Yet another good post from Mark Guzdial pointed me at an article in The Economist about the value (or otherwise) of a PhD. Key stat (bold emphasis mine):
A study in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management…shows that British men with a bachelor’s degree earn 14% more than those who could have gone to university but chose not to. The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%. But the premium for a master’s degree…is almost as high, at 23%. In some subjects the premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences and languages earn no more than those with master’s degrees. The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a master’s degree in engineering and technology, architecture and education. Only in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies is it high enough to be worthwhile. Over all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a master’s degree.
It’s not accurate to say ‘premium vanishes entirely’. Perhaps monetary gains are not readily there, but there are other premiums: more interesting topics, more freedom in the workplace, wider selection … The article assumes that the only path for (successful) PhD’s is academia. It neglects research institutes, R&D at major companies …
@Damian Do you have any data on any of that? I know a lot of PhD’s whose jobs are no more interesting than anyone else’s, but I don’t know how representative either claim is.
I’ll take the bait: here is a sample of jobs not available to PhDless candidates: http://ca.indeed.com/jobs?q=postdoc+postdoctoral&l=
I bet some you’d agree are interesting.
Few good ideas here:
http://soundandcomplete.com/2011/01/09/in-defense-of-the-phd/
Ultimately, it’s the trail that I believe is different when people engage PhDs and PhD related jobs – pushing the boundaries, gaining more depth. Does that make jobs or people more interesting – no, but it opens more opportunities.
@Damian No one said there weren’t interesting jobs for people with PhDs—the claim is that on average, it doesn’t improve someone’s chances of actually getting a satisfying job, which means that for everyone who gets to do the kind of cosmology they’ve always dreamed of, there’s (at least) one other person who goes through the same grind, but doesn’t.