Shrinking Ph.D. Job Market

▪ 1998

      Since the 1980s the market for new Ph.D.'s to fill tenure-track positions in U.S. colleges and universities has decreased significantly. Despite this decrease, the production of new doctorates has increased. Between 1970 and 1993 the number of doctoral degrees awarded annually in the U.S. rose from 29,500 to 39,750. In 1970 approximately 75% of new Ph.D.'s had postgraduation commitments in higher education, either as faculty or in postdoctoral study; by 1993 only 61% had such commitments. According to a National Research Council (NRC) study, the prospects for finding full-time employment as faculty in higher education in 1997 were not bright. In 1970 more than 68% found teaching positions in higher education; since 1980 the figure has declined to a consistent 51%. Ph.D.'s in the social and behavioural sciences experienced the steepest drop in finding employment in higher education, down from 80% in 1970 to 53% in 1993. An exception to the general downward trend was engineering, where employment prospects and salaries remained high.

      Despite predicted declines, overall enrollments in higher education remained stable throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Since the 1970s, however, the general mood in higher education has been one of fiscal retrenchment. Funding decreases in state university systems have caused "downsizing" or "restructuring" in colleges and universities. Some institutions reduced the size of or eliminated whole departments. Some departments, with high percentages of tenured faculty at associate or full professor ranks and with little mobility among faculty, have not been able to hire full-time instructors or assistant professors. Many institutions, relying on attrition to reduce faculty ranks, have not replaced professors when vacancies occur. Between 1991 and 1995, for example, new faculty appointments at public institutions dropped 30%, while those at private institutions declined 12.1%. In addition to institutional retrenchment, the end of the Cold War caused reduced funding for federal government-sponsored research in science and technology, with the result that grants to institutions of higher learning were also reduced. Because of these general trends, the prospects for new hires of Ph.D.'s to fill faculty positions in higher education are severely limited.

      While placement prospects for their new Ph.D.'s are discouraging, many graduate programs, in order to maintain their funding and faculty positions, have not reduced the number of students admitted to doctoral programs. Another tendency has been to increase the number of students from other countries in graduate programs. For example, in 1995, 43% of the graduate students in physics programs were not U.S. citizens. The general consequence is that the supply of new Ph.D.'s has outdistanced demand in higher education.

      A result of the bleak employment prospects for new Ph.D.'s is what is called the "nomad" in higher education. With fewer tenure-track positions authorized, universities have resorted to using more part-time, nontenured instructors. Nomads are Ph.D.'s who, while searching for full-time positions, move from institution to institution as part-time, non-tenure-track instructors. They receive low pay and few, if any, benefits.

      These trends subject the new Ph.D.'s to job searches that are often long and frustrating. They contribute to the underemployment of the nation's most highly educated.

GERALD LEE GUTEK

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