Although these general numbers won't be a surprise to someone who has experienced a PhD program or is well informed about them, I do think the detailed data is useful.
Congress recently considered legislation that would automatically grant a green card to anyone who has completed a PhD in certain STEM fields (not all branches of science qualify). An MS would also count under some circumstances. The logic behind this is that the people who receive these degrees are very talented, there is a terrible shortage of them, and that it makes no sense to force them to leave the US.
I do agree with point one and three. People who get PhDs in hard sciences and engineering are very talented, and it is truly bizarre to force them to leave the US. I'm also in favor of the green card, because truth is, people with these degrees who want to stay tend to be able to, and I think it would be better to grant them full and free membership in the US labor market, rather than forcing them to work under more restrictive conditions.
However, I also realize what this legislation means - that PhD programs, which I consider to be fairly abusive of their students, would now have an amazing weapon to coerce in their arsenal - they would now be institutions with the power to bestow green cards. A RAND study found that the aversion to STEM graduate degrees among people who already have US residency and work rights is economically rational when you consider other options available to elite students. [1] The "shortage" is simply a rational response to long completion times, high attrition rates, and relatively poor employment prospects (again, compared to the outcome for shorter, more certain degrees with vastly lower attrition rates). Keep in mind as you read this PhD data that elite law and medical degrees typically have attrition rates of below one half of one percent. Pretty much everyone who wants to finish does. I understand there are some differences here (half a JD isn't useful, half a PhD in CS could be). But we're talking about a stupendous difference in attrition rates, in a field where congress is taking legislative action to correct a severe shortage that supposedly threatens US competitiveness in high tech!
Before we grant this power to universities, they need to answer some tough questions. Why are general attrition 50-100 times higher than they are in professional degree programs? Why is it so much higher for women and some minorities? What are you going to do to remedy this?
I would respond with a question, why do you think it's appropriate to compare a vocational training program such as an MD/JD/etc to an academic research program? They have very different goals.
As an african-american math ph.d. dropout, nice to know that 63% of people like me also didn't finish. Oh wait, it's awful. At least I'm not alone though.
That certainly jumped out, as well as the much higher female drop out rates. Shameful!
Edit: To be clear, I put the vast majority of the blame on the advisor, not the student. I would not have made it without the remarkable support provided to me by my mentor. Conversely, I saw much stronger researchers leave for lack of a good advisor.
the opportunity cost of doing a PhD is, more and more, becomingly increasingly beyond what is tolerable for many academics.
tenure lines are evaporating, adjuncting is a nightmare, postdoc comp is pitiful... Meanwhile PhD students are competing for ever smaller slices of ever smaller pies in terms of fellowships.
meanwhile, universities are being taken over by MBAs and running them like corporations. many people (not just PhD students but staff, etc.) eventually throw in the towel and say 'fuck it, i'll just go work for an actual corporation where i'll make a decent salary.'
While 2008 is somewhat old data, a cumulative 10 year phd completion rate of 57% sounds about what I would expect. That implies a cumulative attrition rate of 43%, which puts it within striking distance of say, the 75-80% attrition rate associated with Navy SEAL BUD/S.
The attrition rate jump around years 2-3 is almost certainly due to failing the qualifying exam, which in my experience is by far the largest eliminator.
At least at some schools, a spike at 2 years or so can also come from "mastering out". In my PhD program we get an MS after completing the required classes just by filing a form (and I think this is common). Someone who figures out quickly that they don't like research all that much is well advised to at least make it to that point.
Interesting that Computer Science is the lowest of all the engineering and science degrees. Any idea why that is? (Higher level of programming required as a base skill? Too many different skills to master? Too many of the top undergrads go to industry?)
I assume you are looking at the table on slide 7. I think that is the percentage of all who completed relative to those who started it, so whether many CS undergrads go intro industry (which is most likely the case) or not is irrelevant. However, I can offer anecdotes from my experience (recent PhD in CS). First, it is usually easy to find good jobs in the industry while you are doing your PhD. I think half of students in my department that did machine learning and computer vision didn't finish their PhD and went off to work at Google and the likes. It is very tempting, because the hours in a PhD program are long, stress is high and money is never good. And many CS PhD end up working in the industry anyway. Second, writing a lot of code isn't necessary if you're doing pure theory --- but even then you might be making small prototypes or using proof assistants, so a no-programming research in CS is rare. Whether you need to master many new skills depends on your background and what you want to do for your dissertation.
[+] [-] privong|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marvy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geebee|10 years ago|reply
Congress recently considered legislation that would automatically grant a green card to anyone who has completed a PhD in certain STEM fields (not all branches of science qualify). An MS would also count under some circumstances. The logic behind this is that the people who receive these degrees are very talented, there is a terrible shortage of them, and that it makes no sense to force them to leave the US.
I do agree with point one and three. People who get PhDs in hard sciences and engineering are very talented, and it is truly bizarre to force them to leave the US. I'm also in favor of the green card, because truth is, people with these degrees who want to stay tend to be able to, and I think it would be better to grant them full and free membership in the US labor market, rather than forcing them to work under more restrictive conditions.
However, I also realize what this legislation means - that PhD programs, which I consider to be fairly abusive of their students, would now have an amazing weapon to coerce in their arsenal - they would now be institutions with the power to bestow green cards. A RAND study found that the aversion to STEM graduate degrees among people who already have US residency and work rights is economically rational when you consider other options available to elite students. [1] The "shortage" is simply a rational response to long completion times, high attrition rates, and relatively poor employment prospects (again, compared to the outcome for shorter, more certain degrees with vastly lower attrition rates). Keep in mind as you read this PhD data that elite law and medical degrees typically have attrition rates of below one half of one percent. Pretty much everyone who wants to finish does. I understand there are some differences here (half a JD isn't useful, half a PhD in CS could be). But we're talking about a stupendous difference in attrition rates, in a field where congress is taking legislative action to correct a severe shortage that supposedly threatens US competitiveness in high tech!
Before we grant this power to universities, they need to answer some tough questions. Why are general attrition 50-100 times higher than they are in professional degree programs? Why is it so much higher for women and some minorities? What are you going to do to remedy this?
[1] http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html
[+] [-] mnky9800n|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dajohnson89|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arcanus|10 years ago|reply
Edit: To be clear, I put the vast majority of the blame on the advisor, not the student. I would not have made it without the remarkable support provided to me by my mentor. Conversely, I saw much stronger researchers leave for lack of a good advisor.
[+] [-] stuxnet79|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thefastlane|10 years ago|reply
tenure lines are evaporating, adjuncting is a nightmare, postdoc comp is pitiful... Meanwhile PhD students are competing for ever smaller slices of ever smaller pies in terms of fellowships.
meanwhile, universities are being taken over by MBAs and running them like corporations. many people (not just PhD students but staff, etc.) eventually throw in the towel and say 'fuck it, i'll just go work for an actual corporation where i'll make a decent salary.'
[+] [-] bduerst|10 years ago|reply
Academia has always been political and competitive just from the limited economics of it, so don't construct an MBA scapegoat for "ruining" it.
[+] [-] jeffwass|10 years ago|reply
In my experience, it's pretty much academic faculty with decent track records that move on to the uni Dean/President path.
[+] [-] arcanus|10 years ago|reply
The attrition rate jump around years 2-3 is almost certainly due to failing the qualifying exam, which in my experience is by far the largest eliminator.
[+] [-] cfallin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ac|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustUhThought|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ipunchghosts|10 years ago|reply