PhD

doctorate

Stephen Downes on the Purpose of a PhD

Philip Greenspun notes This is a good measure of how desperate PhDs are for jobs as college professors. The college pays lower salaries, to people of the same age, as the public high school down the street. The high school teachers were able to go to work at age 22 without suffering through a long period of starvation wages as graduate assistants. The high school teachers are union members who ever have to worry about losing their job, compared to the college professors who live for 7 years in fear of being tossed out as a middle-aged has-been ("denied tenure" is the polite term for this event).