Part 03

The department you leave from

Academic placement runs from 12% to 52% across degree-granting institutions, and the ordering has little to do with research reputation. It tracks what each programme is.

Doctoral graduates 2010–2025 · institutions with at least 40 matched graduates

Placement varies enormously by where the degree came from. The academic share ranges from 12% to 52% across institutions with at least 40 matched doctorates, a four-fold spread.

Most of that spread is what the institution is rather than how well it places. A school whose computing doctorates are mostly in information systems places differently from one whose doctorates are mostly in architecture, and neither is better at it. Notice which names sit at the top and which at the bottom of the two charts: the ordering does not follow research reputation.

North Dakota State University 51.9% Kent State University 51.1% University of North Texas 45.9% Oklahoma State University 45.6% The Claremont Graduate University 45.3% The University of Wisconsin - Milwau 44.9% Marquette University 44.6% Western Michigan University 44.4% The University of Alabama 44.1% The University of Alabama at Birming 44.1% The University of North Carolina at 43.5% State University of New York at Alba 42.3%
Institutions with the highest share of doctoral graduates in academia one year out, among those with at least 40 matched doctorates.
University of California, Davis 12.1% Stanford University 15.3% New York University Tandon School of 15.5% The Johns Hopkins University 15.8% Boston University 15.9% University of Delaware 15.9% Duke University 16.5% The University of Texas at Austin 16.8% University of California, Riverside 16.8% Brigham Young University 17.3% University of Southern California 17.5% University of California, Santa Cruz 17.8%
And the lowest. Institutions with large professional or information-systems doctoral programmes sit at this end.
Degree-granting institution Matched doctorates Into academia Median estimated pay
University of California, Berkeley 999 24% $146,496
Purdue University 910 19% $130,593
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 825 26% $147,367
Stanford University 795 15% $166,528
University of Washington 695 23% $137,084
The Ohio State University 680 19% $129,630
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 676 27% $124,802
University of Maryland, College Park 649 23% $138,942
University of California, San Diego 621 19% $151,149
University of Michigan 609 24% $134,394
Carnegie Mellon University 595 19% $149,075
University of California, Los Angeles 593 19% $156,106
Georgia Institute of Technology 561 24% $136,503
Cornell University 526 28% $141,614
University of California, Santa Barbara 526 27% $132,209
Texas A&M University 514 21% $119,180
The University of Wisconsin - Madison 503 27% $134,918
University of California, Irvine 503 19% $146,784
Northeastern University 485 25% $132,833
University of Florida 475 24% $119,372
University of Minnesota 463 23% $128,997
Arizona State University 455 21% $128,280
Duke University 436 16% $137,089
North Carolina State University 432 20% $122,251
University of California, Davis 413 12% $143,800
The Pennsylvania State University 400 25% $124,387
The University of Texas at Austin 388 17% $152,718
Iowa State University 377 21% $118,354
University of Illinois at Chicago 358 32% $113,235
Northwestern University 357 23% $135,179
Princeton University 352 30% $147,560
The University of Utah 344 19% $125,223
Columbia University 340 21% $154,581
The University of Texas at Dallas 340 21% $128,884
University of Southern California 320 18% $142,285
State University of New York at Stony Brook 305 20% $155,295
George Mason University 303 24% $123,518
Boston University 302 16% $138,990
University of Pittsburgh 289 25% $119,856
University of Colorado at Boulder 281 26% $117,685

The pay column moves opposite to the academic column, almost mechanically. Universities pay roughly a third of what the large technology firms pay, so an institution that places more of its doctorates into academia lands lower on estimated pay: Illinois sends 27% into academia and Stanford 15%, and Stanford’s pay median runs $41,700 higher. The two columns are close to restatements of each other.