A Survey of Economics PhD
Programs in the US Sunbelt
Lijun Chen
This
is a report on an email survey of PhD programs sent in January 2004 to
directors of graduate programs at 36 economics departments in the “South.” A summary of the 19 responses follows.
Subject:
Informal Survey of PhD Programs in the “South”
To: Directors of Graduate Studies
From: Henry Thompson, Economics
Professor, Auburn University, thomph1@auburn.edu
Please answer the following
questions for an informal survey we are conducting of regional economics PhD
programs. The purpose is to help us plan our applied PhD program at
Auburn and apply for funding. We will email you the complete results
including individual responses as well as the statistics. Departments we
are contacting are from the website www.albany.edu/econ/eco_phds.html.
Please
provide your “best guess” answers to the following questions without feeling
obliged to consult records for exact answers. Use your estimate of
averages for the past 5 years. If some Masters students transfer to PhD,
include them when appropriate. Please email responses by Reply.
These are the 19 responding departments:
Alabama Auburn Emory Georgia State
Houston Kentucky LSU ag
econ Miami
Middle TN State Mississippi NC
State New Orleans
Oklahoma South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M
Texas Tech Virginia VA Tech VA
Tech ag econ
The departments that did not respond are:
Arkansas Clemson Florida Florida International
Florida State George Mason Georgia LSU econ
Maryland Mississippi
State UNC OK
State
Rice SMU Texas Tulane
Vanderbilt
The questions and
the means of their answers across the 19 respondents are in Table 1 with
summary statistics in Table 2.
Table
1. Questions and mean responses
1. How many total full time PhD students
are in your PhD program?
|
37 |
|
2. How many full time
first year PhD students are in your typical cohort? |
11 |
|
3. What % of PhD applicants that qualify at
the university level does your department admit? |
40% |
|
4. What
is the yearly in-state tuition at your university? |
$7,590 |
|
5.
What is the yearly out-of-state tuition at your university? |
$13,770 |
|
6.
How much does your department pay first year PhD students on full
assistantship? |
$14,250 |
|
7.
How much do PhD students on full assistantship pay in tuition per
year? |
$804 |
|
8.
What % of accepted PhD students does your program fund fully? |
68% |
|
9.
What % of PhD student stipends are paid with university research
assistantships? |
22% |
|
10.
What % of PhD funding is paid by external grants? |
22% |
|
11.
What % of PhD students are on teaching assistantships? |
35% |
|
12.
What % of these PhD students on teaching assistantships teach their
own course? |
37% |
|
13.
What % of PhD students are on foreign student visas? |
62% |
|
14.
What % of PhD students pass all prelims on their first attempt? |
60% |
|
15.
How many fields (a year of related courses) does your PhD program
offer? |
5.2 |
|
16.
How many field exams does your PhD program require? |
1.9 |
|
17.
How many electives does your PhD program offer? |
6.7 |
|
18.
How many PhD degrees does your Department award per year? |
3.9 |
|
19.
What is the average length of years (full time) to completion of the
PhD? |
4.8 |
|
20.
What % of your PhD graduates go into academic or research positions? |
74% |
Table 2.
Descriptive statistics of responses
|
Question # |
Mean |
Std dev |
Min |
Max |
Skewness |
Kurtosis |
|
1. students |
37.1 |
28.9 |
7 |
107 |
1.41 |
1.34 |
|
2. cohort |
10.8 |
9.4 |
2 |
41 |
1.81 |
6.15 |
|
3. % admit |
40% |
30% |
3% |
100% |
0.41 |
1.81 |
|
4. tuition-in |
$7,590 |
$6,630 |
$2,000 |
$27,000 |
2.18 |
6.43 |
|
5. tuition-out |
$13,770 |
$5,430 |
$6,000 |
$27,000 |
0.94 |
3.37 |
|
6. stipend |
$14,250 |
$6,030 |
$7,250 |
$36,000 |
2.38 |
9.15 |
|
7. tuition-disc |
$804 |
$1,637 |
$0 |
$5,100 |
2.13 |
3.55 |
|
8. % full fund |
68% |
32% |
10% |
100% |
-0.60 |
1.87 |
|
9. % research |
22% |
25% |
0% |
80% |
1.23 |
3.36 |
|
10. % external |
22% |
28% |
0% |
100% |
1.72 |
4.98 |
|
11. % teach |
35% |
17% |
0% |
100% |
0.58 |
-0.43 |
|
12. own course |
37% |
35% |
0% |
100% |
0.94 |
2.40 |
|
13. % foreign |
62% |
17% |
16% |
85% |
-1.09 |
1.81 |
|
14. pass 1st
|
60% |
18% |
25% |
83% |
-0.67 |
2.42 |
|
15. fields |
5.2 |
3.1 |
2 |
15 |
1.7 |
5.70 |
|
16. field exams |
1.9 |
1.5 |
0 |
6 |
0.89 |
3.95 |
|
17. electives |
6.7 |
6.7 |
0 |
30 |
2.22 |
8.19 |
|
18. degrees |
3.9 |
2.3 |
1 |
10 |
1.01 |
3.67 |
|
19. years |
4.8 |
0.7 |
3.75 |
6 |
0.05 |
1.99 |
|
20. % aca-res |
74% |
25% |
5% |
100% |
-1.20 |
2.98 |
The programs are not small, with an average size of 37 and cohort size
of 11, but there is a high degree of variation in size. Some programs are much more selective in
admission, and universities vary somewhat as well. There is high variation in tuition with a few
outliers. Graduate stipends also have
high variation with a few outliers.
Tuition discounts vary across departments. About 1/3 of the graduate students are on
teaching assistantships and about 1/3 of those teach their own courses. The rest of their funding is about evenly
divided between external, research, and presumably internal funding.
Well over half of all the PhD students are foreign but there is a high
degree of variation across departments.
Most students pass their first attempt at prelim exams but there is high
variation across departments here also.
The average number of fields is 5 and 2 field exams are required,
although there is variation. There is
high variation in the number of electives across departments with a few
outliers. Students finish after an
average of just under 5 years. About ¾
of the students go into academics or research, perhaps a measure of success of
the programs, but there is high variation here as well.
Table 3 reports faculty salary and
department ranking. Faculty salary is
the average salary of full professors across all departments. The ranking variable is from Tom Coupé’s webpage
of worldwide economics departments based on an average of 11 publication
ranking schemes, and a lower number means a higher ranked department.
Table
3. Faculty salary and ranking
|
|
Mean |
Std dev |
Min |
Max |
Skewness |
Kurtosis |
|
Fac
salary |
$87,850 |
$3,675 |
$56,600 |
$121,800 |
0.22 |
0.15 |
|
Ranking |
122 |
55 |
39 |
201 |
2.13 |
3.55 |
Table 4 presents correlations across key variables. Tuition is the average of in state and out of
state tuition. The correlations are
typically weak and fail to suggest any variables that would explain rank of the
department or success of the PhD program.
Table
4. Correlations
|
|
size |
teach |
foreign |
success |
rank |
cost |
tuition |
fac sal |
|
size |
1 |
0.310 |
-0.096 |
-0.258 |
-0.586 |
-0.191 |
0.009 |
0.550 |
|
teach |
|
1 |
0.161 |
-0.333 |
0.056 |
-0.366 |
-0.356 |
0.123 |
|
foreign |
|
|
1 |
-0.102 |
0.244 |
0.391 |
-0.537 |
-0.329 |
|
success |
|
|
|
1 |
0.453 |
0.206 |
0.301 |
0.017 |
|
rank |
|
|
|
|
1 |
-0.043 |
-0.099 |
-0.515 |
|
cost |
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
-0.302 |
-0.308 |
|
tuition |
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
0.559 |
|
fac sal |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
Multiple regression analysis fails to
uncover any significant influence on rank except size of the PhD program and
faculty salary. If the success of a PhD
program is placing graduates in academic or research positions as in question
#20, none of the survey responses has any detected effect in multiple
regression analysis. There are no
variables explaining department rank.