Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap

Via Nathan Nobis at In Socrates' Wake, here's a piece from the AP about universities churning out an oversupply of PhDs. Justin Pope, the article's author, doesn't really get too far in explaining what the problem is--that is, why so many fucking schools feel like they need doctoral programs in everything. He says, "[f]aculty members like having graduate students around. They're good intellectual companions, and they bolster a professor's research efforts." Yeah. But also deans like having grad programs, because then they're deans of research institutions. States like having flagship universities. (In which case, interestingly, the schools' presidents are admirals. The presidents and deans of branch campuses--or "frigate schools"--are only captains and lieutenants. Grad students are cabin boys. Avast!)

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the AP piece. It does offer a fantastic little nugget to illustrate the basic dynamic at play in the issue.

In its report last month, a 30-member commission called for New York's state and city systems to alleviate the over reliance on adjuncts by hiring 2,000 more full-time faculty for their 87 campuses.

But just one page away, the report also called for adding at least 4,000 doctoral students.

I take it the problem here is, one thing universities produce is their own labor supply. That's weird, and it looks like it has some pretty clear economic consequences. Universities have a strong incentive to produce enough PhDs to keep the cost of PhDs down. As the AP piece puts it, "with universities already under fire for skyrocketing prices, it's probably unrealistic to expect most will pay more than the going rate for a captive labor pool." No doubt.

So it's nice for the New York schools to commit to hiring more tenure-tracked faculty to teach their students. But at the very same time, they're laying the groundwork to make sure the economic incentives cut the other direction. And when it comes down to it, which consideration do you think is going to win out? A high-minded commitment to the quality of a public school education? Or cash?