America’s Broken Brain Trust

A few years ago a headline appeared in the journal The Scientist:  On the cover there was a picture of a 30-something “homeless” man holding up a handwritten sign on corrugated cardboard which read something along these lines:

• I have a Ph.D.
• 10 publications
• 6 review articles
• 7 years post-doctoral training
• Will work for food!

The fact that such a photo actually appeared on the cover of such a well-read journal should be evidence enough that the system of training and compensating scientists is in serious trouble.  The cover coincided roughly with the time that I had decided to throw in my lab coat for a career in sales.  Having taken a critical look around me about twelve months earlier I saw nothing but a future of indentured servitude and poverty.  It was time to move on.  The cover article was a grim confirmation that I had done the right thing.

If anyone had lingering doubts about the seriousness of the situation - opening the cover and actually reading the article should have caused most of the optimists arguments to R.I.P.  Inside the journal there were a few scientists who made light of the situation and sighted single-minded “dedication” as a sure path to success.  They even likened the dedication required to a career in the arts…think acting, music, dance, and the fine arts.

I have some notion of the daunting hurdles that those in the arts face.  My late mother was a professional singer and radio interviewer.  I also studied music seriously in college and as a result, have several friends from college who tried to break into careers in acting and music.  The odds against success are simply staggering in any of the arts.  If the criteria for success is a full-time job, success in the arts is far more elusive than success in the sciences and engineering.  But if the goal is to make a livable salary that actually pays the bills, puts the kids through school and provides for retirement, the similarities become obvious.  In fact, I would submit that it is the full-time work requirement for the scientist that creates far greater financial risk to the scientist than to the artist.

How can that be true?  I admit the statement is counterintuitive.  But artists have one strong advantage.  They have the ability to develop complementary “day jobs.”  A couple of musicians that I know actually created ancillary careers for themselves.  They were able to build something to fall back on if things weren’t working out for them in the arts.  The fact that a career in the arts is generally defined as part-time until there is significant success makes these back-up careers possible.  But for the scientist that is not the case.  There is no part-time option for the aspiring scientist and no way for the fledgling scientist to supplement the pathetic income they are given for 60-80 hours of grinding labor that is expected of them weekly.

The financial risk for the scientist arises from the following factors:

• The length of training required.
• The amount of compensation offered.
• The number of working hours required.

In biological and biomedical fields, you are looking easily at a 6-9 year period of pre-doctoral training.  Few make it out in less than seven years.  The average is about eight years.  This is full time training with no ancillary employment for supplemental income allowed.  Since you are looking a 60-80 hour week the potential- so unless you are robbing banks, the time constraint alone places a heavy constraint on creating additional income.

Throughout the nineties and until about 2002, many new graduates were counting on leapfrogging into a nice industry job.  Most have been living in grinding poverty for about eight years so they are pretty hungry for a good paycheck.  Since that time, we’ve had a major glut of doctorates coming out of the pipeline in the midst of a contracting economy for biotech.  The dreaded “Post-Doc” has become the new holding pen for those caught in the Ph.D. logjam.  Initially, the post-doc was meant to be a short extension of the Ph.D. training period and was not intended to extend beyond 2-3 years.  This “extension” now seems to meander on indefinitely.  Most graduates do at least two post-docs, many do three before they can find a “real job.” Each position lasts a minimum of two years and some can stretch on for six years.  The pay is generally under $40k with the hours are similar to that of the Ph.D. candidate.   Most graduates are looking at 6-10 years in the holding pen.

For who lost track - you are looking at a 12-19 year “training” period where supplemental compensation is largely impossible.   Small wonder that I have dubbed this prolonged training period  -  “the endless indenture.” Most graduates  are realistically looking at 15 years in the pipeline.  This means that most  Ph.D.’s are sliding into their first “real job”  when they are approaching or in middle age.  38-42 years of age is a good benchmark.

Common sense dictates that the jobs had damn well better be there or these highly trained, very educated people are off a financial cliff.  They have undergone a grueling process of specialized training all of which is full-full time such that lateral movement to another field is well nigh impossible.  In the process they have also lost 15 years of valuable time in building a nest egg for a home, a college education for their children and a retirement fund.  The training process eliminates the flexibility that is badly needed in an economy where the sands shift rapidly under everyone’s feet.  The price tag for extending education into mid-life is too high for most individuals to bear.

Bottom line - its all well and good to say the world is “flat” and that this is a necessary “adjustment.”  But don’t sit and complain (like Thomas Friedman does) about the lack of interest in the sciences on the part of Americans.  We have enough critical mass of interest and ability to produce the next generation of scientist.  Our graduate institutions are world renowned - so I would submit that education is not the issue.  The issue is one of risk and compensation.  The risk has to be mitigated and the compensation increased to a level commensurate with that of other professionals.   The training period also needs to be reduced.  If we don’t do these things,  the best and brightest will continue to flock to the 2-year MBA or the 3-year J.D. and shun the Ph.D.

In general I have a great deal of respect for Thomas Friedman. But on the issues of globalization and the fate of technology in this country, he always, always, always misses the mark by a good mile or more. In today’s op-ed in the New York Times, Advice From Grandma, I held out some hope that he might get it right - but nope, he did it again.

In truth, most of the article was about how American government had become paralized by poor governance. And how the lack of vibrant government was stifling imagination and creativity  - our single best asset.  Nurting said creativity leads to innovation and innovation can bring us back to life. CHECK!  I agree completely.

Friedman goes on to say  “What I increasingly fear today is that America is only able to produce “suboptimal” responses to its biggest problems — education, debt, financial regulation, health care, energy and environment.” CHECK!

He sights money in politics, gerrymandering, cable TV, the internet (both of which foster extreme views) and a business community which forms a powerful lobby that works only for its own ends.  CHECK AGAIN!

Friedman was on a roll. But what he doesn’t address is what NEEDS to happen. Although he is correct in saying that Americans need to be willing to “sacrifice” that’s a tough sell for a middle class that has been pummelled by a free market cowboy mentality that has stripped them of health care,  job security, income, and any real source of firm footing with respect to their finances for the forseeable future.

What Friedman needed to do was “connect the dots.”  What is needed from government now is REAL opportunities for the creative.  You see Friedman was wrong to suggest that  creativity and innovation can not be  commoditized.  They have been - by corporate powers, and the higher ups in accademia that insisted we needed MORE foreign nationals working as engineers and scientists in this country.  To those entities that insisted globalization of such high-earning fields in science and engineering could be off-shored with no ill effects.   The cheapening of the higher education in these critical areas has commoditized the innovaters to nothingness.  Congratulations America! By listening to those vested interests  - you have created a race to the bottom for our most talented thinkers.  Today, biomedical labs are nothing more than high-tech sweat-shops where the best and brightest toil 70 hours a week for less than minimu wage.

My life started down one path and ended up willy-nilly someplace else.  I saw the writing on the wall during the last two years of my doctoral training.  The opportunities that were available when I entered the Ph.D. pipeline in 1998 were no longer available.  We had a glut of scienteists, most of them  not American born,  coming out of the pipeline as newly minted Ph.D.’s just as I was about to get my own sheepskin.   I knew I couldn’t survive on 10 years of post-docing at under $40k a year - so I was in quite a jam. That was all I was trained for - and that training had extended 7. 5 long years.  Getting a job in another venue wasn’t going to be easy.

The result…apart from teaching as an adjunct, I haven’t held a pipet or run a PCR in nearly five years. I haven’t “thought” science in a long, long time.  Ideas for projects and experiments have run fallow. My innovative mind has turned its talents to marketing plans that will increase the flow of clients in my real estate practice.  This is a far cry from what I intended.  I have made it work for me but few would argue that I would be making a better contribution to our society as a scientist.  There was on tiny problem with that though.   I never considered taking a Ph.D. to be a vow of poverty.  I wasn’t looking for vast wealth - but a decent living after all those years of train is a “must.” This is particularly true in what we have become - an “ownership” society.

Programs that encourage the growth of Americans in science, engineering and technology need to recognize some basic facts. The training is long and arduous.  It delays the potential of a decent salary until the candidate is well into their thirties or even their forties.  Therefore - the jobs and the money had better be there or these newly minted scientists and engineers are up the creek without a paddle.   If these things do not happen,  it becomes a no-can-do scenario for all but the independently wealthy and the foreign nationals that haven’t returned home (a reverse brain drain.)