Fewer students are enrolling in doctoral degrees

Perceived Causes of Decline

• Many commenters argue the core issue isn’t “cost of living” alone but structurally low, stagnant stipends that no longer support a basic adult life, especially in high‑cost regions.
• Opportunity cost looms large: 4–7 years on subsistence pay versus immediately earning high salaries in tech/finance/engineering, with compound effects on savings, housing, and family formation.
• Several note a “broken pipeline”: far more PhDs than tenure‑track jobs, leading to postdoc/adjunct “purgatory” and a view of academia as an unsustainable pyramid scheme.
• Some criticize the article for vague causal claims and lack of breakdown by field; they suspect big differences between, say, education PhDs and chemistry PhDs.

Value and ROI: STEM vs Humanities

• One camp claims PhDs have low market value and are a bad financial investment except for a narrow set of research roles.
• Counter‑view: STEM PhDs (chemistry, materials, biotech, semiconductors, etc.) are in strong demand in industry and government labs; humanities PhDs face a genuine jobs glut with academia as almost the only target.
• There’s disagreement over whether a “glut” of humanities doctorates is socially beneficial (cultural value, expertise) or exploitative (knowingly training people for nonexistent academic jobs).

Intrinsic vs Economic Motivations

• Many defend doctoral study as intrinsically valuable: deep expertise, years to think hard about one problem, contribution to knowledge, personal transformation.
• Others push back that this is only realistic for the financially secure; for most, housing, debt, and healthcare make “pure curiosity” an unaffordable luxury.
• Several posters remark that HN is strikingly money‑centric, while others argue that wanting a stable middle‑class life is not greed but survival.

Academic Culture and “Gamification”

• Complaints include: publish‑or‑perish incentives, prestige games, “elite overproduction,” and universities relying on underpaid adjuncts and cheap grad labor.
• Some describe corrupted or politicized selection in certain systems (e.g., grant and publication point‑chasing, nepotism, cliques).
• Others defend academia as still producing basic research and “experiments” industry won’t fund, but acknowledge distorted incentives and administrative capture.

Alternatives, Anecdotes, and International Contrasts

• Multiple engineers and computer scientists say private‑sector research or standard industry roles provided more pay, impact, and even better research tooling than grad school.
• Several report very positive PhD experiences—intellectual growth, travel, networking—even if they later left academia and accepted lower lifetime earnings.
• International examples (e.g., Norway, Switzerland) with relatively high, salaried PhD positions are cited as models where doctoral study remains financially viable.