I recently read a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the dismally long time it takes the average student to complete their doctoral studies and ways to reduce that time. The article stated it takes about 7.7 years for students to finish however, 30% of students who begin doctoral studies don’t finish at all. Women and underrepresented minorities have the highest dropout rates. As an female who is about to embark on doctoral studies, these are sobering facts.
However, the news wasn’t all bad. The article reported on a 7 year study that aimed to identify best-practices to reduce the number of dropouts and the number of years to completion of the doctoral degree. Many of the 20 universities participating in this study are close to my heart: University of Michigan, University of Cincinnati, Ohio State University, and Michigan State University. More great news is that this is only one of a few studies of this nature that aim to reduce PhD attrition rates.
In glancing at the recommendations made in this article, I can see that a few of them are not currently feasible. Most notably, “increasing financial support” comes to mind. The article cites the success of the University of Michigan’s Rackham Engineering Awards program in graduate retention. My understanding is that engineering doctoral students already have a higher retention rate than many other programs. Additionally, it is much easier for universities to scare up the funds to support such programs as engineering and biomedical sciences.
Where is the extra funding for anthropology and education programs going to come from? Funding for anthropology programs appears to be quite dismal and has been for some time. However, this comes at a time when more and more business and marketing companies are realizing the potential benefits of having anthropologists on staff. Applied anthropology appears to be getting recognition in may other fields but the funding behind the programs is just not there. A comment made to the article was posted by a student in a social sciences/humanities program at one of the universities participating in the study. That individual told of how funding was cut while he/she was in the middle of studies and had to find full-time work in order to support themselves. Balancing 40 hours a week at work and doctoral studies in social sciences (that often require or strongly urge studies/research abroad) is often too much for students.
Another recommendation is to improve student support during research and dissertation work. This one seems obvious, but I have experienced programs in which the faculty are so busy with their own research and full-time teaching commitments that it appears keeping up with all their advisees is too much. I am not sure exactly how to make sure the advisors have more time to spend with students but it appears to be working at Ohio State and Marquette universities.
At the bottom of this article is a section for comments from readers. An interesting post is from Dean at a graduate school who stated that administrators are caught in a catch-22 because they are asked to fill a certain number of spots for their programs to remain viable. Oftentimes this leads to admitting students who are not fully prepared for doctoral studies or not ideal candidates for the job market thereafter. How are graduate programs to deal with this conundrum?
Although I applaud the study for addressing these problems in graduate schools I am curious to see what universities and which programs in those universities are actually able to make these necessary changes. Many of these recommendations seem obvious, but there are many reasons those recommendations are not currently being addressed in many universities. I only hope I can make it through my own doctoral studies that begin in the Fall!