Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be PhDs . . .

How would you like to start an entry level job six years later than your contemporaries, with much more debt, and have a six year probationary period at which in the end, you could be fired and become persona non grata in your chosen profession? Oh, and less than half of you who sign up for the training will actually get one of these jobs.

Sign me up, right? The joys of academe!

Thank you, Nancy, for bring to our attention this great article by Thomas H. Benton, "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go", from today's Chronicle of Higher Education. The upshot is that going to grad school because you aren't sure what else to do, or you're hoping to ride out the recession with a fellowship, is a really bad idea. The myth of massive professorial retirements has never materialized, and if it did, colleges aren't exactly motivated to keep those tenure track lines when prospective adjuncts are chomping at the bit. Benton says that hiring by universities is down 40%.

Photo of "The Graduate" (designed by rowenta@hotmail.com) by dullhunk.