Thinning the Ph.D. Herd

Rebecca Schuman:

Faculty and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University, an elite private research institution that costs undergrads $61,000 per year, are up in arms about a new strategic plan that proposes sweeping changes (and cuts) to its Ph.D. programs. Some 275 graduate students, concerned about the viability of their departments, have petitioned the university to reconsider, arguing to Inside Higher Ed that such downsizing could be emulated around the country if it takes effect. But these grad students should be more concerned about their viability after the Ph.D.--which is grim. Johns Hopkins knows this, and is taking drastic but needed measures. I'm all for it, and I'd be delighted, not dismayed, if other universities emulated this strategy.

Here's the plan, which faculty and students have demanded the administration reconsider: Over the course of the next five years, Hopkins would like to cut its graduate enrollment by 25 percent, and use those savings to raise the remaining grad-student stipends (what "nonemployees" get instead of a salary) to $30,000 per year.

This reduction would result in fewer graduate seminars. More importantly, though, instead of roughly one-half the instruction in the university being done by graduate students, only one-fourth would be, and this will put senior faculty in more contact with the undergraduate hoi polloi than they have been in decades. (The fact that Hopkins plans to fire no tenured faculty--merely to force them into contact with undergrads--is why these reductions seem much more reasonable than the ones at, say, Minnesota State University-Moorhead.) Meanwhile, the grad students that do remain will be paid well: that $30,000 is straight-up baller cash in the grad-school world--current stipends at JHU are around $20,000, and I received around $16,000 at UC-Irvine.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 22, 2013 12:45 AM
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