The University Oversupply Problem

The academic world needs to start taking some birth control. The spilling out of highly trained graduates at a level of supply that far outstrips demand is unsustainable. And it's not just graduate and masters graduates that face this problem; but PhD graduates too. The Economist looked at this in an article entitled "The Disposable Academic": 

"There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes."

The Economist gave it's solution to the problem:

"They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that."

In full here, http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709