The Ph.D. Placement Project

Last summer, the Chronicle of Higher Education launched its Ph.D. Placement Project.  Across university graduate programs of all disciplines, it is fairly uncommon for departments to track the "outcomes" of its Ph.D. programs, as measured by the placement of its graduates.  The Chronicle's reporter, Audrey Williams June, presents a case study of one faculty member in one department who actually did create a database of his program's Ph.D. graduates and their subsequent careers (the City University of New York (CUNY)'s Graduate Center's sociology program).

My impression is that in the sciences and engineering, placements are not systematically tracked by graduate departments, and when they are, summary data are not routinely provided to current or prospective graduate students. I welcome data to prove me wrong though.  If I'm right, I believe this is a scandal, and university departments should no longer be able to get away with it.  Departments that are afraid to generate such data or to disclose it, are behaving in a self-serving way, unfitting for their nonprofit status in the economy.  It is difficult for me to conceive of a rational defense of such practices.

Therefore DTLR calls on all graduate degree programs in science and engineering to initiate placement studies of its graduates, whether they stay within the profession or not, and to publicly disclose the results, at least in summary form, once enough data points have been gathered to ensure the privacy of the graduates themselves.  DTLR endorses any efforts by public and private funding agencies and alumni groups to withhold funding from any graduate program that fails to commit to such an initiative.