An article that describes the tough life of humanities Ph.D.s. A wonderful article to use in an introductory economics course to make two points.

1. You ignore market signals at your peril.

2. What are compensating differentials? Let a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale who's read a little economics tell you: "He refers to the 2001 book The Invisible Heart by feminist economist Nancy Folbre, which describes how the work that is most important to a society tends to be the most undervalued. 'Teachers, nurses, people who do things they really care about, get shafted.'"

Comments

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

"THE INVISIBLE HEART An Economic Romance", by Russell Roberts, is more profitable reading.

[Fred Boness]

You would think humanities PhDs would be more philosophical about their lot on life.

[Lee Bissett]

Based on my experience working with two Duke English grad students for Duke TIP, they have little understanding of market economies to begin with.

[brian]

Sometimes I think that a significant, non-trivial number of people, from my anecdotal persoanl experience, who want to go into academia think that because they are "smart" by societies standards (grades, tests, etc.), and they went to the right college, that naturally they would get a job in academia. But aside from the the costs of education increasing, and colleges seeking to cut costs by using more TAs to cover classes, the implementation of a more corporate model in academia (not saying its a bad or good thing, just a change in how things are done), but why should people assume things would stay the same. I realize that taking 7 to 10 years to get a PhD it can be hard to forcast these changes, but those who will excel will have to thibk outside the box, be something other than "smart" and with all the paper qualifications. I've met and worked with some undoubtedly brilliant people, but some are waiting for their brilliance to be recognized and offered a better position, some have no inter-personal skills. My point is things change, I'd argue ina post industrialized society things change at an accelerated rate, and appear to us faster and faster, and success for a PhD in humanities or whatever, will require something more than what it took in the past to succeed. Also with more people getting bachelour's degrees and advanced degrees we kind of are creating an inflation in degrees aren't we. I don't remember 10 years ago retail chains requiring MBAs for a reatil manaagment position- most of the cel phone stores do, and other retail service managemnt jobs prefer a MBA. It's not just the humanities that are having to adapt. They (as a cluster)just may be the least suited for adapting to change?

[brian]

Sometimes I think that a significant, non-trivial number of people, from my anecdotal persoanl experience, who want to go into academia think that because they are "smart" by societies standards (grades, tests, etc.), and they went to the right college, that naturally they would get a job in academia. But aside from the the costs of education increasing, and colleges seeking to cut costs by using more TAs to cover classes, the implementation of a more corporate model in academia (not saying its a bad or good thing, just a change in how things are done), but why should people assume things would stay the same. I realize that taking 7 to 10 years to get a PhD it can be hard to forcast these changes, but those who will excel will have to thibk outside the box, be something other than "smart" and with all the paper qualifications. I've met and worked with some undoubtedly brilliant people, but some are waiting for their brilliance to be recognized and offered a better position, some have no inter-personal skills. My point is things change, I'd argue ina post industrialized society things change at an accelerated rate, and appear to us faster and faster, and success for a PhD in humanities or whatever, will require something more than what it took in the past to succeed. Also with more people getting bachelour's degrees and advanced degrees we kind of are creating an inflation in degrees aren't we. I don't remember 10 years ago retail chains requiring MBAs for a reatil manaagment position- most of the cel phone stores do, and other retail service managemnt jobs prefer a MBA. It's not just the humanities that are having to adapt. They (as a cluster)just may be the least suited for adapting to change?

[tee bee]

you'd think someone billing themselves as an economist (feminist economist?!?) would be able to do some simple math to figure out why nurses get paid what they do, and teachers, and so on. it isn't magic figuring out where the money comes from unless you are a socialist; then you're just looking for more money from everyone to create your ideal utopia that says nurses should make what doctors make, and teachers should make what superintendents make. because most nurses and teachers are women, and darn it they get shafted because they're women, not because they made a career choice.

humanities PhDs face the same market forces, so I suppose it was pretty crafty pumping out socialist-leaning democrats (recent survey notes that college-educated voters tend to be democrats) during the past several decades. that way it doesn't matter that you are teaching them interesting dreck with little hope of actual productivity. eventually they will want to enshrine you through socialist democracy, and heaven forfend anyone think differently.

[tee bee]

Erin O'Connor, interesting and related:

www.erinoconnor.org/archives/000923.html