Alberto Pepe edited A_href_https_www_authorea__.tex  about 9 years ago

Commit id: 24ad683b9eaa2b6835efc88242a1a233ae9ed87a

deletions | additions      

       

A \href{https://www.authorea.com/users/3/articles/5287/master/file/figures/academic-pyramid/academic-pyramid.jpg}{scary infographic} scary infographic  has been circulating for a while. It shows that only \textbf{1 \href{https://www.authorea.com/users/3/articles/5287/master/file/figures/academic-pyramid/academic-pyramid.jpg}{1  in 200 Ph.D. students eventually ends up as a tenured professor}. This ratio ($0.45\%$) is, yes, incredibly low and \href{http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17431/what-ratio-of-phd-graduates-in-stem-fields-ultimately-end-up-as-tenured-profes}{it has been debated}. An NSF report (that uses 1999 data) puts the ratio at $24\%$, \href{http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind02/c5/c5s2.htm}{so 1 in 4 graduates will get tenure}: "since 1973, the percentage of recent Ph.D.-holders hired into full-time faculty positions has been cut nearly in half, from 74 to 37 percent. The decline at research universities has been sharper, from 60 to 24 percent." A paper published last year \cite{Larson_2013} finds a lower overall ratio ($12.8\%$)  based on a simple but powerful statistic $R_0$, defined as \textit{the mean number of new PhD’s that a typical tenure-track faculty member will graduate during his or her academic career}. \begin{quote}  We show that the reproduction rate in academia is very high. For example, in engineering, a professor in the US graduates 7.8 new PhDs during his/her whole career on average, and only one of these graduates can replace the professor’s position. This implies that in a steady state, only 12.8\% of PhD graduates can attain academic positions in the USA.