I could not disagree more with the recent posting encouraging
advisers to send their studnets on to graduate school. A decade ago
we were given the same numbers, about imminent faculty retirements,
rising college enrollments, etc., and that simply has not happened.
With the elimination of mandatory retirement professors are hanging
on longer, the enrollment boom was a mere blip at best, and most
importantly, universities are cutting back, not replacing tenured
slots. As anyone who has been on the job market in recent years
knows, there is an enormous glut of well-qualified graduate students
and recent Ph.D.'s without jobs, hanging on by their fingernails,
waiting for any opening in the market. New graduates will have to
compete with this group. I think there is no question but that the
large graduate schools have been quite irresponsible in turning out
so many students. Yale alone (the school with which I am most
familiar), turns out as many British history Ph.D's per year as there are
jobs in that field. I would argue that students who are considering
going on to graduate school (at least in history) need to be told
that their chances of finding any job at all - to say nothing of a
desireable one in terms of school or location - are slim at best.
Jeffrey Auerbach
Department of History
Scripps College
jauerbac@scripps.claremont.edu