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Comment by hcayless | Hacker News Reader

It really isn't. Food service jobs don't require that you spend years and lots of money in order to qualify for them. Academia has really become a sort of pyramid scheme: lots of people going to grad school to support a few faculty who educate them to do faculty jobs that are increasingly scarce. A couple of decades ago, the deal was that you might have to adjunct for a year or two after grad school, but if you stuck it out, you'd have a decent chance of getting a proper job. Those days are gone, but somehow the folks going into grad school haven't gotten the message yet. The only way the situation will improve is if people insist on being paid what they're worth and otherwise withhold their labor.

Basically, don't go to grad school unless you have a plan to do something other than becoming college faculty with it. And don't take adjunct jobs unless you're doing it for fun as a side gig.

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Pyramid schemes involve misleading and/or false promises. Do schools do this to graduate students?

The main complaint I've seen is that the low chance of success (eg, a tenure track position) is not adequately disclosed.

Where does this crazy idea that everyone going to graduate school wants to be a tenure track academic (your definition of success) come from?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-many... Survey says 53% of PhDs back in the 80s wanted to be profs.

Also, this crazy idea comes from talking to all these fine young people who want my letter of recommendation for graduate school. In pure math, there is not much point in going to grad school unless you're at least considering being a tenure-track academic. No one aspires to be an adjunct, you can get a job making real money out of college, and so unless you just think math is so fun that you want to do 7 years of grad school and then get a job, you are thinking of being a prof.

Other fields are certainly different.... but why get a PhD in art history if you don't want to be an academic?

Doesn't the financial sector employ pure maths PhDs and pay them extremely well?

And you can apply an art history PhD in museums, galleries, national collections, etc etc.

> Doesn't the financial sector employ pure maths PhDs and pay them extremely well?

There are a few big names who make a lot of money, but on average someone with a PhD and x years of experience will be paid less than someone with a masters and x+3 years of experience, AIUI.

> And you can apply an art history PhD in museums, galleries, national collections, etc etc.

Sure, there are a few options, but how many of those jobs are there per PhD?

Ultimately, you can do whatever the hell you want after a history of art PhD, just like anyone else can.

You could be an actor, a soldier, an astronaut, a school teacher, a barista, a politician... whatever you want.

Most jobs, including many ones that pay excellently such as banking, don't care what degree you have, and many will value the diversity that different degrees bring.

> Ultimately, you can do whatever the hell you want after a history of art PhD, just like anyone else can.

Sure - but as the article says, why would you go for a history of art PhD unless you were looking to become an art academic (or you just loved the subject enough to spend 3 years doing it for no other benefit)?

I'll hazard a guess that the complaints mainly come from people in graduate programs for which the most realistic "good job" that actually uses the course subject matter is a tenured teaching position.

I mean, the high competition for adjunct positions seems to be evidence that many post-graduate students want to teach the subject matter that they've learned.

For most grad programs, the whole point is to train you to be a professor. So, yes, there is at least an implicit promise you'll be able to become the thing they're training you for.

Yes!

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