I was one of those lucky students in the 90s who relied on grants/fellowships/subsidized loans of both the federal and private kinds to attend my undergrad school. I’m perpetually grateful those fellowships were available for me, because my personal circumstances didn’t allow for paying for it ahead of time.
I even got a PhD afterwards in a Hard Science, thinking that no matter what, a science/engineering skill set was a) difficult enough to obtain that there would be a perennial shortage of skilled workers compared to the societal need; and b) be valued enough that compensation would remain relatively high.
Well, pharma, biotech, dot coms…all collapsing. The market for PhDs is one of the worst I have ever seen. I have some enormous number of friends who have remained stubbornly unemployed despite doing everything right. I have heard of people leaving the PhDs OFF their resumes in order to compete for entry level positions. And heaven help you if you can’t find a permanent position after your first post-doc. Or if you got a PhD in something where you can’t really get funding for the degree (most biology/chemistry/physics/math programs do provide subsistence wages, and you get the degree with no loans afterwards — one reason why I went for it). I’m frustrated because there is no limit of Big Problems for these bright, highly educated people to work on. The problem seems more to be finding competent management/organizations/funding structures to actually tackle these problems systematically with a results outlook that is somewhere between next quarter and next generation. Certainly this kind of leadership is lacking from government and most business, so who’s going to really innovate (that is, someone who isn’t Steve Jobs bring technologies to wide-scale adoption)?
There’s a bubble not just at the bachelor’s level, and not just in law school. I’m beginning to think that the MD’s had the right idea — limit the number of med schools and admissions to basically guarantee that people who complete their education will be able to pay back the loans and have a job at the end of the ordeal.
