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policy & reform
The people we are hoping
to become the next generation
of researchers … are the ones
right now that can barely [buy]
enough food to eat, or put a
roof over heads.
Doctoral drop-out
How COVID-19 could be turning
away our future researchers.
By Wade Zaglas
The economic strain of COVID-19
is forcing 45 per cent of Australia’s
best and brightest future
researchers to consider disengaging from
their PhD studies.
A new study from The University of
Sydney, titled ‘The Quiet Crisis of PhDs
and COVID-19: Reaching the financial
tipping point’, has found that five per
cent of PhD students are presently or will
soon experience homelessness and 11
per cent are skipping meals to try to make
ends meet.
The study surveyed 1,020 students,
with 53 per cent saying their
employment had been compromised
by the pandemic, Guardian Australia
reported. Three-quarters of the students
surveyed also expected financial hardship
in the future, and one-fifth anticipated an
inability to pay for bills and medicine in
the near future.
Lead author Rebecca Johnson from
the university’s science faculty said
such financial pressure had the effect
of “gentrifying” university education and
erecting a barrier to prevent students from
lower socio-economic backgrounds to
become researchers.
“The people we are hoping to
become the next generation of
researchers, the people we want to
develop a vaccine, to remodel the
economy, rebuild our infrastructure and
social services after the pandemic, they
are the ones right now that can barely
[buy] enough food to eat, or put a roof
over heads,” she told Guardian Australia.
While the study has been submitted to
the journal Research in Higher Education, it
has yet to be peer-reviewed.
Although completing a PhD is a
rigorous and long process, the effect of
COVID-19 on the current disengagement
rates is clear. For instance, between
2010 and 2014, only 20 per cent (less
than half the current rate) disengaged
from their PhD studies, according to
the Department of Education, Skills
and Training.
Johnson said disengaged PhD students
would not necessarily drop out of their
programs completely, but the statistics
were concerning.
“Pretty much nobody goes from
full-blown research to dropping out,”
she said.
“I’m not saying 45 per cent are going
to drop out. But a lot of them will
not come back. It is a warning, not a
prediction.”
The number of surveyed students
represents approximately 24 per cent of
the research cohort at the university who
were selected across different faculties.
One of the key findings was that this
COVID-19-induced disengagement did
not discriminate, with the figures similar
for both arts-based and science-based
PhD students.
The homeless statistics were particularly
alarming for Johnson, as was what she
called “the gentrification of the PhD” that
harks back to earlier times when only the
relatively wealthy were able to study PhDs
while those belonging to the lower strata
simply had to pull out.
The authors said respondents
volunteered for the study and that the
selection of students was “broadly
demographically representative,
incorporating 300 international and 713
domestic students, as well as 843 full-time
and 177 part-time students”.
Johnson, also a PhD student, said her
colleagues were also experiencing financial
hardship, although they would rarely
discuss it.
“That’s why in the paper, we called it ‘The
quiet crisis’,” she said.
“Fifty-seven per cent of all research
groups in Australian universities are staffed
by PhD students. If we took away 20 per
cent of that, that is a huge dent on the
labour that goes into our research group.
They are logging the data, trudging out into
the field, collecting interviews [and] doing
that gladly because they are passionate
about that field.
“It’s the result of a structure that was built
a couple of hundred years ago and needs
to be updated.” ■
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