PhDs Are Not Worth Much

With few exceptions, I advise undergraduate students away from PhDs. Sometimes I do that because they don't have a background that's strong enough to get into a doctoral program, let alone finish it. However, a lot of time I do it, because the value of, say a Clinical PhD over an MSW (Masters of Social Work) is rarely worth the work that goes into it.

This article is a little depressing, given what it says about my future job prospects, but at least I know I'm not lying to my students.

Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships.