This is a weak piece, it overlooks many things.<p>First, there seems to be the idea that a PhD's place is in academia. Where is this idea even coming from? Back in a different time I got a degree in chemistry in Germany, and the idea was that you would sign up with one if the chemical companies. The degree program was very thorough and broad and lasted five years, and you would start work, be given a mentor, and do anything chemical. Your degree equipped you to do that, it was very broad, if it was chemistry you had heard of it. A PhD was required, chemical technicians would be trained on the job. The lesson here is that a broad degree makes you more employable, but you cannot sell this idea when students have to raise their own funds to pay for their degree and when state and federal funding lines for universities keep shrinking.<p>But what happened was several things: the great monoliths that in Germany had a standing like Microsoft or Google were broken up and sold off (except the BASF), and the perennial pharmco crisis started.<p>There is another lesson, I think: deep science requires deep pockets that only a large, established company can provide. Startups are no solution: it seems that the big pharmcos are now turning into brokers that acquire startups, in-house projects aren't done any longer, instead you acquire a startup, and testing is contracted out abroad. Another problem: no one cooks up their own compounds any longer, you contract out to a Chinese contract shop that employs PhDs from China. I'm not sure if this is cheaper or better (there is something to be said for short communication lines - just walk up a floor), but it is current practice.<p>Also: at my second-tier state school the quality of applicants started really going up after 2009, when the crisis had settled in. To me this means that private jobs have disappeared, and universities aren't hiring much either.<p>This is an economic problem, and I really can't see how turning universities into trade schools could be helpful to create jobs. Neither do I see how increased reliance on privately-funded research institutes would help - no matter how big their endowment they would still be competing for external funding, the biggest source of which is the NIH. But the NIH keeps getting its funding cut.<p>There's the other problem: the government isn't funding science as much as it ought to.