Why do so many people continue to pursue doctorates?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
1. It's a way to (pointlessly) delay adulthood.
2. Fear of the job market.
3. Don't know what else to do.
4. Magical thinking (despite the numerous articles out there, like mine (http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befor...) that attempt to dissuade it). I think this is the biggest issue. In addition, there seems to be a Lake Woebegone effect: Everyone thinks they're going to be above average.
EDIT: I forgot to add another important one: Grad school is pretty easy and fun! You get to hang out on campus, think about ideas, take a minimal number of classes, do a bit of teaching, and have copious free time. The problem is that, as time advances and your priorities start changing (want a real life / job, date people who don't date people whose lives aren't together, etc.), reality starts to intrude. Many grad students have an unacknowledged Peter Pan complex.
5. Academic success has been rewarded every step of the way.
I look at my high school classmates who I know went on to get Phds. (Sample size of 8) All of them were among the smartest few percent in the class. Every success that they got through the end of undergrad was due to academic performance. But afterwards things slowed down. Only 2 of 8 stayed through to tenure. The two smartest got Phds in math and wound up in non-faculty positions. One other got a science industry job. One wound up at a hedge fund. And two teach high school.
All things considered it's not a bad lot in life, but these were amongst the best and brightest of my peer group. Five of Seven would have been better served taking other paths to their end destinations.
There is a systemic incentives problem going on. Every individual school has an incentive to push as many people as possible into academia. This is for both cheap labor, and because their brand goes up when absolute #s of their grads go on to big things. The schools in aggregate also benefit when there are more Phd grads than job applicants. (Again keeps costs down) The systemic over-supply punishes the graduates as a whole.
It's a case where the individuals who have gotten the most mileage listening to their teachers, are also the ones who most need to stop listening to them. :-)
I think I might be doing the best, career-wise, unless any of them pivoted to be a medical doctor. I got fired from a biotech job (that pesky work-ethic...) and learned python while working data-entry. Being a C student in college kinda paid off, if it helped me dodge a career in the life sciences.
Linkedin/FB stalked, of the 8 of us we have: Research Associate (has a Masters now), Phd/MD Student, Scientist II, Research Lab Tech (might be unemployed & traveling the world?), Research Lab Tech, PhD Student, Physician's Assistant, Senior Software Eng.
All but one of these people are harder-working than I am, and all are just as smart. I just lucked out by having an economist for my dad, who planted the idea that I should look at switching to a field in demand.
None of them could give me a convincing answer as to how I would benefit long-term for continuing my education. None of them could give me an example of a job that I would be unable to get with my current level of education. All of them admitted that it would require 4-6 more years of my life, and that even with the best financial aid / scholarships, I would still be paying $60-100k out-of-pocket for the experience.
So basically, it would have required me to put off getting a full time job to instead drive myself deep into debt all while sacrificing all of my free-time until I was 30.
Instead, I moved to Seattle, found a job in I.T. and I have been climbing the corporate ladder ever since, making more than enough money to live comfortably and save money. I was lucky enough to earn my B.A. without any student debt.
My degree isn't even in an I.T. field. I have a B.A. in Journalism! The thing that has done more to further my resume has been my full-time employment and my technical certifications. I get to expense my certifications to my company...
Furthering my education would have ruined my future. Ending my education has accelerated it. Sadly, I worry that this is going to become true of Undergrad programs in the next decade, and that's not a good thing...
For STEM, it's also true that certain job opportunities (eg. elite R&D facilities) more-or-less require a PhD or equivalent levels of mastery. It's possible to obtain those jobs after a long period of field work (without PhD), but it's a lot more difficult. Plus, you will always be butting up against credentialing norms during those jobs' recruiting processes. (Whether that's equitable or not is another story.)
Just my $0.02.
This is important. I thought at the time that I accepted that it was due to the massive budget cuts happening in California, and the UC's were undergoing furloughs.
Oops.
That sounds pretty fucked up. Working on your PhD is a job and you should be getting a salary from the University, not paying them.
You are probably a bit of an outlier in that any credentials in journalism, never mind a postgraduate degree in journalism, are only recently a way of increasing your chances of gaining employment in that field.
If non-commercial journalism grows that might change. But for now I'd venture to guess Ph.Ds in journalism are rare among those working in the field.
1. It's a way to (pointlessly) delay adulthood.
adulthood != working for a company
Developing the next CRISPR, detecting gravitational waves, or building a stellator is a pretty grown up thing. In the end there is a non zero chance of achieving or contributing to something exceptional during your 20s (depending on your field).
2. Fear of the job market.
Well said. No other entity is recruiting young undergrads like academia does. Only topped by consulting firms, maybe.
3. Don't know what else to do.
The fellow students I encountered (~30) were mostly driven/obsessed by curiosity (2-3 exceptions maybe).
4. Magical thinking
Academia problem or society in general? This pattern prevails everywhere.
disclaimer: physics PhD
It is a mistake to look at a field full of so many thousands of people and focus on the outliers.
The common case of the PhD experience is proving cheap labor to a tenured professor on their projects while moving your own PhD process forward, in a field that lacks the hard science component that allows you to paint such a glowing image of the process. You dipped into physics twice, in fact; even accidentally, I'd suggest this means something. Further, both fields you named are fields where getting a PhD still leaves you quite eminently hireable even if you "fail out" of academia... this, too, is not the common experience.
Someone getting their PhD needs to make sure they ask questions about what is most likely, not what the most awesome possibilities are, who are, by that very token, getting drowned in applications for those positions. Do you have a good story as to why you will get those positions?
That one I don't get. Having watched my wife get her PhD, I'd say that it requires at least much "adulthood" (place in that word what you will) as any job I've ever had, and probably a lot more.
The difference between me, the other students and the teacher was I'd had been working at technical job through school. In the real world crap's late all the time. Meeting the deadline involves jettisoning requirements like the sailors in a stricken ship tossing valuable cargo over side.
You know your wife is an adult. And school actually is the real world. Grad school is often harder, you don't have a boss. You don't have tasks that are neatly sectioned. Work places tend to be organized to psychologically pressure you into getting stuff done. Self motivation is a big factor in being successful in school.
Lot of students don't get that though. And the potential transition out of school seems scary. So they punt.
I think humanity applies the lessons from these articles in the aggregate, but at an individual level, this is a much messier story.
It features people (like myself) who didn't really understand or place any importance on marketability when asked to choose a major at 17.
Four years later you get another fun choice: accept your current job prospects, grab an advanced degree, or start from scratch on a different undergrad degree, which is psychologically quite hard.[0]
I know a lot of people push for universally free college tuition. A part of me though would much rather encourage school loans that signal to students the viability of their major by adjusting interest rates or availability of credit based on the field of study.
Though that has it's problems too. We'd want to pay teachers considerably more, for instance.
Ok, I mostly just wish someone had handed me a copy of "So Good They Can't Ignore You" when I was young and stupid.
[0] And some people successfully convince a great manager to take a chance on them. That involves a lot of search costs and a lot of luck, though. It also filters for risk-tolerant employers, which becomes a high-risk strategy itself.
What on Earth? Did I go to grad-school in an alternate dimension or something?
In Germany until a few years ago you could practice as a psychotherapist after doing your Master's (which included a large practical component.) Now they tacked on more post graduation training time. In the USA and other unfortunate countries that follow its example medicine, dentistry and law are all postgraduate degrees, elsewhwere they're undergraduate. In the USA until recently physiotherapy was a Master's degree. Now they require a "professional doctorate" like an Ed.D. or Psy.D. You can still practice in the US with a Bachelor's in physiotherapy acquired in Europe. In Germany physiotherapy is an apprenticeship.
In my home country of Ireland they recently increased the necessary qualifications for teaching from a one year post bachelor's diploma to a Master's. This despite the fact that the evidence for positive effects of teaching qualification on effectiveness are minimal, at best.
Credentialism.
I think in the special German case this was made to allow for more career switching - I have a relative who has a diploma in Pedagogy, he took one of the new short psychotherapy courses ("post graduation training time") and is now a certified child psychologist, a career that was before this new course impossible for him without the prior psychology degrees.
So, an employer looking at many undifferentiated candidates would likely choose someone with a masters or doctorate, if not at least to cover their hiring decision if ever questioned.
The development of a fast and cost-efficient test would lower the need for credentials as a gateway.
This is not a universally shared experience.
Perhaps I am an outlier, but I really think it was the right thing for me. I hit the end of my undergraduate degree and I felt like I had just started learning, so I looked into graduate school and liked what I saw. I've spent the last 4 years working on my PhD and I have learned a lot, I've made real improvements to human knowledge, and I've gotten a job that would have been impossible with a bachelors and 4 years of work experience.
But the biggest reason is simple and terrifying: because it is fun.
For people who measure their success in dollars earned a PhD is an idiotic investment. About a year ago I calculated the difference in how much money I have, and how much money I would currently have had I accepted an offer from Google after my first year. Obviously that stung a little. But I wouldn't trade the last six years for anything... not even the above-mentioned amount of money ;)
The real problem with oversupply of PhDs is there are fields of study which aren't remunerative outside academia. If you get a PhD in electrical engineering, say, or something medical, you can get a job.
But if you field of study was sociology or literature and you can't find a job in academia (and you probably can't), you're never going to be able to pay of eight or ten year's worth of student loans.
If you have a PhD it is important to sell the skills it gave you that an employer wants. A good list of which are found here: https://careercenter.umich.edu/article/phd-transferable-skil...
This is a great reason to do it. For me, I consider it getting my retirement in at the beginning of my career. I did something for several years just because I wanted to.
I acquired $70k in student loans to afford to live in the city with my partner while working on my degree. Essentially they paid about half of cost of living.
Don't know how it is now but we used to work 38 hrs, the additional 2 were given as free time on top of the standard 25 days/year giving you about 7 weeks off each year. You have no kids yet (in general) so you can travel a bit (as said, often after a conference so the boss pays the ticket.) I had a blast.
I did have some problems finding a job afterwards but this was end of 2009 when companies here basically stopped hiring for some time. But I spend 8 months applying while getting 74% of my last paid wages as a PhD student. Still, that was not as fun as it sounds.
In the US: Market forces seem to diminish the value of a PhD. In the Netherlands: Market is ignored by subsidies from the government. No idea what is better, let it die or keep the PhD system alive artificially. I don't know, the whole system feels a bit archaic to me. I always tell people that IQ and level of education are hardly related. I think it is difficult to fail a PhD here at least it doesn't happen often, especially when you have a professor that says exactly what you should do, and then you do it. I never met a dumb PhD student though.
It's really not all that different from people living frugal so they can their startup.
If Phd candidates don't like the system they can go find real jobs like everyone else.
A Ph.D. program should not be for people who just like learning more stuff. You can take classes, get a masters degree, or just study on your own, if that's what you want. A Ph.D. is supposed to be a certification that you can create an original work of new research, at a quality level that meets the approval of other professional researchers. The research project is typically substantial enough to require years of effort, and the support of others who have already gone through the process.
you are saying it's not sufficient.
you might both be right; they are different properties.
1. Get a funded PhD offer for 3-4 years (The funding is tax free so comparable to the average grad salary).
2. Complete in 3-4 years (it is hard to get more than a 6 month extension, technically they can take their money back if you do but this rarely happens as the system wants you to quit early or succeed).
3. Be more employable (I'm speaking from personal experience here. I didn't go looking for jobs like I did after my undergrad, they came to me via LinkedIn/Monster etc.)
As an avid reader of PhD comics I have always struggled to understand why the US system is so different.
As a side note it is worth pointing out that it is foolish to assume that doing a PhD inherently leads to a Professorship now. What it does do is give you 3-4 years experience (which employers like) and a vast range of research and communication skills (which employers love).
All in all, I don't regret, it was 2 years spent with a lot of autonomy on an interesting R&D project, which is mostly unheard of in industry, especially for junior roles. But I can't say it was really a plus for my career, 2 years of experience would have allowed me to get P.Eng. and that plus experience is much more valuable in the eyes of employers.
[1] In Canada, MEng is generally 45 credits of coursework and 15 credits of research+thesis, while MASc is the opposite (major research component).
[2] We were eventually denied government funding, which made private capital also pull out. The reason was apparently the shakiness of the business case, which I unfortunately was not much involved in.
Not everything in life is about the money, otherwise all people would try to become investment bankers.
From my anecdotal experience, far more are turning to PhDs simply as a way to avoid the brutal job market. They're choosing it for financial reasons, even though their reasons are backed by faulty information.
This doesn't follow at all. Most people aren't capable of becoming investment bankers and wisely make no effort in that direction. There's no reason that would change even if they all really wanted to be investment bankers as an end in itself.
If somebody has evidence to the contrary, please fill me in.
I haven't found a way in either. If you start your own company somewhere in the field, or otherwise support yourself, you can rock and roll as an indie researcher. Otherwise, a Ph.D. seems necessary.
I wonder if this will change over the next decade, as synthetic biology continues to expand rapidly.
Also, beware the "$TOPIC is expanding rapidly" trap: synthetic biology is merely the buzzword of the moment. When I started, it was computational biology. Later, genomics. The number of opportunities created by these booms has never kept up with the hype waves that preceded them.
[1] There is, however, a pathway for "business" people who enter biomed. But I'm assuming you're not interested in this, and in any case, getting a PhD won't help you with it.
The roll-your-own-company lab approach sounds a little better, overall. One tricky thing is that I'd have a lot more credibility starting a biotech company with a Ph.D. Right now I'm considering a Ph.D. to get the training and credibility (union card, as someone else said). Still not a slam dunk, though - Transcriptic's founder just has a bachelor's.
So... Consider the path of a research data scientist if that sounds fun. It's also very lucrative, which is nice, too, though I'm not personally motivated by the finances of it.
While I've known a lot of PhDs who know nothing about statistics or programming or some other specific skill (nobody is an expert at everything), it's pretty hard to make it through a good graduate program while knowing none of these things. What generally happens is that domain experts try to keep their minds focused on their domains (where their value is highest), and let non-specialist work fall to generalists. Generalists then (sometimes, incorrectly) assume that the specialists are useless outside of their niche.
I'm not going to say that there aren't incompetent PhDs, but it's a bad assumption to make, in general. You don't assume that your CEO doesn't know how to clean a toilet simply because she lets the janitor do it.
If you want to be night manager at Wendy's, you don't need any higher ed.
And then there's a lot in between.
I suspect that most PhD candidates have aspirations that lean toward the former.
Nobody aspires to be the night manager at a fast food place, but many of the people who end up with jobs like that got there because they made impractical educational choices (which might include getting a PhD without understanding how they were going to turn that into a career after the fact).
I'm not anti-PhD at all, but plenty of people get them for the wrong reasons or without thinking about what they'll do with it once it's done. In my experience, for many people it's a way to have an extended childhood/college experience well into their 30s. When you're in school you can judge yourself and others based on your aspirations (which can be especially intoxicating if those aspirations are romantic notions like "extending mankind's understanding"), but once you're out of school all that matters is what you've actually accomplished. It can be a scary transition and I don't blame anyone for wanting to postpone it if they have the means to do so.
Many people have audacious goals that aren't fully realized.
I think the saying is "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
I'm not sure how true it is, but the idea is a common one.
A German Dr. Med. is closer to a Master's degree than a doctorate and you can practice as a physician without it though few do.
Are there any countries where you have to get a real (research) doctorate to practice as a physician?
The issue in my case is that I discovered that I didn't actually enjoy doing research for a number of reasons and having a PhD in a non-vocational subject generally makes you less employable rather than more - or at least changes the opportunities on offer. It is also difficult to extract yourself gracefully from a PhD program before the end - I ploughed on to submit my thesis and get my doctorate even though I'd realise a long time before that I didn't intend to pursue a research career. I was also quite naive about the realities of pursing an academic career (despite having a parent who is an academic), but given that research wasn't really for me, that probably wasn't too important in the grand scheme of things.
Let's consider some options now available to you.
1. You get a job in programming or IT, perhaps at a startup, and perhaps make a ton of money. You pursue your STEM field interest in your spare time.
2. You find a job that is actually in your STEM field but that only requires a bachelor's degree. As with option #1 you pursue you advanced interests in your spare time. You probably don't make as much money compared to #1, but you are more likely to do work actually related to your STEM interest.
3. You spend, say, 7 years getting your PhD.
Let's compare these at the end of 7 years. As far as how much you know about your STEM field goes, option #3 wins by a long shot. With option #3 you've spent 7 years where basically your full time task was to learn your field at an advanced level, interrupted by the occasional undergraduate class you have to teach.
With option #1 or #2, you have something else occupying much of your time. You are going to have progressed in your STEM field nowhere near as far as you would have under option #3. For most people they will never be able to get under #1 or #2 to the point where they would have been at the end of #3...work just doesn't leave enough time. When you are trying to understand the most advanced things in a STEM field you need to be able to devote reasonably long periods of sustained concentration and study.
Financially, those who choose option #1 or #2 are generally better off after 7 years than those who choose #3.
A good PhD program in a STEM field should be fully funded. It will cover your tuition, and give you a stipend and/or teaching assignments that will cover the expenses if a modest scholarly lifestyle.
So the question you have to ask yourself is this: "if someone will cover my expenses so that I can spend 7 years devoted to my STEM interest, getting to a level of knowledge in that field that I probably will never be able to get any other way, is it worth starting the 'make a lot of money/start a family/settle down' phase of my life 7 years later than I could otherwise start it?"
The answer is yes for many people.
A bachelors really doesn't get you anything as a sciences student. Besides QA/Tech positions, there aren't many options to cut a viable path within the field. Most companies demand a minimum Masters with a preference for PhD's for most Scientist level positions. Having upward career mobility is very tough without a higher degree.
Spurned on by a lack of better options, most students pursue grad school in hopes of landing a tenure track position or hope their research aligns with relevant industry markets. Competition is insanely high though from the sheer churn of graduate students who are essentially cheap labor for their universities.
Regrets? None. Every experience has been completely worth it.
Many of my friends have done PhDs and postdocs. Some are academics, some lead large research teams, others R&D teams at biotech startups, and some have moved on to different fields like me. Almost none regret doing what they do or the path they've chosen. Sure there is a lot to change with the system and too many PhDs in some fields, but a doctorate was a rewarding experience for me and for a good chunk of those I know who have one.
I'm approaching the end of a 4 year PhD and so far do not miss the world of work too much. But ask me again in a year...
Those top 10 programs can probably fulfill most of the faculty openings in any given field, nationwide, with enough graduates left over to fill all of the needs of private industry and government labs as well. There is just no reason for recruiters to look further down-list.
I have friends who have taken faculty positions at PhD granting programs ranked 20th or so in the country. They have reported back that their grad students are, um, underwhelming, and they end up doing a lot of their own research hands-on.
My standard advice to people currently in grad school is to drop out with a masters.
What about whether a PhD helps people with romantic relationships, sense of belonging in the community, happiness, social ranking, whatever other goals they might have in their lives?
In light of that I think the topic should be changed on HN - I expected a much more balanced analysis. The current headline on the site itself is "The Ever-Tightening Job Market for Ph.D.s".
Sadly, it seems that the United States has lost the will and vision to provide this opportunity for its citizens. Now we only talk of job training and ROI. The financial burden has been shifted from the society to the individual, and the true promise of higher education is but a fading memory.
Is getting a graduate level degree (at least a Masters) a necessity to be the head of such a company? From what I've seen, most other companies in the space seem to be headed by people with either a PhD or MBA.
To found a company doing scientific research, it helps a great deal not just to have a PhD, but to to be an established researcher in the field you're commercializing. Most scientific startups founded by outsiders are...transparently bad.
Working tech probably trumps academic credentials in these matters though -- so as long as you know what you're in for, dive right in.
I liked industry much better than doing a Ph.D., even though I loved all the subjects I studied at university.
More details here: https://henrikwarne.com/2016/03/07/ph-d-or-professional-prog...
Totally anecdotally, it remains very hard to get an entry-level job unless you have some hard skills. A PhD offers the promise of avoiding the grueling process of applying for jobs and they often (incorrectly) think that it will make them much more employable.
I stopped after my masters, bought a house, and had 2 phd candidate friends move in with me (we live in a city with a university). They tried to tell me that grad school was harder than the real world. I argued that its easier citing my experience in grad school and now the real world. I put in a solid 40 hours a week. In grad school, I was at the office roughly 50-60 but it was largely unproductive. I find that graduate labs encourage bad habits like staying up too late to fix a problem that could be easily fixed in the morning after a good night sleep.
To prove to my friends that grad school was easier than the real world, I offered to drive them to university everyday and pick them up on my way home. I noticed that neither of them worked while at home. After the first week of a straight 40 hours, they were exhausted. After a month of this, they found another ride to school because they said working a straight 8 hour everyday was too much!
They're different skills.
I certainly would find getting into a PhD problem much harder than getting a job. But I've spent most of my undergraduate career working and networking—and my GPA/research reflects that.
On the other hand, many of my friends never realized that the real world isn't a series of hoops. They've done great academically (3.9+ GPA, serious research with professors) but neglected to develop any real hard skills or to learn about employability. So the job market is incredibly intimidating to them, while a PhD looks like another series of hoops, which is comforting.
> I argued that its easier citing my experience in grad school and now the real world.
I have no idea what grad school is like, but I do think that the "real world" is a lot easier than undergrad. With jobs, you have a defined amount of work to do each day and have loads of free time to do whatever you want with. Whereas academics have a limitless supply of potential things to do, without defined hours. But maybe that's just because I've always loved work a lot more than school.
One is that there is a real conflict of interest for their professors. They are supposed to be advising their students in their best interests, but they need to keep a big surplus of graduate students to keep their graduate programs going, and often also as research assistants.
The other is that American elementary and secondary education is designed to funnel people into higher education, and so that is what students learn how do do, rather than getting a job in the real world. Contrast this with Germany, where there is a very solid track for learning useful skilled manual trades (and that is a key reason German manufacturing continues to be very healthy in the face of Asian competition)
http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the-Huma/448...
All this is a bit less applicable to some fields. I've heard that employment is good PhDs for CS and some other engineering fields - but then again, so is employment with an MS or BS. Economics may be a good field for a PhD.
One other factor is that getting a graduate degree from a US based university can be a path to immigrate to the US. There really aren't many options for people who don't have family reunification as an option, so going to grad school in a STEM field in particular may have value that isn't captured in pay relative to fields that don't provide this path to the same extent.
The article mentions that enrollment in PhD programs hasn't declined like it has for law schools and historically hasn't been a path to immigration. One way to measure this would be to see if there has been a substantial decline in enrollment in PhD programs from people who already have the right to live in and work in the US.
Why do people keep getting degrees in journalism when there are no jobs?
She has consistently been among the top 5% of every academic institution she has been in. Her GRE is 333, and she has several research papers under her belt.
Would it make sense for her to get a PhD? Or is the job market too terrible in the humanities?
I have a PhD, but it didn't really help me get my job. What it did do is change me from a worker drone into an independent thinker and designer who can write design docs blindingly fast (compared to my highly esteemed, but slower writing, peers).
Not saying that everyone without a PhD is a worker drone, just that I was.
None of this changed their self confidence in the slightest. Curiously, people pushing for formal methods, unit tests and sane design practices were all non-PhDs.
1) Love for science (it is hard to do full-time funded research without a PhD)
2) Prestige
3) Desire to work for the government (some high-profile public service positions make it easier to get in with a PhD).
Nearly nobody is doing a PhD for "employability" (except specific target positions from #3) or financial reward.
this makes sense.. a doctorate is a research effort with a very different kind of end goal to the typical workplace environment. its an opportunity to explore the field and do work that most employers will never let you - but more importantly the skill set required is, imo, highly orthogonal to the skills require for day-to-day 'boring' work.
why do people expect doctorates to result in employment outside of academia? they are poorly suited to this by design... and afaik its completely intentional because of the aforementioned difference in skill requirements.
i've met plenty of very shitty googlers and facebookers, as well as some truly excellent ones. but i suspect you will find much better guys in games, vfx, military and finance (which at least backs up some of your point). in my experience there is a much lower tolerance for crappiness in those fields by necessity. the performance and quality bar they have to meet is orders of magnitude higher in a lot of cases...
2. Better long term prospects
First of all, yes, the market for academic jobs in general is pretty bad, despite increasing demand for college education, because of relentless government slashing of public higher education funding over the past 20 years. The comparison to what has happened recently with law schools is completely senseless, though. Law school was seen by many to be a certain path to an extremely high-paying job, and was pursued by the most ambitious, most money-driven individuals. And for a long time, the reward really was there. That all changed suddenly, and the jobs dried up, so when most of the reason applicants choose a law career goes away, of course applications will drop.
But many academic fields have always had poor job markets, few tenure-track positions, and cruddy pay. It may be getting marginally worse every year, but it's not like there's a sudden sea change in what you can expect if you go get a degree in English. And in any case, the sort of person who pursues a PhD is almost never motivated by a desire for money, or a "great career". The people who are so motivated are the ones who look at tables of graduate school ROI and used to choose law. Your Art History PhD student probably has never seen such a chart, wouldn't care if they did, and doesn't think in terms of ROI.
The other problem with the law school comparison is just raw numbers. Law schools likely put out an order of magnitude more JDs each year than all typical PhD fields combined. The PhD pipeline is far more stable.
The author questions why schools are pushing more people through graduate programs when demand is decreasing, but that's easy to answer. First of all, at the micro level, each individual department and PhD program has an internal incentive to continue the work they've been doing for years. This is their job, after all, and there are customers.
The universities that run these programs also have every incentive for them to continue. 1) Accreditation boards, US News and World Report rankings, and research funding all give you bonus points for having a PhD program. 2) Graduate tuition is higher than undergraduate tuition. 3) PhD students are an even cheaper source of labor with even fewer rules about mistreating them than adjunct faculty! This one is huge. There are some schools where most of your classes will be taught by PhD students, not by actual professors.
The author also doesn't seem to have ever talked to anyone who's gotten a PhD. Those median time-to-completion numbers are meaningless. Yes, some fields (mostly hard science) have their PhD candidates doing research for their dissertation for years on end, but in most fields, you do a couple of years of PhD coursework and then you work on your dissertation until you finish. Many programs will pay you a tiny bit to stick around if you will teach classes, at least for a couple more years, but in general the onus to complete this massive project is on the individual student. And given that they probably have families by this point in their life and that they're most likely working some unrelated or semi-related job in the meantime to pay the bills, yeah, sometimes it takes years and years to complete the dissertation.
Go to any academic-related administrative department at a large state university and you will find it filled with people who have full time jobs supporting the university, but are also slowly working through their PhD in Education or something similar. They get a slight bump in pay and respect when they complete it, but for the most part they are there working for the university and working on their PhD because they love their field, and they're passionate about helping students learn.
Of course, the stats given also leave out the fields in which there is plenty of demand for PhD-holding professors. If you want a six figure starting salary and schools falling over themselves to hire you, go get a PhD in Accounting.
Finally, there's not enough context in the article on the stats showing "no job commitment" for PhD students. It apparently means "tenure track professorship", but I think you'll find that most of the people in those fields know exactly what they're getting into, end up in totally acceptable jobs, and are pleased about doing the work to get their PhD.