Is it harder to become a professor nowadays? If yes, why?
Last Updated: 21.06.2025 12:24
State support for public institutions has decreased on a per-student basis, and federal grants and loans have not kept pace with inflation. In addition, because of regulation, the easiest place to cut cost is the classroom, replacing tenure-line professors with adjunct and increasing class sizes.
If you are not in one of a small number of high demand fields and you pursue a PhD, getting a permanent position in academia should not be your goal. It might happen, but you can’t assume it will.
Because reasons, demand never increased, and supply flooded the market with candidates who would accept pretty much any employment scenario. There is a handful of fields where demand is higher than supply (computer science and nursing stand out), but for the most part, there are ten new PhDs being produced for every new tenure line position.
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A report published about 30 years ago, which anticipated significant need to replace retiring faculty from older generations, was used to justify a surge in new PhD programs and increases in PhD program size.
If you are not in one of the most competitive PhD programs in your field, that’s a leading indicator that you won’t get an academic career, but I’ve known people from topflight PhD programs who couldn’t get permanent faculty positions because their area of specialization suddenly became unpopular.