Terrible PhD Completion Rates

Richard Vedder is at least two standard deviations more conservative than I am on most issues, but his higher education blog is a consistent source of sharp commentary and outside-the-box thinking. Yesterday he discussed abolishing tuition at Harvard; today's topic is the shocking state of PhD completion:

A half century ago, it was common for persons to get their Ph.D. in four or five years and some, including myself, did it in under three years (at age 24 yet). Today, a majority of those entering graduate programs do not have their degrees in six years, and in the humanities, a majority of Ph.D. candidates have not completed their degree in TEN years!!! Of those who DO get their humanities Ph.D. within 10 years, a majority have not received the degree after six years. The dropout rates are about as high as for undergraduate education.

Dropout rates in undergraduate education are pretty bad, especially at non-elite public universities, where dropout rates of 60 percent or more are not uncommon, particularly for low-income and minority students. That large numbers of people who have already proven to be college material, by virtue of completing a bachelor's degree, are spending years of their lives in the futile pursuit of doctorate strikes me as a massive waste of resources all around.

Plus, 10 years? That's insane. Part of me would love to figure out a way to get an advanced degree in a really interesting, complicated area. Then Vedder says:

Part of the problem is that dissertation preparation has gotten out of hand. I have sat on Ph.D. committees where professors force students to do months of additional work of trivial worth in order to fine tune and extend some esoteric thought that the professor fancies.

and I think: Nope, there's no way I could deal with that. Life is short, and there's work to do.