Certain types of advanced degrees still pay off but on the whole, the market isn’t great.

Zero Hedge reports.

The PhD Bubble Has Burst: Graduating ‘Doctors’ Are Having Trouble Finding Work

Spending nearly a decade in college, racking up significant amounts of debt, and emerging with that coveted PhD designation isn’t what it used to be… in fact it is safe to say the PhD bubble has burst.

The percentage of new doctorate recipients without jobs or plans for future study climbed to 39% in 2014, up from 31% in 2009 according to a National Science Foundation survey. Those graduating with doctorates in the US climbed 28% in the decade ending in 2014 to an all-time high of 54,070, but the labor market – surprise surprise – has not been able to accommodate that growth. “The supply of PhD’s has increased enormously and the demand in the labor market has increased but not nearly as fast. When you can import an international workforce or outsource research, you have a buyer’s market” said Michael Teitelbaum, senior adviser to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Of course the labor market isn’t able to accommodate those PhD’s, unless of course their chosen concentration is bartending, which in that case would mean that opportunities are plentiful (although paying back those loans may pose a problem).

As a reminder, since December 2014, while all of those new PhD’s were emerging from a decade of lecture halls and academic circle jerks, the only jobs that have been created in any meaningful way have been in the service industry. There have been pockets of growth elsewhere, but even those higher paying jobs were primarily part-time roles.