However, most of my classmates were so intensely interested in researching their specialities that they decided the risk was worth taking. After all, it's not like they're particularly suffering during grad school. Grad school in the humanities gives you blissful amounts of time to really geek out in the speciality of your choice, and at top-flight universities, the first few years are free (except for the opportunity cost.) If you get in, your basic expenses and tuition are covered.

Note how we lionize entrepreneurs who intensely pursue a low-probability dream, whether they succeed or fail, while grad students pursuing their own low-probability dream get nothing but scorn. Odd, no? What needs to be changed isn't necessarily grad school, but academic culture - particularly its attitudes towards and adaption to failure. If their community was as understanding of their own failures as ours is of our own, perhaps there wouldn't be such drama about their low rate of success.

I disagree with your characterization that grad students are getting scorn. At least in my post, I don't intend to scorn. Maybe a "marked lack of sympathy for a self-made mess" would be what I'm trying to convey. I also disagree that there is a significant commonality between entrepreneurs and grad students because of their probability of success.

I'm just wondering why PhD students are surprised that higher degrees in the humanities aren't the easy gravy train they imagined. It seemed pretty obvious to me 20 years ago. Seems easily researchable 20 years ago. As time has gone by, it has just seemed more and more obvious.

What needs to be changed isn't necessarily grad school, but academic culture - particularly its attitudes towards and adaption to failure

I disagree again. Making it nicer to fail won't help those people. Opening their eyes to the real risk vs reward scenario earlier on would.

Conflating the entrepreneurial and academic communities as far as the understanding of failure doesn't help. Entrepreneurs who fail learn important lessons about what doesn't work and are encouraged to dust themselves off and apply what they've learned. They're still entrepreneurs when they try again.

Academics who fail while working on obscure/useless PhDs should most properly learn to stop being academics.

"Is a college degree enough?" was a pervasive question when I got out of undergrad in 1991 since we were in a recession. My placement center and many magazines had "What is this degree worth?" compilations. This same information has been available online for at least the last 10+ years.

Ironically, I always thought of myself as being pretty blissfully unaware and unthoughtful of my own career and where I was headed... but I knew what my salary and job prospects were for my career before I settled on my major when I was a Sophomore in college.

What's your experience with this? I've found earnings and job market to be regular features of career counseling sessions.

They typically won't tell a student "sure, you can go for a PhD, but it's a waste of time." Schools and colleges tend to be biased towards thinking more education is always better.

I brought this up to my guidance counselor and asked why I was wasting my time in high school when I could just as easily buy a book. Half-considered dropping out of high school and focusing my studies on topics that were interesting (physics, chemistry, cs, math, and possibly finance).

Our dialogue went something like:

GC: Uhh...don't drop out. You should stay in school it's good for you

Me: But I learn better straight from the book, it's what I'm doing for my courses now anyway...

GC: You need to have teachers

Me: Why?

GC: It's hard to get into [a reputable?] college without graduating from high school.

Me: ...

Kind of wish I did drop out back then. I would have probably spent a lot of my time honing a particular craft, although CS and Finance/Accounting seem to be the easiest choices (lower cost of entry compared to chemistry/physics/biology - requiring labs).

tl/dr: I wanted to drop out of high school and study independently. Guidance counselor encouraged me to stay in school. Wish I left so that I could focus on interesting subject areas.

If you're not into the structured part at all, then it will chafe from friction. However, the structure is definitely there for a reason because, if you're really pushing the limits, you'll be thankful for the times when you stumble and there is a structure to fall back on.

So you're left with two choices that maximize independent learning: 1) drop out or 2) make it past undergrad and become a master student.

I'm in a PhD program right now, but some of the best stuff I'm learning is happening through Coursera. ...and that's great, but the fact that I have a community of other full-time students and researchers to work with makes all the difference. If I were just sitting in a room learning for learning's sake, it would be totally different. I feel really lucky that I can put my ideas into practice, and I totally love the academic environment for facilitating that. To me, it's worth it.

Yet lots of people smoke even though they're fully aware of the risks. It appears that the author knew of the job outlook for a Lit PhD all along but chose to ignore it. I think we all exist in that optimistic dream-world state of mind at some point.

We should, but too many people don't and keep going into academia anyway (I was one; everyone thinks they're different, but I can at least say I had some ulterior motives).

For at least a decade, lawyers and law students have been arguing that law school is a bad deal, and it really took until 2012 for that to sink in. I think we're seeing a similar process unfolding around grad school more generally.

Academic grad school isn't in most cases as pernicious as law school, because if the school is paying you, even some trivial amount, quitting after two years is easy, but many of the basic supply and demand problems remain.