Academic doom: Job market for college teachers suffering historic shrinkage

[mgcardin]

No Entry
Inside Higher Ed, January 4, 2009

The job crisis for faculty jobs -- especially for new Ph.D.'s looking for tenure-track jobs -- is spreading.

Data being released this week by the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association reveal sharp drops in the number of available positions in their respective disciplines. Coming just weeks after the Modern Language Association revealed historic drops in the availability of jobs for English and foreign language professors, the data show that while new English and foreign language Ph.D.'s may have a particularly tough time finding employment, they are by no means alone.

The number of jobs listed with the American Historical Association fell 23.8 percent in 2008-9 and the total jobs listed -- 806 -- was the smallest in a decade. And the 23.8 percent figure doesn't reflect the extent of the drop: A survey by the AHA of those departments that posted jobs found that about 15 percent of searches were called off after positions were listed.

And the American Economic Association, which started its annual meeting Sunday, is reporting a drop in new academic jobs listed of 19 percent in the 2009 calendar year. While plenty of new Ph.D. economists seek employment outside of academe, many of the companies that hire them are also facing financial turmoil. The drop in the association's job postings for work outside of academe was even greater: 24 percent.

....In history, the decline in jobs may be coming at a time of a boom in enrollments in Ph.D. programs. A survey by the AHA of its departments found a 17 percent increase in the last year in the number of new doctorates awarded -- the largest one-year increase since the association started collecting data in 1975.

Disappearing Jobs
Inside Higher Ed, December 17, 2009

The job picture in the humanities is going from bad to worse.

The Modern Language Association's annual forecast on job listings, being released today, predicts that positions in English language and literature will drop 35 percent from last year, while positions in languages other than English are expected to fall 39 percent this year. Given that both categories saw decreases last year, the two-year decline in available positions is 51 percent in English and 55 percent in foreign languages.

The declines in each of the last two years are the largest ever recorded by the MLA, since it started tracking the trends in the association's Job Information List 35 years ago. The list has also never had fewer notices of openings. The MLA's job list does not include all jobs in English and the humanities, but over time, the ups and downs in openings on the MLA list have been an excellent proxy for judging the overall state of the job market.

"This is a historic low," said Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA. "We've never seen a recession like this."

[ballad]

No nation can support so many unproductive workers, both the teachers and all the surplus graduates they produce.

Academic qualifications have devalued massively anyway (not in cost mind you)

[more-gloomer-than-doomer]

File this under "Green Shoots". 

[Michigan11]

This is it too. We can all look at statistics all day, but they no longer mean anything, because we have forgotten the basic pillars of a society, let alone an economic system - that is producing the goods we want and need. Everything else sand blowing in the wind... These colleges/universities are nothing but a big scam.

No nation can support so many unproductive workers, both the teachers and all the surplus graduates they produce.

[mgcardin]

I've gotta agree with all of you. Here's hoping, though, that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, the wheat with the chaff, the shucks with the corn (pick your metaphor). An authentic education of the higher sort -- literature, mathematics, history, philosophy, the sciences, etc; that is, the good old "liberal education" -- is just as vital as all of the practical skills in agriculture, handicrafts, and so on that are so prized among LATOC's forum-goers. Let's hope the rotting-away of higher educational bloat will, as in all of the other "too big to fail" areas of our collective contemporary life, allow what's really true and valuable about it to live and breathe freely again.

My longer take on some of these matters (inspired by and drawn from some of my LATOC conversations last year):

America's Colleges at a Crossroads - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

[ballad]

An authentic education of the higher sort -- literature, mathematics, history, philosophy, the sciences, etc; that is, the good old "liberal education"

I have yet too see such education not tied in to institutional oppression or elitism of some form or another.

Once you educate someone, you change him irreversibly. It a part of the civilizing process, and all of the topics you mention have always been controlled, history being the best example.

Most people do not learn History, but rather a Story.

You have to be able to agree on history, and to be able to allow it to say the good and the bad.

Judging by most peoples hazy history knowledge (and who can be blamed....school history is for Kids after all), such education does little for the masses but confuse them.

Even if you manage to keep it dogma free for a generation or two, the concentration of power inherent in the control of these disciplines is so large, that it is too tempting a target for the greedy and sociopaths minded.
I have no solution to this.

[Michigan11]

Man, I am loving what you just wrote, you get it. Nice post.

[/quote]

I have yet too see such education not tied in to institutional oppression or elitism of some form or another.

Once you educate someone, you change him irreversibly. It a part of the civilizing process, and all of the topics you mention have always been controlled, history being the best example.

Most people do not learn History, but rather a Story.

You have to be able to agree on history, and to be able to allow it to say the good and the bad.

Judging by most peoples hazy history knowledge (and who can be blamed....school history is for Kids after all), such education does little for the masses but confuse them.

Even if you manage to keep it dogma free for a generation or two, the concentration of power inherent in the control of these disciplines is so large, that it is too tempting a target for the greedy and sociopaths minded.
I have no solution to this.
[/quote]

[Involuntary Simplicity]

I've gotta agree with all of you. Here's hoping, though, that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, the wheat with the chaff, the shucks with the corn (pick your metaphor). An authentic education of the higher sort -- literature, mathematics, history, philosophy, the sciences, etc; that is, the good old "liberal education" -- is just as vital as all of the practical skills in agriculture, handicrafts, and so on that are so prized among LATOC's forum-goers. Let's hope the rotting-away of higher educational bloat will, as in all of the other "too big to fail" areas of our collective contemporary life, allow what's really true and valuable about it to live and breathe freely again.

My longer take on some of these matters (inspired by and drawn from some of my LATOC conversations last year):

America's Colleges at a Crossroads - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

It's pretty telling how far degree inflation has gone in the last century. I found used high school textbooks for sale that dated back to the late 19th century. Apparently those kids were studying Euclid's Elements (Geometry), Greek, Latin, and a collection of translated French Enlightenment authors ( Voltaire, Denis Diderot); complete with essay questions.

I realize that these books were probably from a college-prep High School, but I wonder if the typical college grad today could even master this material. A lot of it was over my head, which is pretty humbling...

[jentilla]

Why can't we have both-an educated populous who farm? I really hate the college is crap motto around here. I think going into debt for an education is no longer sustainable, but I feel that one should study what makes them happy. If getting an English degree on your own dime, or with scholarships, etc. makes you happy then you should do it. 

[Grower]

Jentilla -- as a college educated farmer, I think you.   You, too MG. Great point. I get very tired of the anti-intellectual crap.

[MEA]

As a young man, John Adams recorded loading hay in the morning and studying law the afternoon.

[inverse_agonist]

This is not new.  Universities haven't been immune to the broad trend away from stable employment:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_03/b4163032935448.htm

Basically, genius MBA types realized it's cheaper to hire grad students or recent Ph.D.s for minimum wage or less than it is to hire full-time faculty, who might even demand other expensive things like health insurance and lab space.  Another realization is that academic standards are bad for the bottom line.  Students that fail out of college don't pay tuition.  Since administrators love graphs and spreadsheets, students fill out "course evaluations" at the end of every term, and of course the students punish anybody whose class is "too hard."  Bad student evals mean you don't get rehired, which possibly means you don't eat.  It's shameful what can pass for a "B" a lot of the time.  The students are getting dumber because there's a similar dynamic in high schools, whose administrators don't understand anything except standardized test scores.  The standards keep dropping so that more people can pass.  Another issue is that having peons teach classes frees the faculty from the burden of teaching students the fundamentals of their discipline, so that they have more time to do what matters:  bring in grant money.  

These realities aren't generally explained to people as they're getting letters of recommendation for grad school, and lots of people take adjunct positions after graduating because they're in denial and think they'll move up in the world.  

[Possum]

English, language and economics faculty jobs have always been hard to come by.  There were stories just like this back in the 60's.  Meanwhile, business and engineering assistant professors are starting at $150k for 9 months work.  It's the market at work, nothing more, nothing less. 

[Michigan11]

Because real education is not found in today's college's and universities, and the teachers know it. Real education is found through self-learning.

Why can't we have both-an educated populous who farm? I really hate the college is crap motto around here. I think going into debt for an education is no longer sustainable, but I feel that one should study what makes them happy. If getting an English degree on your own dime, or with scholarships, etc. makes you happy then you should do it. 

[Grower]

I'm a teacher. I tell my college students every single day that their education only begins when they pick it up. I can only lay it out there, pointing them in a likely direction. My job is to make them good learners. This does not make a good college experience meaningless. People are overgeneralizing ridiculously.