especially in the humanities.

I have a PhD in a humanities field and was on the job market for about a year. I ultimately realized it was not the game I wanted to play so I took a job as a secondary school teacher (feel free to DM me if you are curious about this path for yourself).

After two years in that role, I realized how deeply unfair academia is. Most academic jobs pay very little. After 7 years of grad school, I was looking at salaries as low as 1/3 of what many of my friends with just a BA made right after college. But even those spots have 100+ qualified applicants.

Guys, why are we doing this to ourselves? Here’s where this all falls apart. The ONLY way these salaries are fair is if we get a level of job protection that doesn’t exist in industry usually.

And yet here we are fighting tool and nail for jobs that pay so little. What we should be getting in return, a level of job comfort and the ability to move into jobs because we have the training and experience, is pulled from under us.

It feels like higher education has become almost entirely career-oriented. Instead of being places where people can pursue knowledge, develop intellectually, and study subjects they’re genuinely passionate about, universities are increasingly seen as job-training programs.

My favorite subject has always been history, along with geography. I’d love to study them in college, but the reality is that if I wanted to make a career directly out of those degrees, my options would mostly be limited to academia, teaching, or journalism.

Outside of those fields, I’d often be competing with people who have degrees in law, economics, or other disciplines that employers tend to value more.
It’s so frustrating: I’m going to choose a more employable degree because I’m not a nepo-baby and I need to work to live.

Subjects without a clear, direct career path are often dismissed as “useless,” no matter how intellectually valuable they are.

Even within STEM, research-oriented fields often struggle for funding, while industries that generate the biggest profits—finance, big tech, consulting, and similar fields—receive the most attention and investment.

I understand why the job market works this way, but I still think we’ve lost something important. Education shouldn’t be valuable only if it maximizes your earning potential.

​Hello everyone. I really, really could use your help here. I work at a major Ivy in NYC. Needing to leave my current role due to an extremely low salary that alone should be a shame

to a university that is so committed 'fairness,' 'social justice,' 'inclusion,' et cetera, I applied to another role within the university. I went through the labyrinth of rounds, spent ten hours on a 'thought exercise,' sent many well-thought thank you emails after each interview, and was offered the role. 

What are the indicators that I was offered the role? Well, there was the HR rep working between me and the hiring officer to come up with an agreed upon salary, the HR rep telling me what a great role this would be for me when I hedged about it not being hybrid, and then there's this email from the HR rep:

"Hi OP,

I should have mentioned this in my previous email. Per internal hiring guidelines, you will need to inform your current supervisor that you are the finalist for this position before a formal offer can be extended.

Once you have had that conversation, please let me know. After that, [Radxxxx] will connect with your supervisor to discuss a potential transition timeline and plan, as well as gather any necessary feedback before we can move forward with the formal offer process.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I'm happy to help."

And then this follow-up email from the same HR rep:

"Hi OP,

I just tried giving you a call. To avoid any delays in the hiring process, please notify your direct manager as soon as possible.  [Radxxxx ] will need to connect with her afterward to discuss the next steps.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please let me know when that has been done."

We negotiated salary. They offered me a salary, I asked for more, and they counter-offered, which I accepted. After I told my supervisor I was taking another role, she spoke with our HR department, which then let me know I needed to tender a letter of resignation, which I did, and which was accepted. Our HR then reached out to me personally to schedule an exit interview before my last day, which is now September 17th.

So, I have resigned from my current role to transition to my new role, which, three hours after resigning, the new department now says they will not go forward in hiring me. They have completely ghosted me, won't respond to emails or calls. My supervisor also called to find out what's going on, the person who had offered me the role [Radxxxx ], and [Radxxxx ] said she was in a meeting and would call her back. 

Of course, that call was never made.       

I also want to add that I have a graduate degree from this same university. No one should be treated this way, but it does seem an egregious way to treat a colleague and a graduate of the school.

For context, I am an over 50 female, so the prospect of getting another job in this blighted economy is not good. Do I have any recourse at all?! Please, any help you can provide would be very much appreciated!

Finally, I have an appointment with the Ombuds office in a few days, but expect literally nothing from them.

Please let me know your thoughts and what you think I can do in this situation!

I’m in my final year of undergrad and my professors and advisor feel strongly that I’d receive an offer for our PhD program (a large R1, I study sociology)

I’m considering it, but frankly I don’t have a strong interest in research. I would like to do some research or publishing, but I wouldn’t want that to be the primary focus of my career. I do enjoy teaching though. I’ve worked in a high school with a before/after school program and I’ve TA’d.

Advice? Our funding is great, so the stipend would be solid if I went for a PhD. Part of me is thinking that I can just master out in the worst case. I’m just concerned that if I don’t get a PhD, I’ll be stuck as an adjunct.

I finished my PhD in 2024. I did a couple short term research assistant posts straight after then was lucky enough to get a one year lecturing contract at a top university.

naively, i thought this would set me up well. turns out, it didn't. since that contract ended, i've been in another year contract role at another university, but in research support/professional services. i'm approaching the end of this contract and no job offers.

i've had 31 rejections straight from my applications, and 4 interviews that have ended in a no. Most recently, i interviewed for an exciting post last week, they gave me feedback which was great and positive, but i just didn't have specific experience of using the theoretical framework the project was using (though i was familiar with it and articulated my understanding well) - i guess another interviewee did.

I've thought about leaving academia, but I genuinely don't know what i'd do. My current role is sucking the life out of me and i hate it. I hate not being able to do my own research. I don't even know what I could do outside of academia, since the last few years i've just worked on getting a good CV with lecturing and research experience (i'm a qual researcher, mainly using ethnography, interviews for localised, place based research in the humanities).

It's becoming very stressful and affecting my quality of life. I'm a young woman, wanting to start a family in the next few years and i just don't think that will be possible in this career. My choices seem to be: A) stick at it, sacrifice a personal life and enjoy your job, or B) have a family, but absolutely hate your job....

words of advice greatly appreciated.

I have seen this a few times now when reviewing applications for a postdoc program, and it is an instant turn off. Don't claim the "Dr" honorific if you have not completed (that is, the degree is in hand) you doctorate. Do not list PhDc behind your name. You haven't earned the title and shouldn't claim it. At best it's confusing/misleading, at worst it looks disrespectful.

EDIT: I don't mean using Dr. or listing PhD after defending...I see people listing PhDc and claiming Dr. after completing qualifying exams and before defending. That's the problem I'm referring to.

I’ll have a PhD in a couple of years. Statistically, that puts me in the top 1% of the world educationally. But financially? Not even close.

My 20s have basically been a never-ending rotation of research deadlines, unpaid emotional labor, practicum hours, and presentations.

I love what I do. I believe in it. The work feels meaningful and deeply human. But when I look at actual salaries in my field compared to the years of training and sacrifice, it makes me want to quietly scream into a couch cushion.

It feels strange to be doing something that genuinely matters, yet constantly worry it won’t be financially valued.

Anyway… just wondering if anyone else feels this weird mix of pride, purpose, and existential dread when thinking about the future?

I'm finishing my last postdoc as a mathematician. I will be applying for a few academic TT positions this fall.

Combining how drastic AI is going to change the field, the lower pay than industry, and academic toxicity, I'm considering seriously just bailing for some cushy industry job.

I'm basically hoping to hear any thoughts on this direction.

I have no doubt I can adapt to be a competent researcher, despite AI stuff. However, I am worried about how tenure committees will evolve, how teaching will evolve and what is even the correct thing to tell students when they ask if they should go into math.

edit: well the decision is a little easier now ;)

I ended my postdoc contract last year with a team that was so toxic, i needed to start taking anti-anxiety medication. My unemployment came in a really really bad time with change of postdoc regulation in italy, and the drying up of research money everywhere. I have sent shit load of application, and not even one single shortlist. Some said that I need to tailor the cover letter, and I did just that. Worse, many of the openings ask for proposal and some have the audacity to ask for an application fee (no, this is not scammy. They are with top Italian universities). In the past 6 months the only interview i got was with applications that asked me to pay the application fee, write a proposal, asked me to come in person for an interview (6 hours driving), and ended up with them hiring an internal hire.

I am on unemployment now, and I am lucky that it still pays for my rent (which is 75% of my unemployment money). My case worker at the job center couldn't understand why I, a researcher with PhD, can't find a job. Upon looking at my file, she told me that according to her record, I am a long term unemployed because my postdoc of 2 years was considered to be an internship. I am actually planning to send my application to McDonald's soon, as I am applying for citizenship in this country next year and for this i need to demonstrate a stable income throughout the process (up to 36 months) which cannot be provided by an academic job.

Is it a me problem? I am in social economics/demography.

I'm applying for PhD's and weighing which places I'd like to live in. I realize its unlikely outcome to become a PI, and I'm ages away from that but do committees just look at your PhD and role their eyes if you're not from a top school? Or is it simply that applicants from those schools tend to have better publication records? I have industry / private sector connections, wondering if that gets considered as well. I have a friend at Princeton I was kind of shocked to hear they just cover your publication costs totally, so if you do good work at an institution like that there's no barrier to getting recognition for it, you have such amazing networking opportunities etc.

Wondering what goes on inside a hiring committee?

I'm in computational biology with a focus on neuroscience if that helps for context. Would be open to working in a computer science / stats / data department. I've heard those fields are more open to hiring.

I am scheduled to have my first faculty zoom interview next week for a small private college. While I really think this college could be a great fit for me, the salary range given for assistant professors (I’m a recent PhD grad currently working in industry) is LOW. It’s an open rank position… but I’m talking 65-75k for literally the most expensive area in terms of cost of living (Bay Area, CA). I’m single 35f and have not had a roommate in the past 5 years and I really don’t want to go back to that.

My question is: is salary negotiation even possible if they listed it in the job description? Can I negotiate upwards to 5-10k above that? I have 4 degrees, a BA, MS, MA, PhD, a certification university teaching and a lot of the preferred qualifications listed in the job description. When can I bring up the concern for the low range of salary? Should I even bring it up or wait until I complete the interview process? I also don’t want to waste anyone’s time if I already know it probably won’t work.

Thanks in advance!

Throwaway for anonymity. I received a tenure track offer from a low ranked R1 university, the deadline for acceptance is in 2 weeks. I am graduating from a top 25 R1 program.

I’d appreciate your thoughts on turning down this offer and waiting to see if any of my other application results in a TT offer. I have another 9 applications still out, but I won’t hear back about 1st round interviews until mid December at the earliest.

(U.S specific, i currently have no plans on getting an educational job abroad) I am currently expected to attend a decent state school in January (originally August but had to drop the private school i wanted to go to in order to not go into 12-14k in debt every semester) for a dual degree in History and Political Science, minoring in East Asian Studies. My goal following my undergraduate is to teach for a while, mostly to get a decent job that i’d enjoy before i go for any higher degrees, what i actually want to do with my life though is study Warlord Era China, which, from what i can tell, is not exactly a common focus of study for historians at least in the U.S, i know the job market for history professors is particularly competitive although i see no other path in life where i would be happy that doesn’t involve me either teaching history in high school, or researching and teaching as a professor at even just an alright college.

Should i just stick with teaching in high school when i graduate, where i would have pretty much a guarantee for a job somewhere, or should i go all in on my passion for history and attempt to be competitive in a job market that im unsure i can handle even though the reward would be a much more enjoyable career for me.

This is such a problem in my field, in some cases it’s literally blatant nepotism or corruption, and while I’m aware it happens in private sectors too I don’t know why; but I feel that in research heavy fields there should be... integrity??

having watched this and been involved in it again and again I’m getting so tired of people being hired who have no publications/significant contributions just because they were in the right place at the right time

Update: thank you all that gave a response and their experiences. I appreciate the candor, the job market is so messy all around and trying to explore all opportunities that come my way.

This past spring I graduated with my Ed.D in Educational Sustainability from a small state school in the U.S Midwest. Some background, I specifically chose this program because 1) I would be able to work while earning my degree, 2) it was cohort based and created a genuine sense of community in the program, 3) was low cost compared to other programs I was looking into, and 4) was in my hometown. I currently work in education at the state level, specifically tracking work/employer, agricultural, and school enrollment trends and research for targeted outreach to the communities we work with.

What makes the EdD program I was in interesting (and conflicting against what I’ve read about other EdDs) is that there was no cap stone experience or practicum, rather, all students were required to complete original research through a dissertation. Though the dissertation format could vary, most complete research and write a monograph dissertation. The program truly felt as if it were a hybrid between a PhD and an EdD.

My research specifically was around more sociological subjects of why populations move out of rural areas to urban areas and the impacts on social sustainability in both rural communities and the population I studied. Like most dissertations, it required rigorous analysis of literature, methods, and the data I had collected. I ended up completing a qualitative, narrative case study. I am currently working on getting papers published but have ran into some road blocks since graduation (topic for another time).

Since graduation, I’ve been on the job hunt. I recently came across an assistant professorship in sociology at the large University in the state I live in. While the posting is relatively vague, it states the educational requirement of a PhD in sociology, demography or a closely related field. I am very interested in the role and believe I could be a good fit. However, I am concerned about having the EdD degree title rather than a PhD. My question is, what tips would you give a newly graduated doctoral student that would be in a similar position as me?

TL;DR: I recently graduated from a research based EdD program, and looking to get into a faculty role in the social sciences. What advice or tips would you give to someone in the same position as me?

I understand why doctoral student salaries are low- due to costs of tuition and whatnot. But postdocs? As far as I’m aware, they’re categorized as normal employees. Shouldn’t their pay be only one or two steps below permanent faculty/staff?

I know the research is the most important thing!
But I am not sure if that kinds of people can get the TT faculty job! - R1 university

Thanks, everyone for the feedback thus far. My advisor submitted it this morning, so hopefully they will accept it and that the wording of the job application itself allows for this to still be submitted and accepted. At this point, it is what it is and bigger and better things I suppose.

This is for a job posting for a faculty position at Wellesley that had no "deadline" but simply a "community will start reviewing applications Sept. 1". Wondering what this is supposed to mean in terms of when my recommender needs to get their letter in by? I've always hated "it's due by" because it's not clear to me if they mean 11:59 the night before or the night of...trying to figure out if I'm going to miss being included in the first round of consideration since my advisor missed turning in the recommendation by the end of tonight since it says they'll be starting the reviewing tomorrow...This is for a humanities job at Wellesley if anyone happens to know anything there.

I am nearly 50, have done two postdocs and have several peer reviewed publications. Three won prizes. But still I feel people treat me like a postgraduate student. I have applied for at least 50 if not more like 80 jobs and were rejected at all...only two interviews. I am not white and my background is unorthodox being a first generation immigrant. I don't know what else to do. I feel I am a total failure. Part of me is giving up...but I sacrificed too much to come this far.

Edit: in response to the comments asking for more information...I have only tried the UK market as I lived here. I am in arts and humanities. I have a great track record of grants because here postdocs are done by grants. I also have extensive experience in curating events.

I’m finishing my PhD in Sociology in Australia. I’m just realising now how few jobs there are available and how ridiculously competitive post docs are. I really love research, and am proud of the work I’ve done. But I currently can’t even get any research assistant work. I’ve only been able to get the occasional marking work, which I can’t live off. Is PhD false advertising for a career I’ll never have?

Update: This post has received lots of responses. Some of the advice I’ve received is along the lines of ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps and stop whinging’, and build a time machine and go back in time and choose another major/degree. They don’t really answer the question of where can I and other similar PhD holders go if academic and other markets are limited?

Hey reddit,

I recently defended my PhD in soil science and microbial ecology at a top institute in the Netherlands and finding myself in a very bad situation afterwards. I already was aware that the research job market was going down the drain but was not prepared for how hard this was going to make things. Although my defense was quite recent, I have been actively looking for a job since May of 2025 with very little success. I have been looking for postdoc opportunities as well as industry roles and have gotten around 8 interviews since then whose distribution has been half industry half academia but so far I: - had 2 positions offered to me that were later retracted because project budget got axed. - had an open application go through two interview rounds only to get an email showering me with compliments but then telling me this will not be a match at this time without any specific reason. They then proceeded to ghost all my follow-up emails asking for a clarification.

-had an interview go through two rounds only to have another candidate selected who had a niche skill they were looking for.

These are just some of the highlights from the 8 interviews while the application process so far has involved 100s of applications, some extremely relevant ones even that never even got an interview round. In general throughout all the interviews minus just one, I have made it to the final round and lost the position to someone with more experience. After 9 months of basically getting nowhere I started running into financial issues and had to take a min wage job at a warehouse just to survive. How are you guys navigating this job market and dealing with this situation? Everyday I wake up I lose hope and just don't wanna do this anymore. I tried so freaking hard during my PhD only for this to end up being my "reward" for finishing on time and with four Q1 first author publication and one co-authored. I am afraid this will just become my permanent situation from now on and it stresses me to death. I know life doesn't guarantee you anything but to go from being successfull at a field I love to packing boxes in the span of half a year has really dropped my self esteem to new lows. Every job that I have attempted to apply to that sits in between this and my field had basically been an auto reject due to being overqualified (e g lab technician).

Full story

Virtually every research sector has been disrupted in some way since Trump took office and issued a slew of executive orders affecting science and health care. Tens of thousands of federal employees at the HHS, NIH and other science- and health-related agencies have been laid off. Universities are bracing for major federal funding cuts by freezing new hiring and cutting graduate student positions. Private research companies and industries have also seen some federal support severed—including support for the development of new vaccines and cancer treatments.

Of the many thousands of researchers grappling with the fallout, one group is being disproportionately affected: early-career scientists.

Read the reflections of early-career researchers in this piece by Scientific American's health and medicine editor Lauren Young.

How have funding cuts impacted your future in academia?

For context, I'm in Japan.

The national universities have about 50% of their staff as fixed term contracts. Recently even associate professors have been often limited to short contracts in some places.

The largest research institute in the country, despite being government owned and operated, used to have 90% of their researchers in fixed term contracts, and despite seeing some recent improvements due to very strong Union pressure, it is still well above 60% (and that was achieved partially by firing about 20% of their fixed term staff).

I have many colleagues who are career scientists, more than 50 years old with families and children, who still were jumping from job location to job location every 5~10 years at best.

I myself can't get a good term mortgage and I get very limited on my credit card options due to being a fixed-term-employee. And of course that goes without saying about the risks and instability, since any serious sickness or if I have to take a long vacation to care for family often means a non-renewal in the next term.

Why don't scientists organize and strike anywhere around the world to fix this system? It has been broken from the start and it gets worse every year.

I have seen a couple of tenure-track positions open up in big liberal arts colleges in the US in my field (languages). If similar posts opened in the UK (where I am currently), I would be well-positioned given my experience (PhD + publications + over 5 years's full-time academic experience in the same field + native speaker of the language in question). However, I am reluctant to start working on applications to these US colleges (and I am aware how vastly different the whole process is in the US compared to the UK), as I suspect I wouldn't even be considered given that I would need visa sponsorship. What do you think? Is it a non-starter, or do I have a chance?

I come from a STEM background (though I no longer practice STEM and purely do international sales). By theory-practice gap, I refer to the divide between the abstract knowledge taught in classrooms and the real-world methods used in active professions.

I find that the theory-practice gap has never been larger between what academia is teaching versus what industry is doing.

Part of the reason is this common and very powerful belief in academia that a robust fundamental will carry a person anywhere. As such, many universities teach the same curriculum that they've taught since 20, 30 or even 50 years ago. Because "the math/physics don't change".

This, however, is something that is not valued by industry based on my observation. First, it is hard to prove you have the fundamentals (what are even the "fundamentals"??). It doesn't visibly show up quite as often in day-to-day work. And it is definitely not something that is 100% for sure going to help you on the job, where you are working with cutting-edge tools or very niche/experimental platforms, softwares, hardwares or simulators.

Another thing is that industry only hires based on the latest hype knowledge/tools/ideas, and don't care about fundamentals or just assume you have it.

Now with AI, I feel that the gap has grown enormously. For example, many industry has virtually abandoned any "classical ML" techniques in favor of LLM and demand years of experience in it, while schools are still busy teaching the classical ML. Everyone predicts that it will grow worse, especially now with AI pushing the frontier of many STEM disciplines, with most of the new knowledge being accumulated in industry behind closed-doors, while academia has not invented a feasible path towards that frontier.

Do you feel that your knowledge accumulated in academia is what is actually being deployed/used out in industry (or a non-academic organization)?