Leaving a Ph.D. program

Here’s an anonymous piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Why I’m Planning to Leave My Ph.D. Program.” The subtitle explains it all: “My family can’t live on $17,000 a year.” An excerpt:

Over four years in my English Ph.D. program, I’ve taught 132 students as the instructor of record, a total of 396 credit hours, and so, at my college’s stated tuition rates, helped it bring in something on the order of $575,000. While those funds aren’t entirely profit, the minimal overhead of my class means I’ve more than paid my way. In addition, I’ve served as a research assistant and worked in the writing center. In exchange, my institution paid me a stipend averaging $17,000 per year.

The writer quotes from Ulysses at the end of his essay, likening his contemplation of his young daughter’s future to Stephen Dedalus’s contemplation of his sister Dilly’s sad prospects. More bitterly, I think of repurposing Stephen’s famous observation about Ireland in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man : Academia is the old sow that eats her farrow.

For me the saddest thing about the Chronicle piece is that the writer never considers what might follow the completion of his degree. One cautionary tale along those lines: William Deresiewicz’s account of why he left academia.