Too Many PhDs?

This morning I was thinking about all the new PhD programs in Biblical Studies/Theology (etc) and I started wondering if there were too many such programs. In the past three years alone Southern Evangelical Seminary, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, and Piedmont Baptist College have started their own PhD programs. All of those programs are within driving distance of each other. While that is good news for those schools, I wonder what it does for the academic job market. After all in North Carolina (alone) we already have PhDs in theology being offered by Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and within moving distance is Bob Jones University, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. There are others in the area as well, those are just the "major" names (liberal and conservative). What are all these new PhD graduates going to do? They can't all teach since there are not enough jobs for all of them. Sure, many of them are and will continue to be preachers. However in an already tight job market I have to wonder why so many people seem to be rushing to get a PhD in theology. It seems to me that some of these people would be better served either going into a different field of study or not pursuing a PhD (depending upon God's call in their lives). I also worry about what the large number of PhDs in theology is doing to the field as a whole. How many of these PhD graduates are actually researching and writing in their fields? Surely not all of them or even most of them.

I am not saying that we should discourage people from earning a PhD in theology. After all, if they believe God has called them to do that then they should. However I do believe we should always caution people about taking that route. After all it would be ashame to earn a PhD for academic purposes and then not be able to find an academic job.

Any thoughts?

 

==Its the same thing. People seeking to teach at the University level would consider UNC-Chapel Hill's PhD program a door to a teaching career.

==UNC's School of Religion is as left-wing and liberal as you can get. After all Dr. Bart Ehrman teaches there.

My point was simply that there are too many of these PhDs. I was not simply refering to conservative programs.

 

==My question about such "practical" PhDs is why not go the DMin route instead of the PhD? PhD is a research degree and not a practical degree. You wanted to do teaching and preaching, so the PhD would have worked well for you because you would have had to do research for your teaching position. However I wonder about people who are pastors who intend to do no academic teaching yet who still earn PhDs. Would they have been better served with a DMin? After all a research degree assumes the person is training to be an academic. I don't know the answer to that question. I am honestly asking.

 

==Very good advice. If a person is in a highly competitive job market, and higher education certainly is that, then they should do everything to make themselves stand out from the crowd. Anyone going the PhD route, in almost any field of academic study, should take your advice very seriously.

==Very true. In academics is it not "what" you know but "who" you know. People who don't have any inside connections need to start working on getting some. Networking is very important in higher education.

==Very, very, very true (Proverbs 3:5-6).