Agreed. There are a fixed number of PhD spots. What sense is there to give that spot to a 66 year old senior rather than someone younger who will actually do something productive with the expertise and credentials?
I'm all for continued learning but can't that be done in a non-credentialed manner that doesn't disadvantage young people?
- There are a fixed number of funded PhD spots but there's really no limit to the number of PhD spots in a faculty. I don't know if this was the case but if you can fund your own PhD, very few universities will refuse your admission. Anyway, PhDs are extremely cheap labor - most of the research money is spent on materials/hardware and travel expenses for PIs.
- The vast majority of PhDs don't do anything productive with their research topic or work in their research field later on. Doing a PhD is about advancing human knowledge and a lot of personal growth - it has very little to do with productivity. The current trend is that you get burned out and sick of your research area and decide to do something totally different. There are very few areas where you do a PhD for credentials or to advance in your career.
The amount of possible PhD positions in a department is limited by the number of faculty, because each student needs a supervisor. A supervisor can only supervise so many students at once before he or she feels overworked, and each PhD student to supervise may distract from that scholar's own research.
Sure it's a finite number but it's not uncommon for a faculty member to have 5+ PhD students. It all depends on the number of post-docs or senior PhDs they have in the group. The major limiting factor is really money - if a faculty member gets a $5M grant, they will hire as many PhDs as they want or even get some faculty hire for the project.
Mate, most people live to grow old. What fulfillment in life would one have if many productive and/or desierable tasks were reserved for the young? Wouldn't it make the later years even harder for them?
For some reason, my comment seems to have come across to you with an unintended tone. I was only trying to gently urge you to consider that even the relatively old have some years of life left and we draw the line at different places for different things. For instance, at that age, it is practically impossible that someone can start studying medicine and become a surgeon. In the places where I have lived, there is a small window of time in one's youth where one can study to become a doctor. So, in those societies, they drew a line in a way where for some professions, they did indeed delineate like you suggest. However, in many places the Ph.D doesn't fall on the side of the line where you prefer. However, it is ultimately, just that people draw the line at different places and there will be no decision that will keep everyone happy. So, in this case, perhaps you and I can not come to an agreement given the brief exchange we have had. And with that, mate, I wish you a good day.
I'm all for continued learning but can't that be done in a non-credentialed manner that doesn't disadvantage young people?