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[quasihumanist]

The other issue is time-to-degree.  We've talked about this in other threads, and I think I understand why those fields with fieldwork (eg, Anthropology) take 10+ years to a PhD.  I don't understand this at all for, say, English.  The teaching requirement doesn't explain it, as many fields have heavy teaching requirements.  (I taught for all but one semester of my 5 year MA+PhD program, and back then 5 years was considered a bit on the long side in my field.) - DvF

Time-to-degree has increased as much in mathematics as well.  It's just that there is enough money around to call those extra 3 years a postdoc and pay you $40K rather than $15K.

I'm sure folks in the Humanities could write a dissertation acceptable in the 1960s in 4 or 5 years.  But they can't write a dissertation good enough for today's job market, plus the additional 3 or 4 articles they need, in that time.  Just as a mathematician aspiring to an R1 job can't write the half dozen research papers they need for one nowadays without spending a few years as a postdoc.

[pournelle]

One big problem here is the failure to differentiate between grad programs. Graduates of the top 15 programs--even in the tightest MLA fields--have placement rates (3 years out) considerably better than the 30% figure cited above. Below the top 15, there are a number of programs who have excellent (60-80%) placement in tt, albeit mostly at teaching-intensive colleges. Blanket generalizations are simply misleading.

Also, as Marc Bousquet and others have been arguing, focusing entirely on the supply problem is misguided. The demand side--the factors remaking high ed into a small group of tt admin and researchers, supported by a vast pool of adjuncts--needs to be addressed.

Also, as janewales--and people like Louis Menand--point out, reducing time to degree is a part of the puzzle.

And finally, as someone points out above, a tt job in the humanities at at r1 is really one of the best jobs imaginable, and it's not irrational for people to try for it even if the odds are against them--which, again, they are not at many good programs. The odds are a hell of a lot better here than they are for actors, painters, writers, musicians etc.

[concordancia]

To be fair, Benton is careful to restrict his comments to graduate school in the humanities, not graduate school in general. 

Sure, but what blue collar family is proud of their daughter for achieving any degree in the humanities, much less advanced degrees?

I mean, they are proud and all, but my family never had any delusions about the great career I was making for myself. As a matter of fact, they were pretty sure I was deluded, but as long as I didn't ask them for money, they let me get on with it.

[divingmusician]

And finally, as someone points out above, a tt job in the humanities at at r1 is really one of the best jobs imaginable, and it's not irrational for people to try for it even if the odds are against them--which, again, they are not at many good programs. The odds are a hell of a lot better here than they are for actors, painters, writers, musicians etc.

Thank you!  Yes, the odds seem worse for musicians....and no one told us about the grim reality either!

[jonesey]

And finally, as someone points out above, a tt job in the humanities at at r1 is really one of the best jobs imaginable, and it's not irrational for people to try for it even if the odds are against them--which, again, they are not at many good programs. The odds are a hell of a lot better here than they are for actors, painters, writers, musicians etc.

Thank you!  Yes, the odds seem worse for musicians....and no one told us about the grim reality either!

And writers...although many of us writers got our MFAs so we could teach college "as a fallback."  : )

Oops.

[temporaryname]

Another reason a lot of people feel blindsided by the post-PhD job market in humanities, I think, is that there's a widespread assumption that more education leads to better job prospects.

There's good reason for this, too. After all, in general, a high school graduate has better employment prospects than a dropout, someone who's attended college has better employment prospects than someone who stopped at high school, someone who got an associate's has better employment prospects than someone who just took a few courses, someone who got a bachelor's has better employment prospects than someone who stopped short of one, and someone who got a master's has better employment prospects than someone who has a bachelor's.

So why shouldn't someone with a doctorate have better employment prospects than anyone else? That's what everyone's collective experience seems to be telling us should happen, so it really makes sense to at least me that people would feel a bit cheated when it doesn't turn out that way.

[i_heart_bulldogs]

Also, as Marc Bousquet and others have been arguing, focusing entirely on the supply problem is misguided. The demand side--the factors remaking high ed into a small group of tt admin and researchers, supported by a vast pool of adjuncts--needs to be addressed.

Is there some way that people have determined to separate out the supply effects from the demand effects? I can say "too much supply" and someone else can say "too little demand." It is difficult to sort out the competing effects.

[janewales]

This is exactly my point. It's all very well to say that Benton should do statistical comparative research (why should he? do your own research if you have to know), or that Canada is better, or that the sciences are better.

His point is that in the humanities, the chances of getting a tenure track job these days are practically nil. It takes on the average 10 years to get a Ph. D. in English (the biggest field), after which only about 20-30% of Ph.D.s will ever (that's EVER) get a tenure-track job. That means hundreds of them will NEVER get a tenure track job.

Yikes, I didn't say he should do comparative research-- just that I'd be interested to see it. And I didn't say that Canada was "better"-- just different. Sorry to have ruffled feathers-- it was inadvertent. I was just trying to contribute to the discussion by noting that the situation, for the humanities, isn't the same outside the US as it is inside. That being so, perhaps there is something that explains the discrepancies, something that could be used to improve (or maybe just to understand) the situation for humanities PhDs inside the US.

[spyzowin]

This is exactly my point. It's all very well to say that Benton should do statistical comparative research (why should he? do your own research if you have to know), or that Canada is better, or that the sciences are better.

His point is that in the humanities, the chances of getting a tenure track job these days are practically nil. It takes on the average 10 years to get a Ph. D. in English (the biggest field), after which only about 20-30% of Ph.D.s will ever (that's EVER) get a tenure-track job. That means hundreds of them will NEVER get a tenure track job.

Yikes, I didn't say he should do comparative research-- just that I'd be interested to see it. And I didn't say that Canada was "better"-- just different. Sorry to have ruffled feathers-- it was inadvertent. I was just trying to contribute to the discussion by noting that the situation, for the humanities, isn't the same outside the US as it is inside. That being so, perhaps there is something that explains the discrepancies, something that could be used to improve (or maybe just to understand) the situation for humanities PhDs inside the US.

I think it's ironic that us professors will frequently ridicule our students for wanting practical, workplace-oriented degrees that will lead directly to jobs, but when we discuss the current state of the PhD in the humanities, just about no one is defending the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

[aandsdean]

I think one issue is that grad school isn't as good as people think it is.

Sure.

However, neither are the alternatives, especially for a humanities BA.

I think one really significant issue is that of who pays for the graduate degree.  In STEM fields it is practically unheard-of for a grad student to pay for his or her education; they are generally supported as TAs or RAs with tuition waivers.  While this pay is usually low low low, for someone who loves their field the idea that they can be earn a subsistence living while being given a shot at the prize is not a terrible one.  If degrees in the humanities came with a similar kind of support guarantee, that would defuse much of the ethics argument.

The other issue is time-to-degree.  We've talked about this in other threads, and I think I understand why those fields with fieldwork (eg, Anthropology) take 10+ years to a PhD.  I don't understand this at all for, say, English.  The teaching requirement doesn't explain it, as many fields have heavy teaching requirements.  (I taught for all but one semester of my 5 year MA+PhD program, and back then 5 years was considered a bit on the long side in my field.) - DvF

Try the 40-pp bibliography of long and dense works you have to read and absorb for your dissertation.  Add to that traveling to 2 or 3 libraries (less necessary than it used to be), which can be done only at times when you have no obligations at your doctoral institution (coursework or teaching or being an r.a.), and a lot can be explained.  It's a lot like fieldwork, just not so much in the field.  And unless you're an exceptionally fast reader and assimilator of texts, there's just so much that can be done in a day.

Also, on edit:  teaching in an English Ph.D. program is often/generally comp.  It takes a hell of a long time for a new instructor to grade all those papers.  Not to mention huge mental energy that would otherwise going into dissertating.

[quasihumanist]

I think there is a big general demand problem.

Society does not value (enough) the life of the mind.  It just wants bread and circuses, or things which lead to them.

Maybe it never has; maybe we are now only aware of these values because most of society never had the power to get its views heard.  (This might be one of the reasons Nietzsche thought democracy was a bad idea.)

In the long term, for civilization's sake, this is the problem we have to fix.

[i_heart_bulldogs]

I think there is a big general demand problem.

Society does not value (enough) the life of the mind.  It just wants bread and circuses, or things which lead to them.

Maybe it never has; maybe we are now only aware of these values because most of society never had the power to get its views heard.  (This might be one of the reasons Nietzsche thought democracy was a bad idea.)

In the long term, for civilization's sake, this is the problem we have to fix.

Society doesn't value anything. People who make up societies do. Sorry, but I'm a total wanker about "groups" acting.

But here, then, is the question: what about the life of the mind (which apparently only exists for humanities?) should households value? The person who likes it obviously values it, but what about other households?

All work, eventually, has to come up with a product valued by some external party if the worker wants to get some external recompense for it. Basic research is only valuable insofar as it facilitates applied research. Applied research comes up with products that are valuable to businesses or households.

So before saying that people don't demand pontification at a high enough rate, you have to figure out what households value, and then make the argument that pontification provides something of value.

[yellowtractor]

You know, I just realized:  I want bread, circuses, and the life of the mind.

Thanks for helping me to clarify this.  I feel better already.  It is a new dawn.

[unemployedacademic]

Quasihumanist is right to put the decline of academia in a more general context, as does Marc Bousquet.  Over the past 40 years, the vast majority of jobs in the US have been sped up, dumbed down, suffered under increasing expectations and made to take longer, all for flatlining wages.  Sure, there is a minority that has benefited outrageously, but the average citizen has suffered tremendously.  Now, the crisis in the infrastructure of our society has begun: people saddled with debts they can never hope to repay have begun to default.  Just like the crisis in jobs, the debt crisis hit the working class first and has begun to creep up the social scale.  All those loans people took out in lieu of better wages and benefits so that the elites could transfer unheard-of profits up the social scale are collapsing.  Unfortunately, the elites have taken production offshore, so that Chinese workers will soon be able to consume their goods for profit, replacing the debt-ridden, American consumer.  The hollowing out of academe was only one part of the great wealth transfer, made possible by delusions about hard work and more education in a "new economy" where all Americans would be elite, white-collar workers and third-world laborers would do the grunt work.  Though tenured and tenure-track scholars bear a great deal of blame for failing to sound the alarm, barely anyone has done anything about the corporatist seizure of our society.  Don't expect much from new grad students either, barring some general revolt in society.  I have met some, and suspect that there are many other, recent college grads who see being a TA as a viable alternative to being a barrista and living in their parents' basements.  They rarely anticipate that they may work for barrista-level wages after they get their degrees and have foregone all those years of earnings.

[quasihumanist]

I think there is a big general demand problem.

Society does not value (enough) the life of the mind.  It just wants bread and circuses, or things which lead to them.

Maybe it never has; maybe we are now only aware of these values because most of society never had the power to get its views heard.  (This might be one of the reasons Nietzsche thought democracy was a bad idea.)

In the long term, for civilization's sake, this is the problem we have to fix.

Society doesn't value anything. People who make up societies do. Sorry, but I'm a total wanker about "groups" acting.

But here, then, is the question: what about the life of the mind (which apparently only exists for humanities?) should households value? The person who likes it obviously values it, but what about other households?

All work, eventually, has to come up with a product valued by some external party if the worker wants to get some external recompense for it. Basic research is only valuable insofar as it facilitates applied research. Applied research comes up with products that are valuable to businesses or households.

So before saying that people don't demand pontification at a high enough rate, you have to figure out what households value, and then make the argument that pontification provides something of value.

My point is that people should value pontification for its own sake.

*That* is what we need to persuade people.  (And I am convinced it is true.)

This argument is as old as Plato.