Average time to an MBA: 2 years. Time to a law degree: 3 years. To an MD: 4 years. Average time to a humanities PhD? 11.3 years. Then there's only a 50% chance you'll get a job somewhat related to your field--and odds drop to a 25% chance that you'll ever become a tenured professor. The life of the Academy and its myriad institutional problems, from Harvard magazine.
posted by jefficator on Oct 29, 2009 - 129 comments

Roxanne Shanté, considered by some to be a queen of hip hop, got Warner Music to pay for her PhD in psychology. Except, a Slate investigation says it never happened. [more inside]
posted by movicont on Sep 2, 2009 - 72 comments

Dissertation Haiku
posted by Miko on Aug 18, 2009 - 34 comments

There is a potential crisis (PDF) looming in business education. Unlike many other fields in higher education, demand for qualified faculty well outstrips supply. The result is a strong job market and high pay (PDF). In response to this potential shortage a number of things are being done. The accounting profession has recently started a program designed to increase the number of professors in the field called the Accounting Doctoral Scholars Program. This program provides fellowships of $30,000 a year for 30 students. The AACSB has created a website to promote getting a PhD in business. The PhD project is designed to increase the number of minority PhD business professors. [more inside]
posted by bove on Oct 16, 2008 - 32 comments

Gillian McKeith banned from calling herself 'Dr'. Gillian McKeith, a "nutritionist" who has had several UK TV series, endless adverts for health supplements and sex pills, has for years used her title of Doctor to persuade people that she actually knows what she's talking about. Except now, thanks to the Advertising Standards Authority, she's no longer allowed to call herself a Doctor. I guess non-accredited correspondence-course PhDs and the membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, something that a dead cat can be a member of for the princely sum of $60, doesn't actually mean much after all.
posted by TheDonF on Feb 18, 2007 - 67 comments

Will Mike Slackenerny ever graduate? It looks like long-time readers of PhD -- a comic strip about graduate students -- will have to buy the book to find out. Some people aren't taking the news so well.
posted by casu marzu on Apr 9, 2005 - 17 comments

The Mathematics Genealogy Project. A service of the Department of Mathematics at North Dakota State University, the project intends to "compile information about ALL the mathematicians of the world. [...] It is our goal to list all individuals who have received a doctorate in mathematics." Seven generations from one of my recent professors back to Gauss, six back to Felix Klein (of Erlangen Program and bottle fame), eight back to Jacobi, and nine back to Poisson and Fourier, then Lagrange, then Euler, then the Bernoulli brothers, then Leibniz, and then it blew up at infinity.
posted by gramschmidt on Dec 21, 2004 - 5 comments

Ever wonder how people buy those fake PhDs? It turns out a number of real people, including psychologists, criminologists, and university faculty are using diploma mill degrees to earn positions. Absolutely fascinating.
posted by MikeB on Oct 14, 2003 - 36 comments

Caroline Myss, Ph.D., is a wildly popular best-selling self-help author, loved by Oprah and PBS stations. She has her own show on Oxygen. But in what did she earn her cherished and paraded Ph.D.? Intuition and Energy Medicine. Where did she earn it? From a non-accredited correspondence school. Who founded the department from whence she graduated? She did. She maked it up. I'm always a bit skeptical of the intelligence and merit of anyone who so prominently adorns their pop writing with academic credentials. Here, my skepticism seems vindicated. Any other gurus out there with bogus credentials?
posted by dilettanti on Sep 23, 2002 - 38 comments

Can't seem to finish your thesis? Then this site may be for you. It's a support group for those of us who just can't seem to write up and finish off that Ph.D./Masters degree. It'll either give you hope and motivation or it'll make you more complacent. "Well, I guess I'm not the only one who's taking a long time; I won't stress out about it anymore".
posted by percine on Jul 14, 2002 - 15 comments