UCSD Chancellor Calls for National Program to Avert Ph.D. Shortage

UC San Diego Chancellor Richard C. Atkinson on Thursday called for the creation of a fellowship program to encourage more graduate students in science and engineering to pursue Ph.D.s and prevent a threat to the U. S. economy and defense in the next century.

Appearing before the University of California Board of Regents, Atkinson, in prepared remarks, warned that “there is an increasing demand for Ph.D.s that will not be met by the supply.” Government participation will be necessary to fill the critical shortage, Atkinson said, because the private sector can play only a limited role.

In the decade beginning with the year 2000, the United States will need about 18,000 new Ph.D.s each year, but the nation’s universities will be producing only about 12,000, Atkinson said. Of these, about 5,000 will be non-citizens, and 70% of them will remain to work in this country, leaving only about 10,500 new Ph.D.s a year.

The shortage of Ph.D.s, which Atkinson said will become evident in five years, “will have devastating consequences for colleges, universities, business and industry.”

In order to encourage more science and engineering graduate students to pursue Ph.D.s, Atkinson called for the federal government to establish a national fellowship program for graduate students at an annual cost of $300 million. He envisions a massive research program in the sciences and engineering much like the one begun by the government after the Soviet Union launched its first Sputnik satellite in 1957.

“The program should provide appropriate incentives for college students considering graduate work; a fellowship of $25,000 per year for four years of study would be a strong attracter for potential Ph.D. students,” he said. “To deal only with the shortfall in the natural sciences and engineering, at least 3,000 new fellowships per year would be needed.”

Many of the Ph.D.s awarded annually by U. S. universities go to foreign students. According to Atkinson’s figures, foreign students receive 60% of the Ph.D.s in engineering, 50% in mathematics and 30% in the physical sciences.

American academia is also suffering from the shortage of Ph.D.s and is in danger of losing its “intellectual capital,” he said. He predicted that U. S. universities will compete heavily with government and private industry to recruit Ph.D.s for the classroom.

Many faculty members are quickly approaching retirement and will need to be replaced. Atkinson said Ph.D. faculty members in the sciences and engineering are retiring at a rate of about 2,000 a year, but that figure will increase to more than 4,500 per year in 15 years.

“The need to replace a large number of retiring faculty, combined with an increasing demand in the public sector, suggests that academia will have serious problems in recruiting faculty in the near future,” Atkinson said.

This acute competition for Ph.D.s could have a serious effect on “second-tier” colleges and universities, he said. “The top research universities may be able to compete for the best people. . . . Second-tier institutions probably will experience serious difficulties in attracting and holding faculty,” he said.

Atkinson also warned that “a bidding war between industry and academia . . . would have serious consequences for the nation’s economy and defense.”

The projected shortage of Ph.D. faculty could result in a “corn seed problem,” he said, “ . . . because it is the scientists and engineers in the academic community who do our basic research and train future generations of scholars and researchers.”

In order to stave off the looming shortage of Ph.D.s, more junior high school students need to be encouraged to major in the sciences and engineering, Atkinson said. The next boom in the college-age population will begin at the turn of the century, and young people who will receive Ph.D.s in 2004 are now in junior high.