Dec. 11, 2006

The Job Security Rankings

More than 62 percent of all faculty members are off the tenure track, including nearly 30 percent of those with full-time positions, according to an analysis released today by the American Association of University Professors.

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The study — based on federal data — comes with institution-specific numbers on 2,600 colleges, revealing the exact breakdowns on full- and part-time professors, on and off the tenure track. AAUP leaders hope that the data will spur discussions on campuses nationwide about the use of part-timers and the need to create more full-time, tenure-track positions.

The institution-specific data draw attention to the way some sectors of higher education — most notably for-profit universities — rely almost exclusively on non-tenured faculty members. Numerous for-profit institutions — such as the University of Phoenix Online — did not report a single faculty member on the tenure track. But the institution-specific data also show wide variation among similar institutions with regard to the use of non-tenure-track faculty members. At Stanford University, for example, only 8.5 percent of all faculty members and only 6.4 percent of full-time faculty members are off the tenure track. At Harvard University, those figures are 56.6 percent and 45.4 percent, respectively.

The AAUP data are based on individual instructors, not class hours, in fall 2005, so they are an indicator, but not a direct reflection, of who is in front of a given classroom. On campuses where tenure-track faculty members teach three or more courses a semester, for example, and many of the part-timers teach only one course, the percentages from AAUP may overstate the role of part-timers. Of course, on campuses where senior faculty members don’t teach much, and each part timer is teaching multiple sections, the opposite could be true.

“The real objective is to bring the discussion about the use of contingent faculty to a more concrete level,” said John W. Curtis, director of research and public policy for the AAUP. While there have been plenty of national reports, he said, professors and others have not been able to document the full impact of the national trends on individual campuses. “We think new discussions can and will take place,” once people realize how few faculty members have real job security, he said.

Many part-time professors are great instructors, Curtis said, but much of the quality of higher education depends on more than what takes place in a classroom. “Who are the people who are going to be around to make decisions about the curriculum? Who is going to be there as students progress through their educational experience? Who is around to form the faculty as a collective at an institution” when such large percentages are off the tenure track? he asked.

Given the AAUP’s historic role as a champion of academic freedom, the issue of faculty job status is crucial, Curtis said. “Our first and foremost concern is the academic freedom concern,” he said. “When people are worried about where their next job is going to come from, and when that becomes a constant situation, they really don’t have academic freedom.”

The AAUP’s new study arrives at a time of increased attention to the issues raised by a reliance on part-timers. The American Federation of Teachers is starting a new campaign to seek state legislation that would add to the pay and benefits of part-timers while requiring that greater percentages of classes be taught by professors in tenure-track positions. And the Modern Language Association — after studying reports that faculty members in English and foreign languages were having greater difficulty earning tenure — released a report on Thursday stating that those who come up for tenure are, on average, earning it, but that larger and larger percentages are never coming up for tenure.

While the AAUP data are from a point in time, national data from the U.S. Education Department show the growth in non-tenure-track positions.

Changes in Faculty Status, 1975-2003

Faculty status	1975	1989	2003
Full-time tenured	36.5%	33.1%	24.1%
Full-time, tenure-track	20.3%	13.7	11.0%
Full-time, non-tenure-track	13.0%	16.9%	18.7%
Part-time	30.2%	36.4%	46.3%

The AAUP also analyzed more recent data, providing breakdowns by sectors. Within the for-profit sector — the fastest growing in higher education — the jobs are definitely off the tenure track. More than 90 percent of faculty positions are part time, and of the 4,245 faculty jobs that are full time, only 13 of those holding the jobs have tenure — and no one is on the tenure track.

Among the striking figures across sectors are those for full-time faculty members who do not have tenure or the chance to earn tenure. The traditional image of the typical part-timer dashing from campus to campus is being adjusted as more people teach a full load of courses at one place without any chance of earning tenure.

Faculty Status by Sector, Fall 2005

Sector	% of Full-Time Faculty Who Are Non-Tenure-Track	% of Faculty Working Part Time	% of All Faculty Off Tenure Track
Doctoral/Research
—Public	25.2%	23.5%	42.8%
—Private	27.9%	37.0%	54.6%
—For-profit	100%	97.1%	100%
—Total	26.4%	29.5%	48.2%
Master’s institutions
—Public	20.0%	37.2%	49.8%
—Private	31.8%	52.1%	67.3%
—For-profit	100%	93.0%	100%
—Total	24.3%	48.6%	61.0%
Baccalaureate
—Public	19.7%	40.2%	51.9%
—Private	28.9%	33.2%	52.5%
—For-profit	98.2%	84.6%	99.7%
—Total	28.7%	37.1%	55.1%
Community colleges
—Public	40.6%	65.6%	79.6%
—Private	83.0%	55.9%	92.5%
—For-profit	99.9%	59.0%	99.9%
—Total	41.6%	65.6%	79.9%
All colleges
—Public	28.4%	46.1%	61.4%
—Private	30.0%	42.2%	59.5%
—For-profit	99.7%	90.1%	100%
—Total	29.4%	47.0%	62.6%

Activists for part-timers praised the AAUP effort — and especially the campus statistics. “This is the kind of information that is disturbing and that people really don’t want to hear,” said Marcia Newfield, vice president for part-time personnel of the Professional Staff Congress, the AFT unit that represents faculty members at the City University of New York (10,000 of them part-timers).

“You cannot be fully a part of the discipline when you are running around from school to school, and you can’t make a decent living,” she added. Newfield, who has taught English as a contingent faculty member for 18 years and currently works at Borough of Manhattan Community College, said that she hoped the information would increase pressure to create more full-time slots.

Marc Bousquet, a professor of English at Santa Clara University and a member of the AAUP’s National Council, said that he thinks “most people will be struck by the magnitude of the problem,” and that higher education now uses “a proletarianized, industrialized work force.”

While there are a variety of ways campuses can use the information the AAUP is releasing, Bousquet said that a few approaches make the most sense. He said that faculty leaders need to start providing this data to accreditors, who he said have largely ignored the issue, but may have a tougher time doing so when the information is presented. He also said that he hoped this information would encourage more adjunct faculty members to unionize. In the last year, adjunct unions have started or won key contracts at several universities, most notably at New School University, where a pact was hailed for providing job security of the sort part-timers usually can’t achieve.

For real progress to take place, Bousquet said, a shift in attitudes is necessary — and that’s why all the new data are important. “I think that nearly all contingent faculty have in their hearts believed that the tenure-stream faculty will be woken up and they will solve the problem. But the contingent faculty need to realize that they need to be agents of change — they are the faculty,” he said.

Some part-time faculty members have worried that a shift to full-time positions would end up costing them their jobs. Bousquet, who has written extensively on labor hierarchies in academe, said he understood that fear. But he added that there was relatively little evidence because it was so rare for colleges to shift positions from part-time to full-time. What there is plenty of evidence for, he said, is the lack of job security for adjuncts.

For many part-timers, “all it takes is one student complaint about being worked too hard” and the adjunct is not hired again, Bousquet said. Colleges don’t only save money by relying on part-timers, but they avoid giving due process to those they don’t want to hire again, he added.

The AAUP figures also include a category showing the percentage of instructors who are either contingent faculty or graduate students, and those figures are quite high at institutions with large graduate programs. While those figures are also based on reports filed by the colleges with the Education Department, it appears that colleges used different definitions of which graduate students to include, so comparisons may not be precise.

While the AAUP report is designed to focus on those institutions with high percentages of faculty members off the tenure track, other institutions stand out by contrast. Among research and doctoral universities, for example, there are 12 institutions where the proportion of such professors is less than 20 percent, including two without any faculty members off the tenure track. The list includes several religious institutions, some with relatively small graduate programs, but this group also includes some leading research universities.

Research/Doctoral Institutions With Lowest Percentage of Contingent Faculty Members

Institution	% of Faculty Off Tenure Track
Immaculata U.	0.0%
Trevecca Nazarene U.	0.0%
Georgia Southern U.	4.0%
Clark U.	6.6%
South Carolina State U.	7.9%
Trinity International U.	8.0%
Stanford U.	8.5%
U. of Pennsylvania	16.1%
Clarkson U.	18.1%
U. of Massachusetts at Boston	18.7%
Fordham U.	19.3%
Widener U.	19.4%

Another 15 doctoral/research universities reported hiring only faculty members off the tenure track. This group included a number of prominent for-profit universities and several freestanding graduate institutions:

Alliant International University
Antioch University New England Graduate College
Argosy University — Orange County campus
Argosy University — Sarasota campus
Azusa Pacific University
California Institute of Integral Studies
Capella University
Fielding Graduate University
Florida Institute of Technology
Northcentral University
Pacifica Graduate Institute
Union Institute and University
University of Phoenix Online
Walden University
Wilmington College

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Need to know

So — how will increasing tenure (and the resulting increased costs) help students with high debt loads? And the public with high tax burdens?

In the wake of the gross over-supply of PhDs and MAs in many fields?

With the best (theoretically) faculty, already at the big-name schools?

L.H.H., at 7:45 am EST on December 11, 2006

Meaningless Without Salary Data

Tenure is only one retention tool. Salary data and other components such as pleasant working conditions must be on the same chart to make a value judgment.

My reaction from this data is that Harvard pays more money than Stanford.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.

Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

wss@jefound.orghttp://jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, at 8:25 am EST on December 11, 2006

What Does Tenure Cost?

The assumption that tenure increases costs may not be true. Tenure protects job security and academic freedom, and as a result faculty are willing to accept the lower salaries of academe. Of course, that may not actually happen because colleges are engaging in two-tiered faculty systems: the highly paid elite with tenure potential, and the low-paid adjuncts. But there are several reasons why tenure might reduce college costs: 1) colleges have hired massive numbers of administrators to do the work that tenure-track faculty used to do (managing, advising, etc.); 2) the decline of tenure reduces the number and quality of people seeking academic jobs, increasing competition and costs for top scholars; 3) the loss of tenure-track faculty hurts students by making it more difficult to form mentoring relationships with their teachers, which increases dropout rates and hurts their education and job prospects; 4) the destruction of tenure is leading to unionization, which eventually will raise the costs of instruction. Tenure, in itself, is only a cost to academia if colleges are required to retain faculty in fields where they no longer have demand for instruction and cannot move these employees to other fields. To my knowledge, this almost never happens in a steady area like higher education. The fact that adjunct employees are exploited for lower pay than regular faculty has nothing inherently to do with the tenure system, except insofar that the lack of tenure makes it easy to fire union organizers. The bigger question, though, is what does the lack of tenure do to the quality of instruction, the quality of research, and the future of the profession?

John K. Wilson, at 8:50 am EST on December 11, 2006

I think it would be enlightening to see the demographic breakdown (women, minorities)of tenured and non-tenured faculty....another component of the issue.

Donna Parrino, at 9:30 am EST on December 11, 2006

I want to applaud InsideHigherEd this last week for a series of important data points. These figures, taken with the article “Rethinking Tenure” (http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/12/08/mla), point to the larger trend of academic outsourcing.

The AAUP should worry about academic freedom when “more than 62 percent” have no option for tenure. I commented in the “Rethinking Tenure” article that one of the more telling quotes was that although only 10% of tenure applicants were denied, that the pool of tenure applicants was not 100% of professors, rendering that low percentage meaningless. It seems that I was right. 10% of 36 is still impressive. Good for tenure. But it seems that the 36 have already been vetted to a great degree. I would go further to say that having 10% of this more elite pool, one that has been vetted by granting a tenure-track option, is too high. The only answer to that percentage is that wholesale institutions are participating in tenure (Stanford high, Harvard about half) which skews the curve.

Do academics deserve job security (few others have this privilege). That seems to be a question everyone dances around but doesn’t ask. Why not let market forces regulate position and pay? It works for IT professionals, ballplayers and real-estate? Why not let the scholars battle it out, book by article by book?

Of course, an academic could hold a non-popular position that is ultimately proven right (Copernicus) and whose work no doubt would have been affected by such a Darwinian market structure. This is not to even mention quality of instruction—which also seems to be easily lost along the way.

I, again, applaud IHE for getting the word out. Now, what are some of the answers?

Piss Poor Prof, at 9:31 am EST on December 11, 2006

Really?

“The assumption that tenure increases costs may not be true ..”

Cold, hard fact: a tenured position requires upwards of a 40-year financial commitment by taxpayers (e.g., <$2,000,000.00). Ever heard of budgeting?

” .. Tenure protects job security and academic freedom, and as a result faculty are willing to accept the lower salaries of academe ..”

In the U.S., no one is required to take a “lower salary.” If anyone does not like their salary — they can leave. No one is forcing anyone to stay in a job.

” .. colleges have hired massive numbers of administrators ..”

Yes — definitely worth a congressional investigation — see this:

http://www.firstclasseducation.org/

” .. the decline of tenure reduces the number and quality of people seeking academic jobs ..”

See previous, on gross oversupply of PhDs and MAs ..

” .. 3) the loss of tenure-track faculty hurts students by making it more difficult to form mentoring ..”

Isn’t that what parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are for?

” .. 4) the destruction of tenure is leading to unionization ..”

See previous, on gross over-supply of PhDs and MAs ..

” .. the lack of tenure makes it easy to fire union organizers ..”

See previous, on gross over-suplly of PhDs and MAs ..

” .. what does the lack of tenure do to the quality of instruction, the quality of research, and the future of the profession?

Well — presidents and coaches don’t have tenure; look at their contracts. They either perform — or they are gone.

L.H.H., at 10:36 am EST on December 11, 2006

The Students Be Damned

My college seems to be crammed

With adjuncts ... the tenured were canned.

We’re saving a buck

Though our staff is potluck ...

We’ve agreed, “The students be damned!”

Hey, I know, I know ... there are lots of excellent adjunct professors out there, many with 12-hour-per-term teaching loads, making less than $30,000 per academic year, and with no benefits.

If lean and mean – the business community’s euphemism for skinny and nasty – works for Ford Motor Company (or does it?), then it will surely work for American colleges and universities.

RWH, at 10:45 am EST on December 11, 2006

Yes, look at their contracts

“Well — presidents and coaches don’t have tenure; look at their contracts. They either perform — or they are gone.”

Look at their salaries, look at their golden parachutes.

While it’s true that there is an oversupply of Ph.D.s in some fields this is not universally true. It is also true that there have been abuses of tenure. This is one reason why some institutions are moving to post-tenure review.

There are a number of universities that do not offer tenure. Perhaps we should let the marketplace decide.

Rob Rittenhouse, CS Faculty at McMurry University, at 12:05 pm EST on December 11, 2006

telling statistics — what’s the answer?

thanks for this article. the numbers suggest in very stark terms where post-secondary education is going — and we are seeing clear proof of the bifurcation of the academic work force into a proletariat under-class and a small cadre of manager/supervisors, desperately clinging to their disappearing privileges as their own workload explodes.

the information begs the question as to what academics really CAN do about the situation, short of collective bargaining and unionizing. “Pressure” can not be brought to bear upon colleges and universities when there is such a glut of “person-power” willing to accept such impermanent working conditions.

ps — I wonder, consequently, if the hubbub about tenure is precisely that, since universities are slowly but surely doing away with it, by simply replacing retiring faculty with temporary untenured personnel.

Stephanie Hamemr, University of California, Riverside, at 12:15 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Correlation or cause?

Hmmm. Article after article recently has reported that higher educational institutions are under scrutiny for turning out severely underperforming graduates at the baccalaureate level.

Now the AAUP reports that, during the same time period, higher educational institutions have been relying ever more on contingent faculty to teach baccalaureate-level students.

Well, maybe what we have here is just a correlation, right? It couldn’t possibly be a cause-and-effect relationship, now could it?

Charlotte Pressler, at 1:45 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Costs of tenure v. costs of recruitment

LHH’s comments suggest a lack of familiarity with even the world of business, which sadly our universities seem hell-bent on emulating: inflated salaries for executives independent of the performance of the unit in question. But I digress...

Assuming 40 years of post-tenure salary, I sure hope that it would cost an institution more than 2 million. [I don’t know that the majority of tenured professors work deep into their 60s, although some are produtive and get their grants renewed well into their 80s]. But few science faculty are getting tenure-track positions before they are almost 40. And to recruit these people typically csts an institution about 2-3X their annual salary. When you add on typical start-up packages for equipment, materials, staff support and the like, recruiting a new faculty member (to take the place of one who didn’t receive tenure, or who chose NOT to accept the relative low pay in exchange for job security) once every 4 or six years is far MORE costly than simply granting tenure to ANY given individual. Factor in the hoops faculty must leap through to earn tenure (grants, publications, service to profession and school — all of which becomes more taxing as more and more adjuncts without similar obligations fill our ranks), universities get a hell of a return on their investment. Enough of a return, anyway, to gamble on good teachers who may or may not get grants; or on good researchers whether or not they can teach well.

As for coaches — at our school, they also teach. And when their athletes “fail” on the field, floor or ice, they’re held accountable in ways I’m not held accountable when a large number of my students do poorly on a physiology test.

Med School faculty, North Dakota, at 3:00 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Doubtful

” .. Well, maybe what we have here is just a correlation, right? It couldn’t possibly be a cause-and-effect relationship ..”

Correlation? Sure — like with the rise in academic unionization, number of left-wing riots on campus, abortion rate, divorce rate, wins by the Dallas Cowboys, number of full moons on cloudless nights .. that’s how effective that concept is.

Causality? As in, which of 50,000 variables to focus on?

As to “lean and mean” — why do private schools manage to perform better than government-subsidized ones, with less resources? Could there be waste in public schools? Oh, my ...

L.H.H., at 3:00 pm EST on December 11, 2006

The Market and Tenure

Tenure is certainly part of the overall compensation package that academics get. L.H.H. comments on the market ought to begin to understand how they work.

First of all I wish people would quit talking about “oversupply” — meaningless term. If supply increases while demand is stable or falling then the market clearing wage will fall. Over time supply will NOT increase in this situation as alternative job markets become more attractive.

People do respond to overall compensation packages — combination of job security, salary, health etc...tenured faculty do get lower salaries than their counterparts with the same qualifications in the business sector. Only a moron would take a job with a lower salary with the same chance of being fired as in the business sector — and only a moron would offer a higher salary than that over the next best alternative job if the chance of being fired were the same.

Getting rid of tenure would just mean that faculty would be forced to “produce” observable results — in teaching this could only mean teaching to the test (make students happy and then the good grades would mean that the teaching objectives have been met — right?!) or an increased emphasis on research numbers rahter than quality. Both of these have happened at a lot of business schools — the bad ones encourage the use of publication mills (go to a conference pay a fee and get published — whoppeeee!!). This works when the emphasis is on teaching certain skills — like how to work Excel and get Microsoft certified. This is why private Univeristies dont need tenured professors — they teach skills. But I hate to break it to y’all — India and China have and will corner the market on skills!! What can the US focus on? — innovation. And innovation cant be taught as a skill —

more at http://economicolony.blogspot.com/index.html

Atin Basu, Associate Professor, at 3:45 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Salaries and Tenure

Re: LHH’s comment that, “In the U.S., no one is required to take a ‘lower salary.’ If anyone does not like their salary — they can leave. No one is forcing anyone to stay in a job.”

If the tenure system is abolished, many of those who already have specialized Ph.D.s may not leave the field, given the difficulties of retraining...BUT many fewer people will enter the field. Nearly everyone who enters a top-10 or top-20 Ph.D. program (and many in lower-ranked programs) could have easily gotten into excellent medical, law, or other professional schools. Salary isn’t everything, and professors choose academia for other job rewards, but if job security isn’t part of the package, these people will not enter the field.

It’s not simply about job security but the need to settle in one place. Professors are very specialized in their particular fields, and not having a contract renewed or getting tenure in one location often means a move miles and miles away. Few other professions are this specialized. In the age of dual-career couples, moving to an entirely new location every few years just isn’t feasible.

Professors may accept lower salaries due to the rewards of the job, but I don’t believe the strongest students will enter Ph.D. programs without the possible reward of the job and location security of tenure.

Former academic, at 3:45 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Actually, sir ..

” .. LHH’s comments suggest a lack of familiarity ..”

Several months ago, IHE had a vigorous debate over whether medical school faculty required tenure, given that MDs have more financially-rewarding career options than most academics.

You are obviously echoing that discussion. At colleges with medical schools (e.g., Duke, Michigan), revenues of the medical/health facilities dwarf other academic areas.

I would strongly suggest that you become more familiar with non-MD education areas of academia, sir. Not every academic department has a Blue Cross/Blue Shield reimbursement code.

L.H.H., at 3:45 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Federal Defunding of Higher Education

To try and provide some broader perspective to this discussion, one of the biggest reasons for the skyrocketing costs of college education has not been tenure-track faculty, but the failure of the Bush administration to adequately fund the pell grant program. At some universities, the cost of an undergraduate education has increased by as much as 30% over the last decade.

(See for example this article from the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1128/p02s01-legn.html and this story about skyrocketing tuition at the University of Miami: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/9/165342/287)

What preceded this, of course, was the Reagan era decision to cut funding to the states, who then took it out of public university budgets. As a result, to make ends meet, these universities begin to embrace an increasing amount of both corporate sponsorship for departments and programs as well as an increasing amount of casual faculty.

A major part of the solution has to be pressure to restore federal funding to the states — and particularly to public institutions of higher education. In addition, faculty and instructors at all levels from TAs to full profs, must be organized into a strong collective organization(say, a union) to ensure that this new funding is used to both restore job security for academics and reduce tuition.

Jay Driskell, proud member of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO) at Yale

Jay D, Graduate Student at Yale University, at 3:46 pm EST on December 11, 2006

The purpose of the university

I can’t believe what I’m reading. Why do so many people have the attitude that university profs don’t deserve job security for the work they do? Or to earn a decent living? I never see this debate about retail workers, doctors, or lawyers but I see it over and over again in education. Everyone wants a first-rate education, complains that the US is “falling behind,” or that classes are being dumbed-down—but no one wants to pay the (part-time) faculty, the people who are ultimately the contact point between student and institution, what they are worth. I teach the same classes as tenure-track faculty and I have done everything in regards to teaching and course development that full-time profs have but I make about 1/5 what they make, have no benefits, and can be terminated at any time. I realize the work load is not equal—there are a lot of things they have to do that I don’t—but I don’t think asking for adequate compensation is too much. The problem with the hierarchy in a lot of schools is that...there is no hierarchy! When hired as an adjunct, there is no mechanism in place for that part-timer to ever become full time.

After reading this article I was glad that the problem of shrinking tenure-track positions is finally being addressed. After reading some of the comments I wanted to cry. Maybe that’s just because it’s finals week, though, and I have several stacks of papers waiting to be graded.

galley, at 4:45 pm EST on December 11, 2006

Of course

” .. In the age of dual-career couples, moving to an entirely new location every few years just isn’t feasible ..”

Of course. Everyone should change their financial budgets to fit your needs. This is about you, not anyone else. How silly to think otherwise. Sorry.

L.H.H., at 7:35 am EST on December 12, 2006

No, actually, this isn’t about me at all. I left academia because I didn’t like the work, not because I couldn’t balance it with my partner’s job as a professor. But, having gone through graduate school myself and being married to a professor, I know dozens and dozens of professors. Virtually none of them would have entered the field were it not for tenure — not just for job security, but because of the need to settle down in a particular location. Professors can’t usually just find a job in the same field down the road, whereas in many professions, people could find another job within an hour of where they live. Virtually everyone I know could have gone to a highly-rated med school, law school, or business school, but chose academia — tenure is part of the overall compensation package that another respondant mentionned. None of us are stupid enough to choose such a low paying-field without the promise of job security.

Former Academic, at 12:15 pm EST on December 12, 2006

Thank you; be yourself

” .. None of us are stupid enough to choose such a low paying-field without the promise of job security.”

Excuse me — are you suggesting that people study, say, Central African behaviorial economics, mainly for job security? Isn’t that kind of 1950’s?

Please don’t do me any favors. Do what you want. Don’t study something, just for job security. Do it because you want to do it — and not for any other reason.

L.H.H., at 3:25 pm EST on December 12, 2006

What admirable idealism!

L.H.H. thinks we should simply follow our passions. What admirable idealism! A more realistic approach would look at the debt and opportunity costs of acquiring a Ph.D. in the humanities, and balance them against the probability that the doctorate will lead only to part-time, semester-to-semester work paying less than $25,000 a year. Now add in the working conditions: a standard 50-55 hour work week, severely underprepared students, helicopter parents, and the general disrespect for the profession shown by American society at large. Most reasonable people will surely conclude that, while some graduate study in the humanities might be desirable for personal development reasons, no one without a sizeable trust fund can afford to get a Ph.D.

Is this what we want?

Charlotte Pressler, at 10:21 am EST on December 13, 2006

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