Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Would you trade a Ph.D. for money?

That's a lot of Benjamins. (Credit: graphicmania.net)
Two Yale law professors suggest an innovative way of cutting down the number of law students:
Consider the innovative employment policy of the Internet shoe seller Zappos. At the end of a four-week training course, Zappos offers new employees a one-time offer of $3,000 to quit. In part, the company uses the offer as a screening device. If you’re the type who prefers a quick three grand to the opportunity to work at a great company, then Zappos isn’t the place for you. 
Law schools might analogously offer to rebate half of a student’s first-year tuition if the student opts to quit school at the end of the first year. (If the student has taken out government loans, this rebate would first go to repay this debt.)  A half-tuition rebate splits the loss of an aborted legal career between the school and the student. Each has skin in the game, so students will not go to law school lightly, and law schools will have better incentives not to admit students likely to fail.
I think this would be an excellent way of reducing the number of potential Ph.D. chemists. You can imagine saying at the end of a passed candidacy exam (or whatever examination you prefer):
Congratulations -- you're on your way to get a Ph.D.! Oh, by the way -- we are prepared to offer you a check for $20,000. If you take the money, you will leave this program with a master's degree and our thanks for reducing the supply of Ph.D. chemists. You have 1 week to consider the offer. 
What do you think you would do? I certainly would have considered it, but I probably would have turned it down. (Obviously, this would be subject to wild amounts of gaming; you'd have to practically set up roadblocks to make sure that people wouldn't be death-marching their way to candidacy to get the big payday.)

30 comments:

  1. If someone had offered me that at the beginning of my program, I wouldn't have taken it. In retrospect, however....I dunno, maybe.

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  2. At the time, no chance. Now? I'd sell it for a fraction of that price. How do we get people like me, who still thought there was a decent job at the end of the PhD chute to realize there isn't?

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  3. Take the money and run! You can still get a great job in industry with a masters, and you've got enough money to pay back the majority of your student loans (if you went to a public university).

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  4. It it was after my comps? Definitely would have taken it. A Master's seems like a better degree to have without "experience" to find a job these days.

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  5. I went to graduate school intending to get a Master's all along (and I did), so I would seriously have considered doing this. I don't know if I would, though, as it seems like gaming the system. (Not that should stop anyone, if the last few years have taught us anything about actual people vs institutions.)

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  6. The trend is going the other way, it seems. Our school used to grant all grad students Master's degree once the formal requirements were completed (at some point closer to the end of the second year) but the faculty was worried that students might be tempted to leave at that point (I am not sure if there was an exodus of students, I don't believe attrition rate was higher than now) so the system was scrapped.
    Of course we are talking about the same faculty that once asked that the safety showers in a new building were put in hallways, without drains and protective curtains, so that grad students would not be tempted to bathe there. Well, that is sort of a departmental legend, but a believable one.

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  7. I think that I would have taken it. My first 2 years of grad school were miserable (the common 80+ hr/ 7 day a week, sleep in lab, get yelled at all the time type stuff that so many of us went through). Also I wouldn't be >$100,000 in debt and now in my 3rd year of postdoc with the same salary I made as a lab tech with a bachelor's degree (and a never ending project to go with it); of course to only go more into debt because my salary is poor and I have to pay those loans + the interest. Yeah I'm a little bitter, give me the 20K plus my twenties back ;)

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  8. Well, I got paid to stick around in the program. I was considering a Master's at the time, but the money forced my hand at the PhD.

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  9. WOW, I saw this post this AM, and made sure I came back to read the comments. I am the only one who loves research? I wouldn't have taken the money then or now in hindsight. Maybe it is playing into the glass ceiling, but from what I see having a Ph.D. is helpful for advancement. I also have plenty of friends who have left the scientific side of research and would have taken the money.

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  10. I would not only take the money, but I would pay money to get my twentys back and return my useless, unmarketable PhD.

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  11. "You can still get a great job in industry with a masters, and you've got enough money to pay back the majority of your student loans (if you went to a public university). "

    Unless you are a biologist, this is no longer true. Entry fare to a major pharma is a PhD. Most are PhD + postdoctoral experience.

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  12. I would gladly pay 20k for a chance to undo my M.Sc chem.!

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  13. Pretty sad responses. To look at it another way, i left a reasonably-paid job to reenter grad school, so i lost about $20K every year i was there by comparison.

    For a lot of grad students (particularly ones from overseas) the stipend is their first real job, or at least best-paid job they have ever had.

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  14. There's always the PhD expungement service 8-)

    http://www.medzilla.com/jl-1.html

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  15. "Unless you are a biologist, this is no longer true. Entry fare to a major pharma is a PhD. Most are PhD + postdoctoral experience."

    I never said the jobs were in Pharma. Amazingly enough, there are thingss to do in chemistry other than make drugs! Plastics, additives, paints, specialty products, and on and on. It might not be as "glorious" as drug design or natural product synthesis, but the level of entry is much lower (and you generally get paid just as well with better job security).

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  16. @Bad Wolf - I'm with you, man. I was a BS-level chemist in pharma with a decent salary, and I took a $26K/yr cut to go back to get my degree. In hindsight, could I have known the economy would crash? Nope. But I still love what I do, and I'm glad I finished out.

    So, although the ca$h incentive sounds good, I gave up more just to play ball.

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  17. Entry to Big Pharma as a chemist is fairly non-existant on this side of the pond, and most CROs are recruiting both grads and PhDs to make up the shortfall. As mentioned above, speciality chemicals really seems to be taking off - some of those obscure chem modules at uni may have proved quite useful after all!

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  18. @6:35am
    Entry may be lower if you are willing to move abroad. Most of those jobs are going or have gone to Asia. Who do you think pharma is using as the example for their 'new' business models? These are not new business models, but have been used for many years in non-pharma fields.

    Entry to a speciality chemicals (in the US) usually takes years of experience in that speciality. PhD chemists (or B.S. chemical engineers) might be able to find positions with 0-2 years experience, but MS chemists must have 5-10 years of experience specific to that field. Unless you are willing to contract for minimum wage to gain experience, entry is for those fields is difficult.

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  19. @CRO--glad i'm not the only one! Funny how we both paid the price and seem to regret it less than the direct-to-grad-school PhDs here. Maybe making people spend a year or two on a real job would cut down on grad student overpopulation, as well as the regret everyone has?

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  20. A $20/hr chem job, PhD preferred:

    http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/sci/2706175690.html

    Will employers attempt to go as low as Post-doc pay?

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  21. "Bachelors degree in Chemistry or equivalent with 5 years of proven experience in the field. ... M.S. or Ph.D. degree is a plus."

    Nice reading skills, anon10:38. See, a PhD is always a "plus."

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  22. As dumb as the last poster was, I see the point being made. The idea that an employer is willing to offer $20/hr for a PhD trained chemist is sad. Going from 'plus' to 'preferred' may not be a big leap as the job market continues to sour. Would you do grad school and a post doc for a $20/hr job?

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  23. I saw the point being made too, i just think it is one of panic and entitlement to see everything chemistry-related as a sign of the inevitable erosion of our wages and lifestyle. Frankly you may be lucky they consider it a 'plus' when PhDs may be more trouble to work with, such as (obviously) considering the job to be beneath them.

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  24. $20/h for someone who has a PhD or M.S is just sad. Still, its better than unemployment.

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  25. I have a MS in Chemistry and I've been un/underemployed for three years. I did have a fair number of interviews, but they were for temp jobs paying around $16/hour that would require me to move across the country. I decided to just say screw it and take out more loans for a BS in computer science.

    Although, I just had an interview for a job as a lab supervisor in the chemistry department at the school I'm doing the BS degree at. $30K/year.

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  26. Anon 6:11, the erosion of wages is real. Entitlement? Please. Let's talk about ROI.
    "Still, its better than unemployment." - Anon 6:15, is a clear example of how employers can get away with it. During this Thanksgiving weekend, employers expect you to say, "hey, I'm thankful I have a low-paying job after years of schooling."
    Why do employers offer wages so low? Because they can.

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  27. @10:15AM:
    And employers can continue to find people to accept low wages for long years of schooling because the US government offers visas for those in specialized fields in which 'shortages' are present. A path to citizenship is far more valuable for many than reasonable wages. Physical and biological sciences are determined to be fields with 'shortages' according to the US government.

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  28. Anon 5:25
    That's exactly right. For me PhD was the price of admission. Yes, I will probably bounce from on crappy job to another crappy job for as long as I am able to work, but not ever having to go back to pos country I was born in makes it totally worth it.
    Hold on, let me correct myself. That's almost exactly right - the visas that US government offers - they must have somehow slipped by me. I had to hire an attorney, pay his fees on a postdoc salary, spend 2 years waiting to be cleared by the FBI, another 2 waiting for the paperwork to be processed... but hey, it was still totally worth it.

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  29. Anon 7:39

    Chem dept. lab supervisor for 30k/year is not so bad if you only have to work 8 months a year and get the summer off. Thats like $25/h.

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  30. Anon 7:39
    Even better pay if the school offers tuition waivers for employees.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20