The data indicates tenure-track faculty positions for new Ph.D.’s have declined steadily since 2004 from 224 to 124 in 2011 while the number of postdoc positions greatly increased. In 2011, new Ph.D. graduates accepted twice as many postdoc positions as tenure-track positions. Around 2003 there were approximately 2.5 times more tenure-track positions than postdoc positions.

The tenure-track faculty position is the top of the academic totem pole and coveted by fresh PhDs. The hard truth is that those positions are small in number and getting smaller, leaving the very distant second choice of post-doc as the only viable option for those who want to stick with academia :

At least in computer science, the slack has been picked up in large part by industry. This might have been looked down on in the past (“I have a PhD! I can’t work as a money-grubbing corporate stooge!”), but as I’ve written before, the avante-garde tech companies of today offer work challenging and varied enough (and yes, well-paying enough) to keep nearly half of the graduating crop of PhDs happily employed. I expect this fraction to only grow in the future.

1 and 2 combined should make every prospective PhD student do a good deal of soul-searching to figure out why exactly they want to go through with it. It is a big commitment, and it is not easy, not just in the intellectual and academic sense, but also psychologically. This doesn’t have to be done before you start. Remember that there is an “out” after about two years when you can leave with a master’s degree. I’ve reached the conclusion that there is no material advantage to doing a PhD, and that the only good reasons to do it are philosophical and deeply personal. I will always remember it as the last still, contemplative and reflective time in my life. A font that forever gives.﻿