校园生活: 为什么读博是浪费时间

ON THE evening before All Saints' Day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. In those days a thesis was simply a position one wanted to argue. Luther, an Augustinian friar, asserted that Christians could not buy their way to heaven. Today a doctoral thesis is both an idea and an account of a period of original research. Writing one is the aim of the hundreds of thousands of students who embark on a doctorate of philosophy (PhD) every year.
1517年10月31日，也就是万圣节前夜，马丁·路德在威登堡城堡大教堂门口以学术争论方式张贴出欢迎辩论的《九十五条论点》。在那个时代，论文只是阐述作者观点。这位新教创始人路德在论文中论证了基督教通往天国的道路，其实不是由金钱铺筑而成。而今天，学术论文不仅仅阐述作者观点，同时还代表作者的一段时期内的研究成果。每年都有成千上万的学生们想要拿到博士学位，前赴后继辛苦劳累，就是为了完成这样一篇博士论文。
In most countries a PhD is a basic requirement for a career in academia. It is an introduction to the world of independent research—a kind of intellectual masterpiece, created by an apprentice in close collaboration with a supervisor. The requirements to complete one vary enormously between countries, universities and even subjects. Some students will first have to spend two years working on a master's degree or diploma. Some will receive a stipend; others will pay their own way. Some PhDs involve only research, some require classes and examinations and some require the student to teach undergraduates. A thesis can be dozens of pages in mathematics, or many hundreds in history. As a result, newly minted PhDs can be as young as their early 20s or world-weary forty-somethings.

在大多数国家，博士学位是进入学术界的门槛，进入独立研究某个领域的敲门砖，也是与导师合作的研究成果。各个国家，不同大学，不同专业，要求也有所不同。有些要求学生两年时间才能拿到硕士学位，有的学生会得到一些补助，而有些完全是自费。获得博士学位只需要完成研究论文，而有些还需要参加一些必修课或选修课或是助教工作。一篇学术论文有几十页，甚至是几百页。这些博士有的还是二十出头的小伙儿，有些已经是知天命的四十岁中年人了。
One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle. “It isn't graduate school itself that is discouraging,” says one student, who confesses to rather enjoying the hunt for free pizza. “What's discouraging is realising the end point has been yanked out of reach.”

这些读博的学生们有一点是相同的：即对现状不满。有的把自己的工作描述为打工仔，每周七天无休息，二十四小时待命，薪酬很少，前途渺茫。这种情况很普遍。如果你已经博士毕业，回顾读博那段经历，可能会说，那个时候，我的办公室比现在的家都要阔气，而且经常吃方便面。一位求学者说，本质问题是研究本身让我感到枯燥。他很坦诚地说，天上不可能掉馅饼。

Whining PhD students are nothing new, but there seem to be genuine problems with the system that produces research doctorates (the practical “professional doctorates” in fields such as law, business and medicine have a more obvious value). 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.
在读博士抱怨满腹早已不是什么新鲜事，现象背后的本质问题在于培养博士体系本身。应用性博士，比如法学博士、商学博士和药学博士，实际上含金量很高。而博士泛滥成灾供过于求，尽管博士学位的设置是为进入学术界而考虑，但是现在存在的问题是，授予博士学位的数量和现有的研究岗位数量差距拉大。博士供过于求，而很多企业领导又说他们找不到所需的高级技术人才。从一方面也表明博士们并没有学到企业所需的知识技能。一些人甚至把研究型博士的培养体系比作旁氏原理。

Rich pickings
For most of history even a first degree at a university was the privilege of a rich few, and many academic staff did not hold doctorates. But as higher education expanded after the second world war, so did the expectation that lecturers would hold advanced degrees. American universities geared up first: by 1970 America was producing just under a third of the world's university students and half of its science and technology PhDs (at that time it had only 6% of the global population). Since then America's annual output of PhDs has doubled, to 64,000.

从历史上看有相当一段时间，如果说进入一流大学读书还是少数富人才能得到的特权，甚至很多大学教师都没有博士学位。而二战后，高校不断扩招，于此同时大学讲师也需要有较高学历。到1970年，美国的大学就是如此，数量不到三分之一，却颁发了全球自然科学和工科博士的一半人数。在这段时期美国人口仅占全世界人口的6%，从此之后，美国每年博士数量不断翻倍，每年达到6.4万人。
Other countries are catching up. Between 1998 and 2006 the number of doctorates handed out in all OECD countries grew by 40%, compared with 22% for America. PhD production sped up most dramatically in Mexico, Portugal, Italy and Slovakia. Even Japan, where the number of young people is shrinking, churned out about 46% more PhDs. Part of that growth reflects the expansion of university education outside America. Richard Freeman, a labour economist at Harvard University, says that by 2006 America was enrolling just 12% of the world's students.

其他国家也纷纷赶上。在1998年至2006年，经合组织国家颁发的博士学位数量增长了40%，同时美国增长了22%。在墨西哥、葡萄牙、意大利、斯洛伐克等国家博士产出也增长很快。甚至在年轻人口减少的日本，也以46%的增速培养了大批博士。这些增长也看出美国以外的其他国家的高等教育在迅猛发展。哈佛大学劳动经济学家理查德·费里曼说，到2006年，美国高校招生数量占世界12%。
But universities have discovered that PhD students are cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour. With more PhD students they can do more research, and in some countries more teaching, with less money. A graduate assistant at Yale might earn $20,000 a year for nine months of teaching. The average pay of full professors in America was $109,000 in 2009—higher than the average for judges and magistrates.

同时，许多大学形成了一个共识，在读博士积极性很高，因而是可以任意指使的廉价劳动力。招手博士有助于学校开展研究项目，这些博士生还可用来发展教育，而且成本少。一位耶鲁大学研究生助教九个月的收入为2万美元，2009年全美在职教授平均年薪为10.9万美元，高于法官和地方官员。
Indeed, the production of PhDs has far outstripped demand for university lecturers. In a recent book, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, an academic and a journalist, report that America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees between 2005 and 2009. In the same period there were just 16,000 new professorships. Using PhD students to do much of the undergraduate teaching cuts the number of full-time jobs. Even in Canada, where the output of PhD graduates has grown relatively modestly, universities conferred 4,800 doctorate degrees in 2007 but hired just 2,616 new full-time professors. Only a few fast-developing countries, such as Brazil and China, now seem short of PhDs.

博士年产量远远高出了大学对讲师的需求，最新出版一本书中，美国在2005年至2009年一共培养了10万名博士，与此同时，大学教师职位需求仅仅为1.6万人，这本书两位作者是一位学者和一名记者。在读博士去做助教更减少了对全职教师的需求。甚至在加拿大，博士毕业生增长较为合理的国家，2007年授予了48000人博士学位，同时增加了26160人做为全职教师，而一些增长较快的国家，比如巴西和中国，似乎对博士需求量大一些。

A short course in supply and demand
In research the story is similar. PhD students and contract staff known as “postdocs”, described by one student as “the ugly underbelly of academia”, do much of the research these days. There is a glut of postdocs too. Dr Freeman concluded from pre-2000 data that if American faculty jobs in the life sciences were increasing at 5% a year, just 20% of students would land one. In Canada 80% of postdocs earn $38,600 or less per year before tax—the average salary of a construction worker. The rise of the postdoc has created another obstacle on the way to an academic post. In some areas five years as a postdoc is now a prerequisite for landing a secure full-time job.

研究领域情况类似，在读博士学习期间做了大量的研究工作，学生们称为“软肋”，现在博士后也是供过于求，付瑞曼博士的结论是：数据表明，2000年美国生命科学领域教工需求每年增长5%，这些博士和博士后学生里面，仅仅有五分之一能找到工作。在加拿大，80%的博士后每年收入是3.86万美元甚至更少，而这是建筑工人的平均薪资，博士后数量增加成了博士们通往学术道路的一种阻碍，在有些国家，五年博士后才是获得一份全职工作的敲门砖。
These armies of low-paid PhD researchers and postdocs boost universities', and therefore countries', research capacity. Yet that is not always a good thing. Brilliant, well-trained minds can go to waste when fashions change. The post-Sputnik era drove the rapid growth in PhD physicists that came to an abrupt halt as the Vietnam war drained the science budget. Brian Schwartz, a professor of physics at the City University of New York, says that in the 1970s as many as 5,000 physicists had to find jobs in other areas.

这些如蚂蚁般不断增长的博士和博士后们使得大学的研究事业蒸蒸日上，同时也增加了一个国家科研能力，但并不能单纯看成是一件好事。在某些情况下，受到良好培训教育的高学历者自身才能极大的浪费了。美国在研究定点地球卫星时，物理学博士数量激增，而过后数量急剧下降，越南战争削减了科研计划。一位美国纽约城市大学的物理学教授史沃兹说，20世纪70年代，大约有5000位物理学家不得不该行另谋出路。
In America the rise of PhD teachers' unions reflects the breakdown of an implicit contract between universities and PhD students: crummy pay now for a good academic job later. Student teachers in public universities such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison formed unions as early as the 1960s, but the pace of unionisation has increased recently. Unions are now spreading to private universities; though Yale and Cornell, where university administrators and some faculty argue that PhD students who teach are not workers but apprentices, have resisted union drives. In 2002 New York University was the first private university to recognise a PhD teachers' union, but stopped negotiating with it three years later.

在美国，博士教师的工会也随之兴起，解决博士生教师与学校之间的一些矛盾。大学给他们花了一张大饼，即用今天的廉价劳动来换取未来的一份稳定学术工作。像威斯康星麦迪逊这样的大学，工会建立可以追溯到1960年。而真正的工会兴起还是近几年的事。如今，工会也深入到私立大学。在耶鲁和康奈尔大学，行政管理人员和教师说博士不能算是正式员工，只能是学徒而已。这些话受到了来自工会的压力。2002年，纽约城市大学作为第一个承认博士教师工会存在的私立大学，但三年之后，这所学校停止了工会活动。

In some countries, such as Britain and America, poor pay and job prospects are reflected in the number of foreign-born PhD students. Dr Freeman estimates that in 1966 only 23% of science and engineering PhDs in America were awarded to students born outside the country. By 2006 that proportion had increased to 48%. Foreign students tend to tolerate poorer working conditions, and the supply of cheap, brilliant, foreign labour also keeps wages down.
在美国和英国，很多博士都忍受着低收入低报酬的职业并且看不到前景。在1966年，仅仅23%的自然科学和工科博士文凭颁发给了外国学生。到2006年，这个比例增加到48&，与本土学生相比，国外学生更能忍受艰苦研究工作环境，与此同时，他们的薪酬大大降低。