(Photo courtesy of National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences)
It’s the best of times and the worst of times to start a science career in the
United States. Researchers today have access to tools and techniques that
have accelerated the pace of discovery to new highs. But as record numbers
of PhD’s graduate, many young scientists are finding a job market that is not
ready to absorb them. Adam Allington traces the supply and demand for
young scientists in a faltering economy:
Transcript
It’s the best of times and the worst of times to start a science career in the
United States. Researchers today have access to tools and techniques that
have accelerated the pace of discovery to new highs. But as record numbers
of PhD’s graduate, many young scientists are finding a job market that is not
ready to absorb them. Adam Allington traces the supply and demand for
young scientists in a faltering economy:
Briana Gross is in her second year of a post-doctoral fellowship at
Washington University, she’s studying genetic adaptations of wild rice.
She’s been applying for college faculty jobs for the past two years. This
year she says she’s gone all-out.
“I’ve applied for I think 36-38 jobs, 3-4 of those positions have been cancelled
completely due to hiring freezes. I’ve had two interviews.”
These days there’s a glut of qualified talent. Between too many doctoral
grads and cutbacks, it’s tough to find a position.
One recent job interview did little to bolster Gross’s confidence for the
future.
“While I was waiting to meet with the dean, one of the financial administrators came buy
and kind of joked about how I couldn’t possibly be interviewing for a position because
there was no money available to hire anyone at the university. So, if that’s happening
this year, next year is going to be really rough.”
So, how’d we end up with too many scientists for the jobs out there? Well,
the answer goes back to an event scientists simply call “the doubling.”
In 1998, President Clinton doubled budget for the National Institutes of
Health, which had the effect of drawing in all kinds of new talent and
investment for science and research.
The problem came later when that funding went flat – precisely at the same
time all those new PhD’s were entering the job market.
“You know, its like you push a bunch of people into the pipeline and then there’s been
chocking off of the U.S. pipeline.”
Kristen Kroll is a professor of developmental biology at Washington
University; she employs two post-docs in her lab.
“What we’ve done is we’ve convinced a whole generation of U.S. post-docs and graduate
students not to go into academic science.”
Young PhD’s see the uphill battle for jobs and scarce grant money and
wonder if its worth the struggle.
And it’s not just post-docs who are feeling the pressure these days—junior
faculty are spending more of their time in the lecture hall and less time in the
lab.
David Duvernell teaches biology at Southern Illinois University at
Edwardsville.
“We try to maintain an active research program at SIUE, at the same time we’re teaching
our 2 or 3 courses a semester.”
Duvernell says SIUE enrollment in freshman-level biology courses has
nearly doubled, but state support has not.
“And where the students are losing out is that then we have less time to spend in research
labs, where we train students individually and give them an experience that will
ultimately make them employable and competitive for graduate and professional
programs.”
University administrators point that historically only about 30% of all post-
docs land a faculty job, with the rest going into the private sector. Except
these the private sector is shedding jobs even faster than the universities.
Jared Strasburg is a 4th-year post-doc from Indiana University. He says if he
hasn’t found a faculty job by August, he’ll have to consider something else.
“Academia is long hours, it’s a lot of work, But, I never felt like if I put in those hours
and worked really hard that I wouldn’t be capable of getting a position and getting
funding necessary to do the work that I was interested in. Needless to say now that
proposition looks a lot more tenuous.”
In recent years some universities have taken steps to curb the number of
graduating PhD’s.
But as the number of unemployed post-graduates rises, some say the whole
system for training scientists needs to be updated to jive with the modern
economy.
As fewer and fewer scientists actually work in universities, some say more
focus needs to be placed on careers outside of academia.
For The Environment Report, I’m Adam Allington.
