According to a piece by Ronald Alsop from the Wall Street Journal's Career Journal, graduate schools may be in trouble.

A recruiter named Jean Wyer discusses her difficulty in finding accounting professors. She said: "What terrifies me as a practitioner is the possibility that some schools may decide to stop having accounting majors if they can't find enough qualified people to teach."

Dr. James Thomas, a business college dean, echoes the scenario, himself struggling to fill 11 vacant positions: "Professors are becoming more nomadic as they go where the money is; moving to another school may mean a 50% increase in compensation."

AACSB International, an accrediting organization discussed how there is a current shortage of 1,000 Ph.D's in the U.S., with that number expected to rise to 2,400 Ph.D's by 2012. Ultimately it is found that Ph.D programs are costly to operate and that enrollments have been limited due to there being fewer qualified applicants.

High cost of running Ph.D programs? Yes, that's correct: "According to AACSB, newly hired professors with doctorates commanded average salaries of $137,400 in 2006, up from $113,400 in 2000. But those are just the averages; some faculty stars may fetch salaries of $250,000 or more."

In response, programs like AACSB's Professionally Qualified Faculty Bridge Program and PricewaterhouseCoopers' PwC Teaches are recruiting for lower-cost, less-traditional faculty. Ditto for higher-tier business schools, Georgetown University being one of them.

But not so fast says the aforementioned Dr. Thomas, as he "receives at least one query a week from executives who are nearing retirement or itching for a career change. " He added: "But they forget that engaging a large group of students isn't something everyone can do. I advise them to try their hand at a local community college or even high school before they waltz into a top university."

Whatever the case may be, you may want to say goodbye to the post-undergrad world as we know it.

Labels: Education, Human Resource, MBA, Recruiting