William Deresiewicz at The Nation says that the PhD problem in the US — that there are too many PhDs for the number of academic jobs available — all boils down to “efficiency.”   Deresiewicz says that because they are “cheaper to hire and easier to fire,” contingent academic employees — such as non-tenure-track faculty — save institutions money. Deresiewicz goes on to analogize that over the few decades “what has happened in academia is what has happened throughout the American economy. Good, secure, well-paid positions — tenured appointments in the academy, union jobs on the factory floor — are being replaced by temporary, low-wage employment,” he says.  Read the full article online.