Abstract

This is an economist’s consideration of the PhD job market in English and comparative literature. It provides data about the job market at schools in various tiers, demonstrating that supply of new English PhDs far exceeds demand for English PhDs in tenure-track academic jobs. It suggests a number of policies to improve the situation, including that the MLA strongly encourage programs to provide better job placement data to applying students, programs be tailored to prepare students for the jobs they actually have a chance of getting, and the culminating research focus of the program be rethought.