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The Many Costs

April 02, 2012

In a recent commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education, graduate student Jon Bardin says his path to a PhD "has been full of teachable moments that I know will benefit me regardless of the specific work I pursue." Blogger Chemjobber, though, cautions readers about the costs of graduate school, and how time is but one of them.

"When we talk about the costs of getting a PhD, I believe that we don't talk enough about the sheer length of time ([five-plus] years) and what other training might have been taken during that time," Chemjobber says, adding that opportunity costs also matter. "Are the communications skills and the problem-solving skills that he [Bardin] gained worth the time and the (opportunity) cost? Could he have obtained those skills somewhere else for a lower cost?"

Taking somewhat of a devil's advocate stance, Chemjobber asks whether, financially speaking, US taxpayers' contributions to Bardin's graduate education were well spent. Typically, taxpayer-supported scientific training pays for itself, Chemjobber says, as PhD-level researchers "can go on to generate new innovations in their independent career in industry or academia." But, should a PhD scientist chooses to leave research, "is this a bargain that society should continue to support?" Chemjobber asks.

HT: Derek Lowe


Graduate students and

Submitted by Jeff.Rosner on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 18:55.

Graduate students and post-docs represent a form of indentured servitude; once committed, completion is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the US research profligacy is dependent on this. At the same time, this research community is much larger than the demand for new P.I.s...probably by a substantial geometric amount, so it is unrealistic to expect that each and every Ph.D. candidate (required by our R&D oligarchy) will end up as an independent career scientist.

The skills that one learns getting a Ph.D. (self-advocacy, focus, driving to completion, managing one's way through bloated bureacracies) are invaluable in all walks of life, as evidenced by the fact that 5 years out of graduate school or postdoc, less than 25% are doing the work they were trained for (I just made up that statistic to be high contrast!...90% of all statistics are made up on the spot)