Sharing Nicely

A first step could be to design incentive schemes that focus on interim outputs and progress of PhD students rather than exclusively acknowledge the completion of degrees or the amount of publications by Professors themselves (regardless of involvement of their students).A recent investigation by the Council of Graduate Schools discovered that after 10 years of study, the completion rates were only 64 percent in engineering, 62 percent in life sciences, 55 percent in physical sciences and social sciences and 47 percent in the humanities…. is 7.6 years – a figure that has been rising steadily over the last 30 years.(…)Since training doctoral students is a time, money and labor-intensive proposition, such data are profoundly alarming.True, some students will drop out or fail to meet required academic standards, but research shows that significant numbers of doctoral students who do not complete their degrees are performing well academically yet are alienated by poor social and academic integration into their programs, poor mentoring practices, and other factors.