Originally Posted by aeh
Why, thank you! They're an especially good deal if you collect them at the post-doc level, as you can acquire quality post-docs for right around federal poverty level wages, and then keep them on a trial basis as non-tenured faculty or research associates until they do something patentable.
Was this different in the past? In other words, are PhD students interested in academia knowingly entering a lottery system with well understood low odds in the hopes of eventually getting tenure? Or has the situation dramatically changed in the last 5-10 years?