expansion of university education were all about to retire, thus opening positions for the likes of me to fill.
But it never happened. It never happened because:
There were now too many postdocs, even when I gradauated PhD in '93.
The universities were clawing back a whole stash of salary cash on the reitrement of tenured staff by replacing them with 'Teaching Fellows' on short term contracts. No research oportunities there.
It was realised, consciously and unconsciously that PhD students represent cheap labour.
Grade and degree inflation meant every girl and her budgie has a bachelor's or honours degree so you do a PhD to differentiate yourself from the herd. Thus providing that cheap work force.
So my career is now over, despite my name in Nature.
Anyone reading this who is a biology undergrad: Don't Do a PhD!!! You may have the innate optimism of the young,' I will be one of the blessed ones'. But the system is now stacked solidly against you.
I should have read the signs when during my first postdoc I was approached by a guy from another lab who had just been gifted his own lab on the basis of being given a project that struck gold. He asked me if I had any ideas for experiments he could do, as he had to write a grant proposal and had no ideas. There was my head full of perhaps two or three proposals worth of ideas I could have written there and then and this guy had been given his own lab. Science may have been a meritocracy briefly, it is certainly not one now.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | August 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Not you, but a generation of sociologists :)
Posted by: MAJeff | August 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Also, this is somewhat supporting my decision to delay entering grad school; maybe during a "gap year," I'll find one of these "alternative careers" mentioned.
Posted by: Randall | August 23, 2007 10:49 AM
I'm just beginning graduate school in the life sciences. Knowing the current research conditions (dismal funding, few jobs, etc) in this country, I'm approaching my science career expecting not to obtain a faculty position. Although the Nature article is sobering, it is helpful for students and other young scientists to know what they are getting into.
Personally, I like that there are several career options for new scientists. If anything, the current lull in funding support and jobs may lead to stronger support of more alternative career paths.
I don't have the actual statistics on this, but I know that funding availability is fairly cyclical. Although this particular downward trend may be more severe, at some point it has to go up, right?
Posted by: Ben | August 23, 2007 10:55 AM
I never wanted to be a PI and now after a couple of years of grad school am actually horrified by the idea. Then, I went to graduate school for all the wrong reasons anyway. I want to take my masters and get the hell out, but I am not in a big industry field and don't know what the hell I would actually do nor what good the masters would do me. Wish I could go back to undergrad and forget about biology altogether.
Posted by: Katie | August 23, 2007 10:55 AM
I agree with factician: in academia selling out/working for the man is widely considered synonymous with industry employment. It's a bit of reactionary envy at the pay-scale gap between the two, but it can also be a legitimate critique when science becomes corporatized.
Though I'm a staff scientist at the NIH. Who am I to judge.
Posted by: caynazzo | August 23, 2007 11:00 AM
Why is this depressing? Would you prefer to see fewer students earning doctorates? There is an easy solution to that problem, accept fewer students into the graduate programs. I suspect that for all fields which have a doctoral program there will be more graduates than positions for tenured faculty. If there is a huge mismatch, that is merely an indication that there are other good uses for the doctoral degree.
Posted by: Jeff Alexander | August 23, 2007 11:06 AM
A very large part of this problem is directly due to NSF's continued instance that each of their grants fund graduate students. In fairness to NSF, part of their emphasis on educating far more scientists that the country can absorb is related to mandates from congress, but still, they need to realize that they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. NSF should take a realistic view of what needs to be done to advance good science (like supporting already trained people who can do the proposed work faster and better, if not cheaper) and back off the social engineering for a while.
Posted by: Tex | August 23, 2007 11:08 AM
Why is a huge mismatch between # of PhD graduates and # of faculty positions an indication that there are other good uses for a doctoral degree (I am presuming that 'other good uses' here means other types of jobs)? I haven't seen a very good correlation between the various factors that drive graduate student admissions rates (e.g., the myth that graduate students significantly increase the productivity of young PIs and the resulting desire by those PIs to write lots of money into grant proposals for grad students) and employment.
Posted by: Josh | August 23, 2007 11:14 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 11:15 AM
If there is a huge mismatch, that is merely an indication that there are other good uses for the doctoral degree.
Ummm... not really. Graduate schools don't accept students because they know there are jobs at the other end. Graduate schools accept students because tenured researchers need minions to keep the research enterprise working. Whether those minions on the conveyer belt fall off at the end matters little to whether or not they are allowed to step on the conveyer belt.
Of the group of students I started with in 1997 in graduate school, about 2/3 of them are still involved in biology in some way (and making use of their Ph.D.). That's just 10 years. In another ten, how many will still be in biology?
Jobs in industry are competitive, too. The friends I have in industry are perpetually job searching in case their job disappears, and they get laid off (average time people last at an industry job is only a few years - can't find reference, sorry).
When I hear talking heads saying that the U.S. needs more people in biology, it makes me feel faintly nauseated. It's simply not true, there's an enormous glut of talent.
Posted by: factician | August 23, 2007 11:15 AM
I have been on about this for years; universities are training too many students. It is MUCH too easy to get a Ph.D. these days, from both a financial AND scientific standpoint.
I did my Ph.D. at a well-respected Canadian university, and during that time I published three first-authored papers in mid-impact factor (6-10) journals, second authored four others, wrote several reviews, and one textbook chapter. I was very happy with my training, because I made it what I needed it to be. I worked hard, and had a little luck. After working for one year at an NGO (in a research development capacity), I'm now returning to research to do a post-doc with a very well respected clinical oncologist/basic scientist.
All of this sounds great, and I don't want to toot my own horn, but my experience is not typical. My lab was full of people who were simply not qualified to hold Ph.D.s; they will never be capable of holding a tenure-track position; of being independent thinkers. And yet, my former university has recently made it EASIER for people to get funding to do a Ph.D.
My solution is this:
1. Reduce the number of internal AND external Ph.D. level scholarships, but increase the value of each award. This way, you reward the truly excellent students.
2. Create an interview process for acceptance into a Ph.D., similar to that for MDs. Make sure you are only accepting people with the potential to be independent scientists, whether or not they eventually go on to do this (some people hate academia).
3. Have universities pledge to create tenure-track positions in proportion to the number of Ph.D. students they accept in each area. It doesn't have to be a 1:1 relationship (since not all Ph.D.s WANT to be PIs), but figure out what the proper proportion is, and stick to it. If you can't afford to hire new professors, then you can't afford to bring in new students.
Graduate students and (especially) PDFs do all of the work, for VERY little pay. We accept this because we know it is training. In Canada, the government has made scholarships and fellowships tax-free (PDFs qualify IF they also take a course for which they pay their own tuition...it's complicated), which is a good start. But without caps on the number of people accepted, this just creates a glut of Ph.D's with no place to go.
Universities and research institutions have to take responsibility for this, and do something about it. I will be joining my institute's PDF association, to make sure that these things are looked after. I want to be a PI, and I think I have the skills to do it; but I shouldn't have to be 42 before I get my first operating grant. I have a life to lead. I'm giving up a MUCH higher paying job to go back to do a PDF, because I love research. I'm not going to let this kind of thing continue without a fight.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 11:17 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 11:22 AM
It's all Mojotycoon's fault. He's been occupying his DNA Bench for 40 years, fruitlessly trying to build a BMW out of scrap.
Someone needs to push him out of the way, huh?
Posted by: DaveX | August 23, 2007 11:28 AM
This biologist finished his PhD, finally, in 1984. The expectation was definitely that we would be research academics, except for the industry sellouts, with no thought for puffball teachers. After multiple postdocs, interspersed with long temp work in industry, I find no positions. I'm "over qualified" for industrial and teaching positions (which seems to mean they think I'd demand too much money or autonomy), yet at the same time don't have the skill-of-the-day for those positions. Companies won't train, even people with obvious ability to learn fast, or discuss the issues. I'd have been much better off, financially, with just my SB.
Posted by: dkew | August 23, 2007 11:31 AM
@Steve:
It's going to happen when students and PDFs have had enough. 3 decades ago, to be fair, this was an issue, but not like this.
4-5 year post-docs (consisting of two postings) are the NORM now; remember, the PDF was orignally created to provide some additional training, and wasn't originally required for tenure-track jobs. Look in the back of Nature and tell me how many postings for Assistant Professorships you see that don't say "minimun 2 year PDF experience". And when was the last time a university hired someone with JUST a 2 year PDF? Virtually never. I am 29, and I've had my Ph.D. for just over a year. If I do a 4 year PDF, that makes me 33, which isn't horrid, but only then will I be able to LOOK at an assistant professorship, and only then will my salary return to what it is working at the NGO I work for now!!!
The universities and institutes wont change on their own; students and PDFs have to say "this is ridiculous". The problem is, their postings are temporary, and they feel that speaking out might jeopardize their chances of getting a tenure-track position. Someone has to break that cycle!
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 11:31 AM
Posted by: Jeff Alexander | August 23, 2007 11:31 AM
Jeff, I predict that if you interviewed a sizable sample of beginning grad students- genuinely talented ones in strong departments, to make the sample a fair one- you'd find a depressingly small number who accurately evaluate their chances of following in their advisor's career footsteps. And the universities are not exactly broadcasting this information to them.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 11:36 AM
@Jeff
Totally agree. There are many reasons to get a Ph.D., and I don't agree with "industrializing" science, but the expectation should at least be that the Ph.D. candidate be CAPABLE of becoming a PI; I am seeing people in Ph.D. programs that have no hope of this, and their supervisors and advisory committee's say nothing. Yet they get the same degree as I did.
During my Ph.D., I wrote operating grants. I mean literally thought up the ideas, worked out the experiments, considered the pitfalls and "what-if-this-doesn't-work" issues, designed a budget, and wrote the thing up. My supervisor got those grants based on my work. To be frank, and again not to toot my own horn, but not all Ph.D. students are capable of this. Some of them get lucky, get a first-authored Science, Nature, or Cell paper, and they're off; with absolutely no knowledge of how to be an independent investigator. THAT is what has to stop, IMHO.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 11:38 AM
Honestly, while I've been considering continuing grad school with the hopes of becoming a wonderful academic working on fascinating problems in biology.... it's stuff like this that keeps me from doing so. Because that hope is near bullshit levels of unlikelihood.
What's the point of inspiring people to go into science with hopes of delving into the mysteries of the cosmos when the reality is mostly one big rigged game of exploitation?
Posted by: plunge | August 23, 2007 11:39 AM
Michael - good luck and I hope you are able to get things to improve. Here in the UK there has been a lot of recent stuff about improving career development for researchers (partly driven by new employment regulations) but the reality has failed to keep up with any of the rhetoric (my University and funding body are deeply committed to developing my career but not if it involves a) spending money or b) offering me a real permanent job. In some ways its even worse than having rubbish career prospects because at the same time people keep telling that they are working hard to improve them while doing nothing. That said I hope you do better than me at changing things for the better.
Posted by: Dylan | August 23, 2007 11:40 AM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 11:43 AM
If you are good at Math, consider switching to Biostatistics/Bioinformatics. There are a potload of industry jobs there. Psychologists and Sociologists are being hired as "statisticians".
Posted by: other bill | August 23, 2007 11:44 AM
This has been a great posting for me. Next year I'll "retire" after 20 years of an "alternative career" doing a science related job in the military and plan on fulfilling a long-time (often delayed) personal goal of getting a PhD. Since I'll be in my mid-40s and competing with 20-something new PhDs by the time I'd complete a doctorate I realized academia would always be a distant second to getting a corporate or government job (which pay way better anyhow, an important concern when you have kids in college). But after reading this it sounds like I should just dump the academia option entirely. Sure, the thrill of doing pure science for the sake of knowledge is enticing but if all the bananas in the tree are taken you have to eat the figs.
Posted by: Todd | August 23, 2007 11:46 AM
I had a friend who started her Ph.D. (after completing an M.Sc.), only to abandon it after 2.5 years. She hated research, and was only holding on because she was getting support from a few of us in the lab. Once we all left, she had had enough, and gave up on it. She now works editing manuscripts for a major medical journal, and loves it, making far more than she was as a Ph.D. student (and she had a major scholarship at the time)
So there is life outside of grad school, if you decide it isn't for you. The moral of the story is also that universities shouldn't feel pressure to simply move Ph.D. students along; if they cannot hold their own, get rid of them. Even better, interview them ahead of time and only accept the ones with the best potential to do good work, and who are capable of becoming independent scientists.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 11:49 AM
All this talk of PIs and universities taking responsibility seems a little much. The problem is that universities and post-docs interests are not aligned. Post-docs want to get jobs. Universities want to produce research using scarce research dollars. And as long as there is only one pot of money (the NIH), the NIH standard rules the day. (Can we all say "monopoly"?)
As long as the NIH allows grad students and post-docs to be used as medium term laborers (and doesn't require PIs to spend a certain portion of their budget on technicians) this situation will only continue to get worse for grad students/post-docs.
Posted by: factician | August 23, 2007 11:52 AM
factician is correct. Academics and academic administrators are past masters at talking principle but acting purely in self-interest; if it's left to them, acting responsibly toward their students and postdocs will continue to be a matter of pure lip service. Only changes in the rules of the game enforced by the people who hold the purse strings will change their behavior.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 11:56 AM
@Factician:
I agree, to an extent.
I think that technicians should be a priority; grad students (and particularly) PDFs should be trained as thinkers first, and a set of hands second.
But, universities and institutes have a responsibility as well. yes, their primary purpose is to produce good research. For that, you need good people. But somehow, quantity has replaced quality in this regard. Perhaps the technician issue is the key to solving this; take the best thinkers as Ph.D. students, and make funds available for good hands as well.
PDFs want to get jobs, but they know that this only happens through producing good research. I think a PDF should have a reasonable expectation that if they work hard, get a little lucky, develop their grant writing skills, get some teaching training (another issue altogether), and some supervisory training, there will be a good chance of a tenure-track position at the other end. They should also be able to expect that this wont take 10 years of PDF experience. The former expectation comes through hard work; the second is more directly influenced by the sheer number of Ph.D.s out there, all applying for fewer and fewer jobs.
I'm simply saying that if universities want to get more students enrolled, they need to match that (at least to some degree) with a commensurate increase in tenure-track positions.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 12:01 PM
But Michael, why will they do that? Out of the goodness of their hearts? And where will the funds to support all those new TT positions come from?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 12:04 PM
Of course they wont do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They will do it because the situation is getting so bad that students and PDFs finally start to say enough it enough.
They will also do it when, as you say, granting agencies stop thinking of trainees are cheap labour.
They will fund it by accepting fewer students. I'm not arguing that all Ph.D.s should have a shot at a job; far from it. A lot of them (at least at my former school, which is a top school) aren't good enough; they shouldn't have been there.
Accept half of the people, and use the money you would have spent paying the scholarships to the other half to create a few more positions.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 12:13 PM
I'm not sure the finances work the way you think. Given the facts that much of the expense of training grad students is paid for from external sources (research and training grants), and that their labor in turn helps attract future research funding, the net cost of grad students to their institutions is close to zero and might even be negative in some cases. And a tenured appointment is a HUGE institutional financial commitment over the appointee's career.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 12:22 PM
Michael,
What makes you think that this isn't already happening? Plenty of people drop out of graduate school and post-docs. What you are asking for is already occurring, just not at sufficient levels to change anything. Everytime there is a slight shortage of post-docs, they slightly raise the NIH minimum paygrade, and people keep clunking along.
Nothing will change, unless the NIH mandates it. And why would the NIH mandate a change? For the purposes of research, the system works well. The public gets cheap research. The economics of it just don't support a system that treats post-docs well. Until some senator looks at the plight of post-docs (don't hold your breath) and says "This needs to be fixed" - nothing will change.
Posted by: factician | August 23, 2007 12:27 PM
Actually, PZ, I think you should have encouraged people to read this, not discouraged them. The truth is depressing at times, and maybe 20 year olds at your university have more than one interest; maybe there's something out there that would excite them as much as Bio, and where there's greater demand for you at the end.
I keep reading about the upcoming shortage, for example, of math majors.
I deal with this on a smaller scale with my own 13 year old daughter. She's doing great in school, and we're proud of her... And she keeps saying she wants to be an actress. I have no problem with her persuing acting, but just not as a career. I have no career goals for her; that's up to her. But she's really good at math and science. I think it's possible she'll end up there.
But the acting example is a good one. If she went out and got an MFA in acting, chances are excellent she'd end up at a Starbucks. It's similar to the problem you mention in your posting; the major produces too many graduates for too few positions, only in acting, the problem is probably 100 times worse than what you mention here. By that I mean that at least Bio majors have the OPTION of selling-out. What's a person with an MFA going to do, be a REALLY GOOD waiter?
Be open minded, and examine all your options. That's my advise. If you think, "Hmmm, I like Chemistry/Computer Science/Physics too", then examine the options in those fields. I see too many younger people try to get into fields where the supply of graduates is endless, and the demand for those people is limited.
Had I done exactly what I wanted to do right after high school, I'd be an unemployed history major today. I took 3-1/2 years off after high school working in a machine shop, and I'm glad I did, because it opened my eyes that, really, history would have been a lousy major for me. I'm much better off with the degree I have (CS).
CS was a great fit for me, because whether it was a machine or an abstraction, I've always enjoyed tinkering. Anyone who tinkers should consider a scientific field. And there is probably more than one field in science that would scratch that particular itch.
Posted by: MikeM | August 23, 2007 12:32 PM
Factician, perhaps you're right.
I also think, however, that there is a big role to play for PDFs and students themselves. They are, for the most part, silent on this issue. A somewhat related example:
At the institute that I trained at, there was a large library room, full of study carrels provided for use by the PDFs and students. The seats were assigned, and there were usually enough for all of the trainees in the building.
Then, all of a sudden, one of the researchers got a grant with funds to build a new tissue culture lab. Great, new facilities to do research. Oh wait, how do we build this thing? You guessed it; annex half of the space from the library, and make trainees read/study at their lab benches (they did offer to put in communal tables in the residual space, but this was only enough for 20-30 trainees at once; far too little space).
What was the reaction from the trainees? More or less it was "this is a done deal, so let's deal with it and adapt". I was the only person who was willing to stand up to the administration (who were ostensibly interested in maintaining good relations with trainees) and say "this is wrong, and here's why". I organized meetings with the admin people, and invited every trainee I could; most of them didn't even know this was happening.
Long story short, that library is still there.
This is not even close to the worst I have heard regarding treatment of trainees, and regarding them as second-class citizens. It gets BAD, really bad!
So trainees have a role to play too; they cannot be afraid to say that this is wrong.
Universities have to be held to task about how they really feel about trainees.
Funding agencies have to be part of the solution as well.
But something has to change. Perhaps the retirement of baby boomer scientists will facilitate a few more positions opening up (and I've committed to science, so I really hope this is the case). But it will take a unified effort to get things done.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 12:37 PM
Michael wrote
Some of them get lucky, get a first-authored Science, Nature, or Cell paper, and they're off; with absolutely no knowledge of how to be an independent investigator. THAT is what has to stop, IMHO.
I haven't seen a lab in which the PI really mentors most of their grad students or post-docs.
They will also do it when, as you say, granting agencies stop thinking of trainees are cheap labour.
They've solved that problem by attracting students and postdocs from overseas. They may be paying them the same, but I don't expect a groundswell of protest to come from European and Asian postdocs.
Posted by: hip hip array | August 23, 2007 12:38 PM
This is the problem with universities being run as businesses, handing out Ph.D.s and MBAs like candy to substandard students who just do well on standardized tests and writing ridiculous papers about papers about papers.
Posted by: Tom @Thoughtsic.com | August 23, 2007 12:43 PM
Same in Scandinavian archaeology. More PhDs every year, academic job numbers barely constant. The average age of archaeologists who get basic starter jobs in academe these days is 41.
Somebody should take away the incentive for universities to produce useless PhDs.
Posted by: Martin R | August 23, 2007 12:43 PM
As a PhD holder in chemistry, with one four year postdoc, and a 2nd 2 year postdoc, just months shy of my 35th birthday, who is now taking an industry job, I have a few thoughts about this:
PhD mentors do need to better prepare their students for careers other than academics, but I feel often they don't even know what's out there. I had a hard enough time finding an industry job after my first postdoc. I lucked into my second one, in that my wife (fresh out of her PhD) held an industry position locally and was fortuante enough to have somebody take me on locally. I lucked out again in finding a local industry position. However, when I was looking nationally, I was out of luck for 6 months as my postdoc was ending, with no idea an how to look for an alternative career (such as science policy) outside industry/academia. Then I spent 5 months unemployed, before finding the local postdoc.
I do think schools should take fewer graduate students, but then this leads into a labor shortage in terms of numbers of TAs. A few classes after my entering class in graduate school, they decided to tighten up admissions. Then, they were begging PIs for the RAs to serve as TAs, and the next year, they reduced the standards to let in a giant class of graduate students.
Finally, I really wish the government/whoever else says it would stop saying that we have a shortage of scientists and that everybody should study science. I wish people were more science-literate, but I don't that we need more scientists.
Posted by: James G | August 23, 2007 12:44 PM
For any UK postdocs reading this there is a new version of the research council concordat on the way and out for consultation at:
www.rcuk.ac.uk/news/draftconcordat.htm
the last one achieved nothing but what the hell, the more feedback they get the better.
Posted by: Dylan | August 23, 2007 12:46 PM
@hip
I haven't seen a lab in which the PI really mentors most of their grad students or post-docs.
Likewise. I've seen M.Sc. students reduced to tears because they've been left to flounder. As a Ph.D. student, I mentored four trainees, including an M.Sc. student, two Ph.D. students, and a PDF (!!!). And I mean really mentored; like planning experiments and teaching the reasons why we don't do sequential t-tests for multiple comparisons, etc; really basic stuff.
They've solved that problem by attracting students and postdocs from overseas. They may be paying them the same, but I don't expect a groundswell of protest to come from European and Asian postdocs.
To be absolutely blunt, much of the problem comes from Asian PDFs. There are good ones, but there are also some REALLY bad ones. It's a similar problem, only magnified. There are so many people getting Ph.D.s in Asia, and the quality of many of them is VERY poor. But North American PDFs are valuable, and North American PIs realize they can pay them very little. The other thing is cultural: Asian trainees, I have found, are FAR less likely to speak up when there is an issue. The research culture in Asia is: the PI is always (always!) right and is never to be questioned. This does not make for a healthy environment, as I have seen first hand. I have seen M.D./Ph.D.s in tears about their treatment at the hands of North American PIs.
Posted by: Michael | August 23, 2007 12:49 PM
We can always hope that Halliburton opens up a bioweapon facility and takes on biological PhDs.
Alternatively the insurance industry is going to be very interested in exploiting our services when it realizes that practically everyone has an SNP that will allow it to cancel the life policy when that individual eventually succumbs to a disease they are genetically predisposed to develop.
Yes indeed, the dark side awaits.
Posted by: MartinC | August 23, 2007 12:49 PM
Heck, apply to be in the FBI. They HEAVILY recruit life/physical scientists, particularly those with Ph.D.s. Plus, you'll start out at close to $60k. Oh, and get to carry around a neato gun and tell people you're in the FBI.
Posted by: Tom @Thoughtsic.com | August 23, 2007 1:07 PM
Ugh! one of my pet peeves is the use of the word "alternative" to describe what *over half* of PhDs in science actually do.
The majority of PhD scientists aren't tenured faculty members. It's just the cult of academia that tells us we're inferior for not doing things the "right way"
(can you tell it really bothers me? :)
Posted by: bug_girl | August 23, 2007 1:09 PM
We can always hope that Halliburton opens up a bioweapon facility and takes on biological PhDs.
There are a ton of jobs for folks in the D.C/Virginia/Maryland area doing consulting for companies or the military and Department of Homeland Defense, to evaluate the technologies being developed (wasted?) to detect bioterror attacks.
Hardly seems like science, though. They just want people who understand what PCR is...
Posted by: factician | August 23, 2007 1:14 PM
I totally agree with bug girl. I'll leave the tenure-track position to those who are brainwashed enough to agree with their profs that tenure-track science is the only way to have a fulfilling career. I'll admit that some faculty really do belong in universities-- those true-blue geeks who need their science to be pure, whatever that means-- but most of us realize pretty early in the game that there are a lot of ways to wear your science hat.
Maybe I'm lucky in that I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and knew both professors and industry types growing up, but I NEVER planned to pursue a faculty position. The only reason I did a post-doc is because the economy was crappy when I finished my degree in 2002 and I couldn't find a real job.
I've been working in a fairly non-traditional industry job for over two years, and I LOVE my work. I use my training regularly, and best of all, I work only 40-50 hours per week and make over twice what I did as a postdoc.
Faculty positions are for suckers (and the true sucker-philes, like PZ).
Posted by: jeccat | August 23, 2007 1:33 PM
What kills me that plays into all of this is the lack of career development resources for those in the sciences. How much overhead do these research universities take? Why in the world should faculty members be the primary source of career advice? They can't possibly know about all the career options. They choose one way of doing things. That is probably what they know best. Do they really have the time to know more? Universities churning out PhDs in the sciences should be devoting resources to help them find the myriad of jobs that are out there outside of the traditional faculty position at a research university. They should be providing resources to develop skills to position their students to get those jobs. That should be the expectation from the granting agencies with regards to the overhead these universities are getting.
Posted by: ponderingfool | August 23, 2007 1:39 PM
The short answer to that- which has already been alluded to by others- is that the granting agencies don't give a damn. Their mission is to get the most research for the buck.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 23, 2007 1:47 PM
Now I'm sort of off in the biology tangent of wildlife biology/management, but the notion of remaining in academia was never really brought up in my undergraduate studies, so I had some trouble figuring out why this post was meant to be so depressing at first.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 23, 2007 2:11 PM
This is not a crisis. New (life science) Ph.D.'s have far more employment options than they did a generation ago.
Even so, a generation ago, everybody got jobs. As a wise person once told me:
Great postdocs get great jobs, good postdocs get good jobs, and bad postdocs get bad jobs. But everybody gets a job.
Posted by: me | August 23, 2007 2:50 PM
Huh.
Well, this has been a good read. I just finished my B.Sc. and am planning to take a year off before grad school to work. Now I'm starting to reconsider the whole grad school thing, particularly if I can find a position I like in another field.
Food for thought, this thread.
Posted by: Sivi Volk | August 23, 2007 3:34 PM
I'm not suggesting this isn't an issue, but how did the get that number of 20,000? I'm wondering if someone like me (liberal arts bio prof) is counted. 20,000 seems kind of small. The society for neuroscience meeting alone attracts over 30,000 participants, which included people at all levels of course. But how many colleges, universities, and medical schools are there in the US? And what is the average number of tenured faculty members? Just sounds kind of low to me.
Posted by: rjb | August 23, 2007 3:42 PM
PZ Writes:
You're all waiting for me to die, aren't you?
To move to Morris, MN? I somehow doubt it.
-Poe
Posted by: Poe | August 23, 2007 4:09 PM
me - I just don't believe it. I don't think everybody gets a job. Too many of my friends just bailed on the field of science entirely right after their PhD or after a postdoc for me to believe that everybody gets a job (even a bad one). Or they are just stringing an infinite # of postdocs together (something I was on the path of until recently). I don't know how it compares to a generation ago, but I really think people should stop pushing the scientist shortage idea.
Posted by: James G | August 23, 2007 4:22 PM
And by contrast to some of these horror stories...most of the people I considered my peers near the end of my Ph.D. program ended up in tenure-track positions. Granted, only a couple are now at high-powered research institutions (though I do have a lab, complete with a few grad students!), but overall we've done pretty well. At the time (mid-90's), none of us thought we'd get academic positions. So, for the folks I knew in my subdiscipline (invertebrate zoology/systematics), things aren't -- or at least weren't -- so dire.
It really depends