Aspiring academics overeducated and underemployed
Teaching in a college or university is a goal of many students aiming for a Ph.D. A Ph.D. is a “terminal” degree – you cannot go higher in your field. The modern economy is supposed to value education, and doctoral students are immersed in learning. But for holders of a Ph.D., being able to get a teaching job at a college or university is increasingly difficult.
Part of the problem is structural. There are simply too many candidates for the few teaching jobs available.
In 2014, there were 1,182 history Ph.D.s awarded. There are around 30,000 full-time teaching positions in history, and currently there are about 80 full-time jobs being advertised. But it will not just be the new Ph.D.s applying for those jobs, and most employers are seeking very specific specialties (18th Century U.S. history, the history of the Middle East, etc). So, of the 80 jobs available, there are fewer than 10 for which I, with a Ph.D. in history from Carnegie Mellon University, might have appropriate credentials. Even within that group, there are different types of schools, all of which are looking for different types of applicants. Community colleges want a basic teaching focus, large universities require specializations and prioritize research, while small, private colleges usually look for people who can teach a broad range of subjects, and don’t prioritize research, though they still value it. Many of the small schools also have a religious mission, so they are seeking faculty who can demonstrate an interest in that goal.
My personal experience confirms this structural mismatch. I have been looking for a full-time job without success for three years. One of the community college jobs for which I applied had 75 applicants two weeks after it was posted. A local college advertised a position that was almost a perfect match for me, but they had approximately 200 applicants. The only job for which I even got an interview, a one-year position, had 35 applicants. The reason they had so few applicants was that they advertised the position in July, one month before it started, and they required all documents be submitted by regular mail.
How did this happen? Although the number of students continues to grow, colleges have hired more administrators than faculty to deal with that growth. Many tenured faculty continue to work long past retirement age, which obviates the need for new hires. The humanities have also suffered from the emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and the rise of more focused, career-oriented majors like business, criminal justice or nursing, as schools attempt to justify high tuition costs by promising lucrative employment upon graduation.
In an attempt to rein in costs, many schools have greatly expanded the use of contingent faculty, often poorly paid adjuncts. I worked as an adjunct for 5 years, making $15,000 with no benefits and employment was on a semester-to-semester basis. I taught six courses per year. Although I was considered part-time, because I was asked to teach eight different courses, and, like most dedicated teachers, was always looking to improve the courses I taught, it took full-time effort, so I was making the equivalent of a minimum-wage salary.
The exploitation of adjunct faculty is legion, and a local case made national news when an 83-year-old adjunct instructor at Duquesne University, who had taught there for 25 years, died soon after being let go with no retirement package or severance pay. Stories like this have led the steelworkers union to organize adjunct instructors in the region.
When I considered a career, teaching at a college or university was always one of my top choices. I knew the salary would be modest, but I have always loved learning and the educational process, and I have natural abilities as a teacher. When I chose to prioritize my wife’s career (she is a physician) by becoming the primary caregiver for our children while I was in graduate school, I knew I could not hope to be at the top of my field, but I naively thought that I could still find a job.
I am not alone in that difficulty. It takes an average of nine years to get a Ph.D. in history. Graduate programs have high rates of attrition, often around 40 percent, and Yale, which has one of the top history programs in the country, places fewer than half its graduates in academic positions. I am actually one of the fortunate ones; I have no debt from my degree, because Carnegie Mellon provided a stipend and free tuition in return for limited teaching responsibilities. I figured as long as the stipend covered any necessary child care costs, I would be OK. But it is frustrating being forced to abandon one’s profession, especially when the need for good teachers remains.
While some might suggest that learning history is a luxury we cannot afford in our globally competitive economy, for the electorate to be historically uninformed in a democracy, it can be even more costly.
Kent James is an East Washington resident.