Friday, December 20, 2019

Survey of Earned Doctorates, 2018 edition

From the NSF's Survey of Earned Doctorates, the latest data, which is for the class of graduates during the 2018 calendar year. First, the demographic data (tab 58): 

All doctorate recipients (number): 2,810
Sex (%): Male 62.0 / Female 38.0 / Unknown 0.0
Citizenship (%): U.S. citizen or permanent resident 60.9, Temporary visa holder 36.4, Unknown 2.7
Marital status (%): Never married 43.6, Married 34.8,  Marriage-like relationship 10.5, Separated, divorced, widowed 1.4, Unknown 9.7
Bachelor's in same field as doctorate (%): 72.8
Master's earned (%): 36.1
Age at doctorate (median years): 28.9
Time to doctorate (median years): From bachelor's 6.3, From graduate school start 5.8, From doctoral program start 5.3

Now, their destinations (tab 59): 

Definite postgraduation study: 924 (36% of respondents to this question)
Definite employment: 772 (30% of respondents to this question)
Seeking employment or study: 830 (32% of respondents to this question)
Other: 66 (3% of respondents to this question)

Definite postgraduation study (%): Postdoc fellowship or research associateship 96.1, Other or unknown 3.9
Definite employment (%): Academe 19.3, Government 4.9, Industry or business 70.3, Nonprofit organization 1.7, Other or unknown 3.8
Primary activity (%): R&D 67.6, Teaching 17.3, Management or administration 3.8, Professional services 10.7, Other 0.5

Median starting salaries for those employed (does not count postdoctoral appointments) (tab 49): 

Total: $85,000
Academe: $51,250
Industry or business: $95,000
Government: $72,000
Nonprofit organization: $58,500
Other or unknown: $54,500

2 comments:

  1. I'll echo one comment from last year; industry seems high and government seems low.

    ReplyDelete
  2. $95k as starting salary for PhD grads in industry... that's bloody high. Maybe compensated for by the scarcity of those positions?

    I'm from Australia, where my starting salary post-PhD was about $41k USD. Maybe I should move to the US...

    ReplyDelete

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