U.S.-Ph.D. Admissions Shrinkage

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/30/phd

Several colleges have recently announced that, regardless of application quality, they plan to admit fewer Ph.D. students for this coming fall 2009 than were admitted a year ago. The economics of doctoral education are different enough from those of other programs that some universitie's doctoral classes will be taking a significant hit, with potential ramifications down the road for the- 

1. academic job market, 
2. the availability of teaching assistants and 
3. the education of new professors.
   

• Emory University plans a 40 percent cut in the number of new Ph.D. students it will enroll this fall.
  
• Columbia University is planning a 10 percent cut.
• Brown University has called off a planned increase in Ph.D. enrollments.
• The University of South Carolina is considering a plan to have some departments that have admitted doctoral students every year shift to an every-other-year system. These cuts are exclusively for Ph.D. programs.

Terminal master's programs and professional school programs are generally being encouraged to fill their classes; those programs are of course ones in which many universities assume students will pay most or all costs themselves, using loans as needed.

The economic difference between Ph.D. and non-Ph.D. students is that the former [Ph.D.]tend to  be supported with tuition waivers and stipends, while many of the later[non Ph.D.] pay their own way or bring in federal or other aid.

Doctoral students at many universities receive full support from the universities, creating a very different dynamic- especially coupled with the need to make large cuts in budgets

• Emory is an example. The graduate program there must cut its budget by 13 percent. But all of its current students were promised their packages for up to five years of support- and those pledges were made prior to the economic downturn.  So officials  determined that the only way the graduate school could meet its budget target was a sharp reduction in the number of new Ph.D. students admitted. Last fall about 360 students started Ph.D. programs at Emory, this fall that figure will be about 220. There may be more teaching positions available as a result to those whose funding runs out before they finish their doctorates.
  
• At Columbia University, the 10 percent cut is for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which typically enrolls 320 new Ph.D. students a year. 

How this will play out down the road is very unclear. As the job market for new Ph.D.'s especially in the humanities, has become so tight, some academics have questioned the appropriateness of departments admitting as many students as they have in the past. At the same time, aligning current Ph.D. admissions and job market trends is difficult, given the long time frame for completing doctorates. There are many underemployed Ph.D.'s today cursing some reports in the past predicting major shortages of faculty members- shortages that never came to pass.

• Catharine R. Stimpson , dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University, said that the job market is an appropriate consideration in determining class size, but not the only one.
• Stimpson said NYU may want to reduce class size further a year from now.
• The factors to be considered, she said, include the job market, applicant quality and the right fits between the applicants and the NYU faculty in terms of research interests and expertise. And she said many universities must also factor in the costs of supporting graduate students ...