经济学人下载:读博是浪费时间?

PhD graduates do at least earn more than those with a bachelor’s degree. A study in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management by Bernard Casey shows that British men with a bachelor’s degree earn 14% more than those who could have gone to university but chose not to. The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%. But the premium for a master’s degree, which can be accomplished in as little as one year, is almost as high, at 23%. In some subjects the premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences and languages earn no more than those with master’s degrees. The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a master’s degree in engineering and technology, architecture and education. Only in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies is it high enough to be worthwhile. Over all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a master’s degree.
博士们的工资确实比本科生多些。BC在《高等教育政策与管理杂志》的一项研究显示，英国拥有学士学位的男性比未受过高等于那帮人的薪水要高14%。此外，PhD的奖金比例是26%，而硕士生与之相差的并不大是23%。对某些专业的PhD来说甚至根本就没什么奖金。数学和计算机专业PhD的工资还没有这两个专业的硕士生多。在奖金方面，工程与技术、建筑、教育方面的PhD处境一样，不如硕士。而只有医学等其他一些自然科学方面以及商业和金融领域的PhD值得一读。总的来说，与硕士相比，博士们的奖金只略高3%。

Dr Schwartz, the New York physicist, says the skills learned in the course of a PhD can be readily acquired through much shorter courses. Thirty years ago, he says, Wall Street firms realised that some physicists could work out differential equations and recruited them to become “quants”, analysts and traders. Today several short courses offer the advanced maths useful for finance. “A PhD physicist with one course on differential equations is not competitive,” says Dr Schwartz.
来自纽约的物理学家S博士说，博士课程中学到的技能很容易同过短期培训获得。他记得30年前，华尔街的公司发现一些物理学家懂微分方程，于是乎招他们来，有做分析员的也有做交易员的。目前，许多短期培训都可以满足金融对高等数学的需要。“相比之下，物理学博士就不再具有竞争力了”。

Many students say they are pursuing their subject out of love, and that education is an end in itself. Some give little thought to where the qualification might lead. In one study of British PhD graduates, about a third admitted that they were doing their doctorate partly to go on being a student, or put off job hunting. Nearly half of engineering students admitted to this. Scientists can easily get stipends, and therefore drift into doing a PhD. But there are penalties, as well as benefits, to staying at university. Workers with “surplus schooling”—more education than a job requires—are likely to be less satisfied, less productive and more likely to say they are going to leave their jobs.
很多学生说他们读博纯粹是出于兴趣，教育本质上就能助其一臂之力。但却很少有人思考纯粹的资格认证对一个人的爱好和兴趣能起多大作用。在一项英国博士毕业生们的研究中，有大约1/3的人承认他们之所以读博部分原因在于想继续过学生样的生活，或者不愿这么早就找工作。工程学领域有一半的学生就这么想。然而总是呆在大学里也是一把双刃剑。那些高学历的人们可能很难被满足，没有什么竞争力吧还总是会说“我马上就要跳槽”。

The interests of universities and tenured academics are misaligned with those of PhD students
学校与学生的利益一致吗？

Academics tend to regard asking whether a PhD is worthwhile as analogous to wondering whether there is too much art or culture in the world. They believe that knowledge spills from universities into society, making it more productive and healthier. That may well be true; but doing a PhD may still be a bad choice for an individual.
学院派总是觉得质疑读博是否值得就像质疑世界上的艺术和文化是否太多一样。在他们眼里，知识都是从大学流进社会的，并使之充满生气保持健康。这或许不假，但读博对于个人来说或许的确是个错误的选择。

The interests of academics and universities on the one hand and PhD students on the other are not well aligned. The more bright students stay at universities, the better it is for academics. Postgraduate students bring in grants and beef up their supervisors’ publication records. Academics pick bright undergraduate students and groom them as potential graduate students. It isn’t in their interests to turn the smart kids away, at least at the beginning. One female student spoke of being told of glowing opportunities at the outset, but after seven years of hard slog she was fobbed off with a joke about finding a rich husband.
其实，学校的利益与学生的利益并不是很一致。学校里聪明的学生越多，对学校当然就越有好处。研究生可以为学校带来各种基金，并充实着他们导师的出版物。学校挑选出聪明的本科生并将他们推荐到研究生院，显然，将他们拒之门外不符合学校的利益，至少起初是这样的。一个女学生曾说到，当初她被告知呆在学校继续学习前途是大大的，然而7年研究生阶段“猪狗不如的”生活后，她却重新被告知即便没有当初预想的那么好，但至少可以嫁个有钱人嘛。

Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. One Ivy-League president, asked recently about PhD oversupply, said that if the top universities cut back others will step in to offer them instead.
然而，肯塔基大学心理学教授MH是个例外。她坚信，目前博士供给过剩，为此拒了很多申请。但向这样由学院独自出马控制过多培养博士的做法并不多见。比如，一个常春藤的校长最近就问到有关博士供给过剩的问题，他说，就算我们缩招，别人也不一定缩招。