The U.S. biomedical research enterprise is gradually crumbling under the weight of thousands of trained scientists who cannot get jobs in academia, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences says. If the situation does not change soon it will undercut biomedical science’s “vitality, promise, and productivity” and, eventually, its critical role in the biomedical industry...
...Lack of data about the outcomes of graduate students and postdocs is a particular problem, the report says. It recommends NIH force universities to collect that information by tying data reporting to grant funding. NSF should also collect more data by linking its existing data with the U.S. Census Bureau.
I don't love forcing these sorts of mandates on universities, but I think that we desperately need good data on past graduates and their career outcomes. Good news, if this is implemented. (that's a big 'if')
It wont be, that could potentially interfere with the recruitment of cheap labor (oops! I mean grad students) In the end, PI's must have cheap labor for the labs. Nothing can interfere with that, especially when the university president wants to be in the "top 20" status not in terms of teaching, but in terms of getting federal grant money. Follow the money.
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