A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
president.mit.edu580 points by dmayo 12 hours ago
580 points by dmayo 12 hours ago
Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all for difficult job prospects given the current market. MIT recently became one of the first universities to get a grad student union to try and combat the increasingly exploitative nature of academia. I can see how undergrads may look at how AI can do most of their homework assignments, and see how miserable grad students are, and decide that they don't want to continue down that path.
I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD?
Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers to peer review ... hand it off to the grad studends. Have a talk to give? Give the grad students the task for writing up first drafts, collecting data, generating graphs etc. My friend said that nothing in the first five years of his PhD work contributed to his dissertation.
I'm amazed that behavior like that of the advisor is allowed.
Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science...
Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic.
A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of specialization, your ability to write and do presentations, and your taste in research problems. These are all things take a lot of time to mature.
The problem with graduating fast is that (a) you wouldn't be able to do internships, (b) you would severely limit your ability to grow your social network (via workshops, conferences, internships, department service, etc), (c) you would limit your ability to deepen and broaden your portfolio of research, and (d) you limit the time your ideas have to percolate out into the rest of the research community and industry.
While I can't speak directly about your friend's experiences, learning how to do peer review and learning how to write first drafts are really important skills that can indirectly help with coming up and executing on a dissertation idea.
Taking a longer time to graduate to become the “world expert” in their field is fine if grad students weren’t paid next to nothing for the 60+ hours a week that they are expected to work. As it is now it’s better to finish as quickly as possible so they can have a real life.
To make "next to nothing" concrete: MIT EECS PhD students are currently paid about $4700/mo. This is substantially less than they'd make in industry, but it's around the US median personal income across all working-age adults, and well above the average 24 year-old. They frequently make a substantial extra at summer internships, putting them well above US median in the years when they do.
Also: it is school, not just a job. They are developing deep expertise and specialized skills. As a result, among other things, their earning potential tends to be significantly higher coming out of the PhD than out of undergrad.
You're looking at students at a top tier university in a field that pays extremely well. The numbers are going to be at the high end for what a grad student can make. A quick search for PhD salaries suggests that $20-35k/year is more common.
The median wage number you cited is also for the total population. According to this graph the median wage for college graduates is around $7k/mo. I'm fortunate to make very good money but I'd still notice a $2k/mo pay cut.
That's MIT. At a state university my friends were making in the ballpark of ~30k.
And yes, that is "next to nothing" compared to the salaries they make now after quitting and just finding work. And their outlooks are in significantly better shape, whereas one friend was highly depressed before.
People can also develop "deep expertise and specialized skills" through their work, and network via conferences, generally paid by their employer. Well, if they can find a job as a junior nowadays.
Is that $4700/mo net pay? Or do they have to pay tuition fees out of that?
Generally speaking PhD students do not pay tuition, they are given a stipend and so there are no tuition fees.
It's 56k a year for 6 years?
I don't think the entire US matters for this point your trying to make. What are college educated people making in a city like Boston.
As someone who graduated with a 7.5 year long PhD last month,
I feel like PhD stipends are not a major problem. Like I got $40K in a low CoL area, but accounting for tuition and overheads I cost my advisor closer to $150K/year.
Now why are tuition and overheads that high is a reasonable question and it ties into inefficiencies in broader American administrative processes, but I cost society and taxpayers $150K/year, and that I'm doing it for societal benefit is honestly only partly true. The first 6 years was just me building real skills and letting myself be frustrated, and maybe in the last 1.5 years I did things that justify the $1M bill and more.
Even if I did eventually do things that justified the $1M bill, I think most students don't. The larger value IMO lies in a workforce trained in the failures and frustrations of grad school. While I could rattle of plenty of limitations of academia/grad school, I'm not entirely convinced that me being shortchanged/underpaid was one of those things.
I worked a ton in grad school, and it definitely sucked at the time.
But it’s crazy to complain about getting paid to go to school. A grad stipend is there to minimally support you so you don’t have to get another job and can focus on your research. It’s not supposed to be a career!
It’s not crazy… the wages are below food prep. What would be crazy is paying to help someone else’s career. That’s why a well known rule of thumb for graduate program evaluation is whether or not they pay their grad students.
If they pay their grad students, then at least the time the grad students spend creates enough value to offset the cost of paying them.
If not, stay far away from the program.
Also, regarding the career comment: If graduate school is not at least the first step in a given career (it should the second, undergrad being the first), how/why do you expect gifted intellectuals to spend their prime wage earning years doing it?
Most people do not have access to enough wealth to spend prime wage earning years toiling to help someone else’s career with no return on investment.
I was working retail in Eugene, Oregon during the 2014 University of Oregon grad student strike. I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder because I was working retail with a master's degree in physics (because I did not have the endurance to complete a PhD, but had not yet accepted that fact).
My then-partner was part of the strike. One of the strike demands was higher wages as teaching assistants. And while I worked 40 hours a week, for $11/hr, I made considerably more and worked fewer hours than her. She put in probably 30 hours a week just on her teaching load, plus an additional 30 hours split between explicit course work and dissertation work.
It's crazy that a job that requires excellent marks while completing a 4-year degree pays worse, has worse working conditions, and is considerably more competitive to get into than a job selling office supplies.
One of the other things the grad students were demanding (which they only sort of got) was paid parental leave, because they did not fail to notice that most of their professors were in their late 30s or early 40s before they could afford to stop work long enough to start a family. It was very rare for two academics to have children together, because of the heinous, career ending financial cost to having children when you were young enough that their high school graduation date was before your expected mortality.
I think the key difference is that: "going to school", sure you need a living stipend, but the actual research phase has serious WLB and working condition issues
Most applicants know that that outcome is antithetical to pursuing a PhD. It's common knowledge that a PhD involves 5-7 years of academic work (read: low pay) in pursuit of becoming an expert in a specialized topic. You don't enter a PhD program expecting to immediately make money or to graduate as soon as possible. It's not a coding bootcamp.
I agree with you. It is definitely what the PhD student signed up for. But like I said in a sibling reply I think if we are worried about having fewer grad students (not saying that we should be), then we may need to change the incentive structure surrounding the PhD programs to make it more worthwhile for people to invest the time and energy. Because how it is currently going it seems to me like fewer and fewer people are going to consider it worth the investment just for the credential alone.
re: incentives, my proposal was always to let schools pay their football and basketball players, but require that grad research assistants are paid the same.
Football and other sports are marketing and their wages should be paid for by that department. Along with proof the marketing return on investment is there.
Grad students should be paid for their work as well.
Isn’t this sort of how all terminal degrees work? MDs, JDs, etc are all putting the candidates through the wringer, for relatively low wages, until they’re “experienced”. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s common knowledge it’s the way things work if you want to have those magic letters of a terminal degree next to your name in your email signature.
Don’t want to deal with the machinations required? Opt for the masters track or just get an Undergraduate degree and spend 20y working your way up.
In the US, phds and professional degrees are more or less geared toward students who are comfortable enough financially to stomach the opportunity cost of 6-10+ years of additional education, unpaid or underpaid residencies and internships, and long apprenticeship hours (which prevent backfilling financial gaps) before making “real” income.
Can I ask why this is getting downvoted?
Most of the other comments are basically saying this ("the pay is too low for too long for not enough reward").
Anecdotally: I'm teaching a course in "How To Be Successful In College" (not it's real name) at the US community college where I teach Computer Science. I've got more than 1 student who are going to get a credential for nursing because there's just no way they can spend 8-10 years in school to become a doctor.
Would they be good doctors? The question is moot because it's never gonna happen.
I don't know that people even care, at that. The way most are forced to interact with the healthcare system, a doctor is just a nurse in a white coat who's also a bit of an asshole (aloof and/or smarmy). Especially when they misdiagnose or miss a diagnoses.
*diagnosis
I can never tell if I'm pissing off [professionals] or third-parties invested in the idea of [profession] not being dysfunctional.
Best medical system in the world, except for all the others.
JD isn't a terminal degree. There's two higher degrees I think.
MDs and JDs are professional professional qualifications, which makes their situation a bit different from purely academic degrees. For example the ABA acts kind of like a cartel.
I don't think I disagree with you, by the way. I'm just more unhappy about it. All of these sclerotic, even corrupt, institutions acting like aging vats for talented youth, all to exclude newcomers and to maintain hierarchies...they're not ideal.
A JD is most definitely a terminal degree.
If you need a source; here is one: https://fulbrightscholars.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/US...
That’s arguable.
“LL.M. programs are usually only open to those students who have first obtained a degree in law, typically an LL.B. or J.D.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Laws
It’s generally for people who want to hyper focus on one area of law or switch countries.
That's strange, I was just asking Claude to write a motion for me earlier, and I've never even taken the LSAT.
Yes, but I think as time goes on, fewer and fewer people are going to consider those letters next to their name worth it for the years that they need to invest. So, I am just saying that if MIT or whoever else is worried about having fewer grad students (not saying that they/we should be), then maybe it's time to change how it works.
>but it's not really good for your career
Can you define that with more specificity? I find that academics have a major blind spot where good career means "the path I took" to the exclusion of all other paths.
>Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science
And your CV says another 6 dropped out. What was good for their careers?
He appears to be tunnel-visioning on academia.
The vast majority (>75%) of Computer Science PhDs leave academia. [0] Becoming a "world expert in a specific topic" is overfitting skills for a sub-niche of a specific career. There certainly aren't enough jobs in academia.
[0] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/213640/what-rat...
The goal of a PhD is to become a world expert in a specific topic, whether or not you’re planning on staying in academia.
This may or may not be in alignment with the student’s goals, and many students don’t really understand it going in.
Yes, they don't realize it or lie to themselves because ~50% dropout.
Given the attrition, I really question if PhD programs are honest with incoming prospects. Law schools and business schools are similarly "guilty" of pimping outcomes.
ITT: it's people complaining about being overworked and mislead in their PhD programs.
> Yes, they don't realize it or lie to themselves because ~50% dropout.
I think there's some misinterpretation here. Not staying on in academia after PhD (common/modal) is not the same as not getting to complete a PhD (rare).
In CS/tech, those who exit academia after PhDs get paid $300K-$500K in the industry. I don't think there's any misleading going on.
PhD programs have remarkably high attrition rates prior to graduation (ie dropout). I don't know that it's 50% and obviously it varies by institution and field but it's quite large.