Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Glut of PhDs means less chance of a job

Things have changed, but there are still some good outlooks for math/computing students. An MS in applied mathematics, statistics, software engineering, or machine learning will open a lot of doors, even these days, in industry/ business/ biotech/ government (particularly with a background in a relevant field like biology or business). Academia is getting worse in those fields, though, and some of the academic friends of mine have left academia for industry. No reason to slave under a low salary and long hours of a faint chance of tenure when industry will pay top dollar and let you work from home half your week... Even without a PhD or even an MS, a good amount of BS's in applied math are finding solid employment (actuary, statistician, business analyst, data scientist, database engineer).

Biology, social sciences, and humanities, however... To be fair, a lot of the more recent PhDs I know have found something, just not in academia (private high school, community college lecturer, pharm/biotech).

I just have to give a plug for my field, which is roughly two-thirds master's/specialist, and one-third doctoral-level, working predominantly in schools, but with good opportunities for academic jobs, if one wants them:

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/school-psychologist

Unemployment rate = 0.2%

Not all social sciences are the same. We had a hard time hiring this year for a new Econ ph.d. Starting salary seems to be 120k for research university, think tank and government. Consulting pays 160k.

Confirming that the job market for economists is pretty good:

Is the economics job market worth it?
by Tyler Cowen
November 12, 2014

I read newsletters announcing papers by economists and have noticed that many economists are writing about education, studying things such as the "value added" by a good teacher. Many economists are studying topics beyond the traditional ones (monetary policy, unemployment, financial markets etc.).

More like $200k+ when you consider signing bonus and variable pay for a first year associate/consultant at a major consultancy.