Most of you have probably seen this chart floating around on facebook or elsewhere. It was recently released by a site called Online-PhD-Programs. When my husband forwarded it to me, I sat in shock reading through it. I don’t know if I’d classify it as a full on crisis…but there is certainly a lot of work to be done in the US to change this sad and strange situation.
The stats are mind-boggling, not to mention depressing. What do you make of it? I’m not sure how accurate they are. Do you think this is really the case in most areas of PhDs? Have you encountered this in your own ‘beyond grad school’ search? Any insights or thoughts to share?
-M.C.
the graduate wife 
It seems like 90% of the job ads are for adjunct, temporary, part-time faculty. I think the whole college and jobs training system in America needs a revamp but it’s going to take a long time. My husbands professors tell their students not to go for temporary jobs because they’ll be stuck in a temporary job loop unable to do the research they need to get a permanent job, and that they add to the problem by providing this labor instead of declining it and forcing things to change. But really, when the choice is one-year position in the field you love and worked so hard for, or unemployed living mom’s basement what do they expect people to do?
There’s a really tragic story about an adjunct here, that highlights the injustice of the system: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/death-of-an-adjunct-703773/
I was going to send the same link as DL….scary considering my husband will be venturing into that world shortly. Who thought his previous occupation as an architect with crap hours, little pay, and no respect was actually potentially ‘better’ than what awaits him in the near future! Teaching abroad is looking more and more attractive…