Anne C. Petersen, deputy director of the National Science Foundation, acknowledges that the N.S.F. was late in recognizing the job-market woes. Foundation officials are uncertain what exactly is happening, she says, because of gaps in the data collected on Ph.D.'s. But the N.S.F. is committed to improving its data collection, so that better information on where Ph.D.'s end up is available. In the next few years, she says, the foundation will also direct money to new models of doctoral education, other than the standard one presuming that a Ph.D. will become a professor. A lot of people go to law school with no plans to practice law.
Some scientists believe the graduate enterprise has to shrink.
And some Ph.D. programs, in fact, have cut back on the number of students they admit. Mr. Breslow, the chemist at Columbia, says his department once had as many as 160 students, now has 120, and will probably drop below 100. In chemistry, about two-thirds of Ph.D.'s take jobs outside academe, he says. Until recently, that market was weak, too. The chemical industry is coming back, but more slowly.