too many Ph.Ds..

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Excess Production of Ph.D. 's Found in Engineering; and Some Sciences


By Denise K. Magner


A NEW STUDY suggests that American universities are producing far too
many doctorates in engineering, mathematics, and some sciences.   Driven
by their need for teaching and research assistants, universities have
awarded about 25 per cent more Ph.D.'s in those fields than the U.S.
economy can absorb, a report of the study says.   This comes as no
surprise to graduate students, who have been slogging through a rough job
market lately. Some students have called on academic departments to begin
cutting back on the number of Ph.D.'s they produce.




'LOGICAL SENSE'


  William F. Massy, a professor of education at Stanford University who
conducted the study, makes the same recommendation. In an interview, he
said it made "logical sense" to cut back at the lowest ranking doctoral
institutions. "It doesn't make sense to cut back at the top, where you
are doing the best job. You do it from the bottom."   He admitted that
this would be difficult. Research is the ticket to mobility for scholars
at such institutions, and they need help from graduate students to do it,
he said.  The overproduction of doctorates is a systemic problem, Mr.
Massy said, calling graduate students an "inexpensive" labor pool.
"Faculty tend to be more focused on their needs and their department's
needs for Ph.D.'s than on the job market," he said.   Mr. Massy conducted
the study with Charles A. Goldman, a researcher at the RAND Corporation.
They were assisted by Marc Chun and Beryle Hsiao, two graduate students
in education at Stanford. In the study, supported by a $250,000 grant
from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, they analyzed data on 13 science and
engineering fields from 210 doctorate-granting universities and more than
1,000 institutions employing people with Ph.D.'s. They included foreign
doctoral recipients, adopting what Mr. Massy called a standard assumption
that 50 percent of them remained in the United States to work after
finishing their training.


'PRETTY HOT DEMAND'


The overproduction of Ph.D.'s is most acute in computer science,
electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering, the study showed. For
example, 50 per cent of those with new doctorates in computer science do
not find jobs that really require a Ph.D., it found. "That doesn't mean
they are unemployed," Mr. Massy said. "Computer scientists are in pretty
hot demand." The point, he added, is that many are not finding faculty
positions in which a Ph.D. is essential.  Copies of the study, "The
Production and Utilization of Science and Engineering Doctorates in the
United States," are available for $20 from the Stanford Institute for
Higher Education Research, 508 CERAS, Stanford University, Stanford, Cal;
94305.






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