How ponzi is your graduate program?

The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes.

Hmmm, it has taken the Economist this long to figure this out?  How long will it take the newspaper to find out that it is not only doctoral degrees but a great deal of higher education itself has turned into a ponzi scheme?

I ended up at that Economist piece thanks to this item in the Chronicle.

as college grads learn of the job/degree imbalance, they will try to get around the problem in some cases by inappropriately going to school even more, by getting a master’s or even doctoral degree, or perhaps become a member of the professions—becoming, say, a lawyer. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggest that the problem of underemployment or over-education (taking jobs requiring vastly less education than that acquired) extends very much to still higher levels of learning, to advanced degrees.

It is not graduate school anymore.  Welcome to "Graduate Scheme!"

In case you thought this was all smoke and mirrors, well, how about this one as an example of too many PhDs chasing fewer and fewer jobs, which is not at all unusual anymore?

The report, published in the group's Perspectives on History, a newsletter, in advance of its annual conference this week, said the number of jobs posted with the association fell by more than 29 percent—from 806 to 569—during the 2009-10 academic year. Since two years ago, when the association posted an all-time high of 1,059 job openings, the number of jobs advertised with it has dropped by more than 46 percent, to the lowest level in 25 years.

Imagine then the employment prospects for graduates of programs like this one!  As a colleague, who shall not be named, remarked out of frustration, the graduate program is not for students, but is for faculty to boast that they have graduate students.  How unfortunate for the students, and for taxpayers!  Oh, yeah, I forgot: higher education has nothing to do with students themselves! :(