Are there many people doing a science PhD for the job prospects? I mean, my understanding is that in America it involves an extra couple of years of specialization on top of the (four?) years average of the PhD itself. It's not like someone with no background in science is going into them "because market forces" (why does everything have to be done in terms of what the market demands?).
Most of the people I have met doing my PhD is doing it because they love their field and want to gain a deeper understanding, or work in the field.
I mean, my understanding is that in America it involves an extra couple of years of specialization on top of the (four?) years average of the PhD itself.
If you mean doing postdoctoral positions prior to securing a tenure-track position, then yes, that's generally true.
No, I meant because the impression I get is that in general undergraduate courses aren't specialised e.g. you choose whatever courses you want as long as the "credits" add up to the requirements for a major, versus doing every course in one subject. The overwhelming impression I've got talking with american students is that they had to have a couple of years doing a "masters" at the start of the PhD, which effectively caught them up to the equivalent level of a full time course in the subject.
In a lot of fields a M.S. is a requirement to start a PhD. It has nothing whatsoever to do with coursework. Instead, it's a matter of research experience. (Also, at least in my field, you usually do your B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. at three different institutions.)
At least in the geosciences, it's something like:
B.S.: Basic coursework and a senior thesis
* Senior Thesis: "Here's a well-defined problem, here's how I'd start, why don't you think about how you'd do it and go solve it"
M.S.: A class or two and a Masters Thesis
* Thesis: "Here's an relevant, unsolved problem. Go solve it."
PhD: Research (and lots of seminars)
* Dissertation: "Come up with 3 relevant, unsolved, and interesting problems. Then solve all three of them."
The big difference is really in finding your own interesting problems (and often finding funding for them as well) as opposed to being handed a problem.
Depends on the school. Even in the same discipline (I'm also in the geosciences like jofer) some departments don't accept grad students as MS students except in certain circumstances, such as U. Michigan, my current employer. Most of the grad students here come in with a BS and consequently (and understandably) take a little more time and often flail a bit more at first, relative to PhD students who start with a MS. Some schools that only/mostly take PhD students on give you a MS when you've written your first paper or taken you PhD qualifying exams.
I did a MS before I did my PhD, at different schools and with reasonably different projects, and am glad I did. Where I did my PhD, it was difficult to be accepted into teh PhD program without an MS.
However, I wouldn't say that the MS or equivalent is necessary to reach a 'full time course' because the American BS is less specialized than an equivalent degree elsewhere in the world, based on what I've learned from the many non-Americans I've worked with.
edit to answer question better:
In the American system, there is a lot of unrelated coursework (which has some guidelines, it's not just a sum of credits), but there are also a fair amount of core/science courses. I just looked at my coursework list and counted 16 courses (including fieldtrips and independent studies but not labs) in geoscience, then there is the requisite math, physics, chemistry.
The American system still takes the idea of a well-rounded 'liberal arts' education seriously (feel free to be skeptical and call it welfare for poets and historians, although I don't entirely share this position). I think university in many countries is a shorter process, although their high schools may be much better...
Yeah, I was being a bit careless by saying that an MS was required. Your comment is certainly more representative of the field as a whole than mine.
More and more schools seem to be heading towards PhD only for graduate geoscience programs (which is a mistake, i.m.o.). A lot of professors at Wisconsin were strongly pushing for it while I was there, though an equal number were opposed. I also think there's a large benefit to doing a separate MS, preferably at a separate institution. (If nothing else, it dramatically increases your breadth of experience.)
At any rate, I certainly agree with you. Having an MS makes it much easier to get into competitive PhD programs. Also, an MS is a common working degree for a large number of geoscientific jobs, so there's a strong demand for industry-focused MS graduates.
For those reasons (and not because a B.S. doesn't have enough coursework, i.m.o.), separate MS and PhD degrees are very common in the geosciences
This is also my experience. Almost everybody doing a PhD that I have met is doing so out of personal interest in the subject area. I think pretty much everybody understands that as a career path academia sucks, but they do it because they love the research they are doing (well, most of the time, from time to time you've got to hate it ;)). People doing a PhD generally seem to understand that this is not the path to making a lot of money, and most of them seem qualified enough to do something in industry if they wanted to.
A PhD worth getting should not involve you paying tuition. Much of the time your tuition is waived and you earn a small stipend (just enough to live frugally off of) teaching/working in a lab.
From a university's perspective, grad students are cheap labor that can eat a lot of sections of low level undergrad classes.
It's expected that your supervisor pays your tuition because he has grants. This is important signalling. No stipends means no grants and a worthless program.
Something I've found as a quant and data scientist without a PhD is that PhD Bigotry is common. Really fucking common. Plenty of companies will give you second-rate projects just because you don't have a PhD.
That said, it would never make sense for me to get a PhD for job-related reasons: the opportunity cost is too high. (In fact, it's too high even considering that I have a lot of intellectual reasons why, if I had more time, I'd do one.) Economically, I'm better off to deal with the annoyance of PhD bigotry (and leave jobs if it is an issue) than go into a program that has almost (and possibly over) $1 million in opportunity costs and that I'll exit (if I'm lucky) at the unfundable age of 35.
I know why PhD bigotry exists; people conceive that the alternative is to admit that 4-6 years of time were wasted, so they have to build up this bullshit belief that without a PhD, you're just not research-grade. But I find that ridiculous. 4-6 years learning things you're passionate about and can use is never wasted; but don't bring me down (by insisting that everyone who hasn't made such an investment is somehow inferior) just because you're insecure about your choices. (Who isn't?)
Is it really PhD bigotry you are experiencing? Or general degree bigotry? I would guess the latter. You see the same complaints from people without CS/Eng degrees who none-the-less have the skills to do the job.
Wouldn't the distribution of PhDs-in-research-positions and BS/MS-in-research-positions be different depending on whether its the former or latter? I think so. I wonder how much, or even if, there is any data about that.
Speaking from personal experience I'd largely agree with the parent's point. Also, speaking from my personal experience in academia, I'd suggest the field of academics, science or otherwise, is largely like any other industry: one's ability and intelligence can only carry one so far; who one knows typically has a far greater impact. This is especially true when applying to graduate school in the sciences. A person who is well-connected is far more likely to be picked up in a research program that is: a) of interest to him and b) well funded (as well as can be, in this area).
Oh absolutely. I'm only suggesting that the problem isn't one unique to PhD degrees, but rather a more general problem with title and degrees. I think it's an important distinction if we want to understand or fix the problem.
You are also correct that "connections" can count for a lot. Though pure degree discrimination is still very frequent.
The whole point of a PhD is that it is a third-party-backed proof that you're capable of doing independent research on a novel topic.
Compare: "I'm good at doing this, trust me", and "I'm good at doing this, so sayeth this big university". It's a form of vetting, and we're all familiar with people who say they have long experience in something and are good at selling you on that, yet they wouldn't know their arse from their elbow. Or lack the deep knowledge a PhD would require of the topic.
Of course you can be awesome without a PhD (and far from all PhDs are awesome), but it's a credentialled form of vetting. A PhD also proves you can complete a multi-year project through the hard yards, and most of them run into plenty of difficulties.
A PhD proves one can convince a group of 5 (or so) people that one's efforts are worth signing off on so that the "Big University" will grant a certificate. In other words, it's the same "so sayeth this big university" process you disparage, but in a different sphere. It does not signal, to me, the ability to complete a multi-year project "through the hard yards," in and of itself.
People who are extremely bright and capable researchers wash out of PhD programs all the time for a variety of reasons entirely unrelated to their abilities or desires, and people who would be lost without their committee chairperson guiding their research complete their PhDs all the time.
As I understand the grandparent post, he's not disparaging "So sayeth this big university", he's disparaging "So sayeth myself." Basically, my interpretation was that he's saying that a Ph.D is imperfect as a credential, but it's far better than just "Trust me, I'm awesome". Which I think most people would agree with, right?
I wasn't actually meaning to be disparaging at all, just waxing a little poetic, though I thought it was funny that I was being chided for being disparaging in a comment that was disparaging the exact same thing :)
I agree there's a reasonable amount of that, but in technology research specifically, my impression has been that publications trump degrees. If two people without any recent impressive publications are being compared, then the person with a PhD gets to pull that card. But if you're looking at graphics researchers, say, if and how recently you've published at SIGGRAPH is often a bigger factor than what degrees you have, when it comes to whether other graphics researchers consider you a legit graphics researcher. Industry guy with a BSc who publishes there regularly is seen as more of a real graphics researcher than PhD-holder who used to work in the field but last published there in 1995 (unless what they published in 1995 was truly revolutionary, maybe).
I've found that demonstrated competency & achievements count for more than both publications and degrees. When I was working on Google Authorship, I was the only one on the team without an advanced degree, and only two others lacked a Ph.D. I never once felt like I was looked down upon - actually, it seemed like I was quite well-respected, and for a year after I left the team they continued to ask my manager to keep me sitting in the same office for occasional consulting. Why? Because I had written much of the code that got the project off the ground, I understood how everything fit together, and I was very willing to consider and advocate for ideas of how it could all be improved.
Most of the people I have met doing my PhD is doing it because they love their field and want to gain a deeper understanding, or work in the field.
Many of the people I have met doing my PhD are doing it because they didn't want to go "into the real world" after undergrad and their undergrad advisors shoehorned them into getting their PhD. Anecdotally (I'm a biologist/chemist) this is less of an issue for chemists in top programs, because many of them have spent two or three years in industry, and are getting those three letters to round out their knowledge and experience with 80-hour workweeks sleeping in synthetic labs (where they accrue on the order of thousands-of-reactions experience). Biology is arguably worse, additionally populated by students who "couldn't hack the MD track" or slightly more charitably who "hated all the other Premeds". Mathematics is stricken by the student who got As throughout (typically PUI) undergrad math but never has done a proof, and had a mistaken idea about what it actually means to be a math grad student. In all three cases, graduate programs often look aside because they need warm bodies to TA/teach the intro classes.
Now, many of these people will not get their PhD, but some do, because for all the hemming and hawwing about the process by grad students, it really is an exercise in rubber stamping (in many jurisdictions the reality is you can't get rid of a grad student without running into serious legal problems, especially when you're paying them so technically they're employees and if you treat them poorly they have the leverage of tattling about the technically illegal labor conditions)
There is plenty of demand for PhD students and fresh postdocs. They help the Prof. with her teaching load, grant writing, etc. They are dedicated, work long hours and cost little.
There is however, much lower demand for PhDs who would wish to run their own research program, after all the PI can take the same ideas and work and do it under guise of their own research program without giving too much credit to the grad student or postdoc.
The result, at least in biomedicine, is an increase in the size of research groups, and very protracted postdoctoral periods.
The answer is that we're farther away from full employment than we think we are in the US. We think we're off by some 5% rounding error we can attribute to friction or economic cycles, but we're actually off by 20-25% (include: discouraged workers, our gigantic prison population, et al). For most people, extended schooling (for those whose parents can afford it) is a way to replace the marginal, vulnerable years with something that doesn't involve the stigma of being unemployed. For science PhD programs, there's even (meager) pay.
Why are there so many law students who don't give a shit about the law? MBA-school students who just want to network and drink but don't care about business fundamentals? For these same reason as there are those surplus, academically unemployable PhDs. For most people, the alternative isn't "$800k seed round". It's no job or non-college job or some other situation that makes graduate school a better option.
Of course, this floods graduate programs with people who shouldn't be there, often don't care to be there, and clog up the job market for everyone else with that degree.
One possible reason is that the PhD in some fields can be an "easy" way to get a paying position after graduating. There are a lot of smart people graduating from undergraduate programs, and there is a general paucity of good jobs for these people. A PhD provides a few good things:
1) Credentials look good on paper
2) Work is generally perceived as interesting and worth doing (at least, until they start doing it)
3) Some fields/programs offer stipends. In many cases, a small stipend doing what you think will be interesting work is perceived as better than a larger salary doing an uninteresting task.
As pcrh hinted there is a bit of an echo chamber effect in academia. I noticed it as well. Many professors will advocate and encourage students because they themselves chose that path. Some just see it as a good career, some want postdocs and TA students to help with grading and TAs.
One professor I had I heard telling the student, you can have a stable teaching job, good vacations, good life. It wasn't about contributing to science, about advancing research, being interested in the subject it was about trying to coast and mooch of the public university system.
denigration of "... stable ... job, good vacations, good life... " = Stockholm syndrome victim.
Let me make a wild guess, that whoever convinced you those are bad things to be avoided, personally financially benefits from your lack of a stable job, lack of vacation and lack of a good lifestyle?
I wanted to go into physics when I was about 17... I couldn't figure out why ruining my theoretical future families life by grinding poverty would contribute to science, so bye bye physics. I can read a book if I want to.
> Let me make a wild guess, that whoever convinced you those are bad things to be avoided, personally financially benefits from your lack of a stable job, lack of vacation and lack of a good lifestyle?
It wasn't me, it was someone else that was being convinced. I was encouraged but not as directly. The idea is that at least public universities, should probably be spending resources grooming students who intent on advancing particular specialties or fields not just mooch off of tenure system.
And I guess I would have expected them to make that a bit more veiled and not as direct. That is why perhaps tenure is harder to acquire and what separates average and below average schools from top tier ones (this wasn't a top one, just an average state college).
Let me make a wild guess, that whoever convinced you those are bad things to be avoided, personally financially benefits from your lack of a stable job, lack of vacation and lack of a good lifestyle?
I think you're missing the point that most PhDs will never attain that state via the 'conventional pathway' in any case, and the professor is seeing the outcome for the student as being some sort of entitlement just because the professor had it easy. It's borderline fraudulent behavior.
It's simple: the immigration system rewards advanced degrees.
While Americans often pursue Ph.Ds because of a desire to pursue academia or pure research, most people coming to the US for educations are looking for a way to stay in the US, and there are H1-B slots specifically for those with advanced degrees from US universities.
Further, the life of a graduate student on stipend is remarkably similar in lifestyle comforts to working in their native countries, and they will be rewarded with better jobs in their native countries even if they do not stay in the US.
That is what fuels the graduate student STEM system.
A very significant proportion of PhD students (and therefore postdocs) are non-US. Despite their meager pay (in relation to the pay that equivalently qualified people get in other sectors) the money they can afford to send money home to support their parents is not insignificant, since the purchasing power of $200-500/mo is substantially greater in China or India than in the US. This is great for them and their families, and provides cheap labor for US research establishment.
The fact that they are mostly on H1B visas also prevents them from having much negotiating power with their employers, often resulting in lower-than-market pay and conditions. It also explains (I believe) at least in part why US citizens less often choose to work in biomedical research.
You can generalize that to all immigration systems not just "the".
I analyzed the Canadian point system many years ago and as a recent BS grad I had more hoops to jump thru than a recent MS grad would have. Whats easier, becoming fluent in French or a MSCS? If you want to be able to work anywhere in the world, its much easier with postgrad degrees than just a bachelors.
From memory, at least to work in Canada in CS/IT, it boiled down to a BS holder needs a formal job offer whereas a MS holder pretty much open arms you'll find a job once you get here, no need to find a job before moving. A couple years experience and I've caught up in the points race with the MS holder... This may have changed over more than a decade.
I have family commitments so I can't, but I wish I could, which leads to research and daydreaming.
What if people came to the US simply to get an education? Let's face it, the education at good American universities is very, very good, and anyone with a PhD degree from Harvard, Berkeley or UIUC has a good shot at getting a decent position back home.
For H1-B purposes, a US Masters degree is sufficient, and there are more than plenty such programs to go around. (Why are there so many taught masters? It's because they are cheap for the university to offer, and lesser places are in urgent need of income from tuition.) No need to pain oneself with five years of serious PhD work when a year or two of taught masters will do the job.
On the contrary, the road to a green card is complicated, it really shouldn't be done through H1-B because then you are at the mercy of the employer, and with a PhD from somewhere decent it's best done though E1/E2 with national interest waiver, no H1-B needed. (If you know what I'm talking about it's because you are a lawyer or applied for a Green Card. May God have mercy on your soul.)
It's more likely that Americans don't shoot for PhD in the sciences because it's hard work that isn't well rewarded at the end. The market is speaking.
E1 - Persons with extraordinary ability doesn't require a job offer, neither does E2-NIW. Yes, E2-NIW is rather common because it's a catch-all category that does not require sponsorship.
Many more get the Master's degree than the Ph.D, but many of those who can, do opt into Ph.D programs (within STEM) because of how many Ph.D programs offer stipends.
Wealthy students go for MS degrees, of course.
(And as I am partnered to someone going through this, let me say that alphabet soup can give me a migraine. :)
Add to this some cultural issues. One of my relatives got a science PhD in the US to fulfill the dreams of his Chinese parents. It's not that he was fascinated by the subject, nor did he need immigration help (he had a green card.) It's just that he, the only son, had an obligation to his long-suffering parents to add to the status of the family as judged by other Chinese.
part of it is simply due to the inertia of already being in an academic environment. students commit 4 years to do their undergraduate degrees. instead of pursuing the unknown (ie. searching for a job, moving potentially, meeting new people, becoming more independent, etc.) students stick with what they already know in academia, albeit in a different, more serious form.
As an undergrad, the main reason I would pursue a PhD would be to have some kind of intellectual freedom after graduating. A lot of my CS peers and friends would rather immediately jump to industry to make that magical $100k/yr, but I see a PhD as a way of being able to pursue my interests much more freely. If I have to be a slave/code monkey, I'd rather be a slave for myself first. That's worth the difference in salary for me at this moment.
Could it be that many people are actually interested in science?
There is nearly continuous hand-wringing that kids are no longer interested in science, yet many go into fields like physics, astronomy, and biology despite knowing the job prospects are better elsewhere (finance, programming, petroleum engineering, etc.). And then many continue on for a PhD despite it not making financial sense to do so. One possibility is that they are either highly misinformed or just irrational. But one could be that they actually want to advance physics, astronomy, biology, or whatever their chosen field is, and they see it as a necessary prerequisite (finding a career in physics with a physics BSc is difficult).
If so, then we have one of two problems (or perhaps a mixture):
1. Too many kids are interested in science. We should stop trying to encourage interest in science as a career, and rather encourage kids to develop interests elsewhere, to reduce the glut. No more kids-oriented physics or astronomy programs on public TV!
2. The existing scientific career pathways are not sufficient to provide productive scientific careers to enough of the people interested in pursuing a scientific career. We should figure out what to do about that, whether it involves debugging/debottlenecking some of the pathways, increasing funding, producing new funding models (perhaps research funding not tied to universities), etc.
This was certainly my own motivation. Contributing something to our collective knowledge was the goal. The value of that in my eyes was worth the time.
On a slightly different topic, why is HN so obsessed with PhDs? PhDs represent a very small fraction of the population, and they are not particularly vocal either. Yet you see article after article here about PhDs, the majority of the comments being negative or hostile.
"PhDs represent a very small fraction of the population"
In the general population. Which is not HN. (edited to correct "potential PHD program candidates" not actual holders)
The ratios are probably about the same... maybe 1 in 10 chance of success if you go academic, maybe 1 in 10 chance of success if you go startup route, roughly the same odds from roughly the same population.
WRT "the majority of the comments being negative or hostile"
From the linked article:
"I went looking and found nothing in the last 10 years. In fact, I ended up reading several articles warning students against graduate work"
So that is an aspect where the HN population does match the general population.
I think it's the status; there are a fair amount of people on HN who have PhDs (I have no idea what the actual fraction is; ~5-10%?) and a lot more equally smart people who don't have one. And some (surely small) fraction of those people either have their own insecurities, or feel badgered by PhDs (like michaelochurch below, who I am glad explained his negativity).
But it saddens me a bit, because getting a PhD really can be a wonderful and valuable thing.
HN's local PhD-holders are interesting examples of how having a PhD doesn't really mean you have to do any specific thing (or pursue an academic career). When I was doing a little research on the most prolific HN posters [1], I found 3 of the top 20 have a PhD, and none are in academia: Paul Graham runs YCombinator, John Graham-Cumming is a programmer and author, and Colin Wright works in maritime technology (while also giving mathematics talks to students on the side). Another only-slightly-less-prolific poster is Colin Percival, who runs a one-man technology business (Tarsnap).
>Too many kids are interested in science. We should stop trying to encourage interest in science as a career, and rather encourage kids to develop interests elsewhere, to reduce the glut. No more kids-oriented physics or astronomy programs on public TV!
Yes, I think many people actually are interested in science (and quite right too!). But it's worth noting that studying science (at undergraduate-degree or PhD level) is also a pretty good preparation for work in -- to take the examples you list -- finance, programming, or petroleum engineering, and I haven't noticed that having a PhD in physics is any bar to success in such fields.
>I haven't noticed that having a PhD in physics is any bar to success in such fields.
If you factor in the time in takes to obtain a PhD vs the time it takes to graduate from finance, programming, or petroleum engineering. The route is much faster than the PhD route in the time it takes to become employed. Factor in the experience you would already have if you graduated with a lessor degree + the money you didnt spend on post grad studies.
The non PhD route seems like a better career choice. But most PhDs I have meet are doing what they do because they enjoy it.
I agree with michaelochurch's argument and extend it to a escalation of commitment / sunk cost fallacy effect.
No jobs for BS grads other than waitress? Well, I'm not going to quit physics after 4 long years and go into being a waiter... I know, go for a MS! Whoops no jobs for MS grads other than barista? No problemo, go for a PHD!
I would also propose the "professional sport" model now applies in academia. 1000 students will get a BS, 100 will get the MS, 10 will get a PHD, 1 will get an actual PHD level industrial job or tenure track professorship. The other 999 can pay off their student loans working at Starbucks. There is less difference between a physics major and a phy ed major than ever before.
It do think the article and the articles Daniel is referring to have a point, there is indeed an industry - PhD gap. But this gap is not more than logical; It has todo with the "raison d'être" of a PhD:
PhD are tracks of several years to advance human knowledge by doing science. It is often a low payed 'job', done by people who are passionate about the thing they are studying. If you just want to get a good paying job, doing a PhD is probably not advisable, though Universities may inform students otherwise (like Daniel is mentioning).
I myself am working in industry and am well payed, however I'm considering pursuing a PhD related to autonomous driving.. Why? Because I'm passionate about it. Because i'd rather spend time advancing the human race than to fix a race condition in our backend servers (also fun ;-)
Anyway, i think this partially explains why a lot of people or doing PhD. Its because of the human endless interest in science. Its a good thing. In the end the research these PhD students are doing will cause revolutions in our industry.
In a few years people will be driving autonomous cars. And this is mostly due to universities. Google is standing on the shoulders of giants.
Probably I'm viewing this with too much optimism, but I think thats a good thing. At least i'm aware of it.
Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data still indicate that PhDs have higher lifetime earnings and lower unemployment than those with lower levels of educational attainment. [1][2] (Those with professional degrees do somewhat better, though it's unclear if it's statistically significant.)
Those who study the sciences tend to have higher lifetime earnings than others. Here's indication of that at least at the Bachelor's level: [3][4] (I can't find the PhD earnings breakdown , but I'd be surprised if this suddenly inverted at upper levels.)
Note that the BLS link (2) includes median earnings, indicating that this is not just skewed by a handful of overachievers in the top couple percentile. It's not as if the top two percent of PhDs are landing eight figure jobs and every other PhD is unemployed.
There seems to be a shortage of jobs within academia, and it may be that those with more investment in skills have more search costs to find the ideal fit for their skills with appropriate compensation.
On the other hand, Jeff Sauro found that in the Usability field, PhDs never catch up. [5]
So there's the possibility that some professions don't follow the trend, but the results overall are fairly clear that a PhD is a good idea in general. More rigorous analysis probably needs to be done profession by profession though.
Bachelor's degree holders encompass a much larger set of population, with a lot more variance than the set of PhD holders. I'd think that if you can get a set of "people without PhD that could have been capable of getting one" and compare it with PhD holders, the difference would be far smaller, if any.
I know plenty of people who got Bachelor degrees in creative writing or liberal arts that are still working at Starbucks because the degree they got doesnt translate to a job in the real world.
The data is skewed if you look only by degree type. It must be looked at by area or field.
This is market action. Market != money. You're making a value choice between different outcomes and exercising an unrestricted choice to pursue what you want out of a marketplace of options.
You should also consider that nonprofit != "helping the world". There are lots of non-profit efforts that don't wind up helping one bit, and just consuming resources. (for that matter, this happens with for-profits, too).
And, having been through the mill, A PhD does not guarantee you intellectual freedom. I'd say it might even be worse in some sectors of the academe.
Agreed on all points. But market action != market forces. I was not persuaded by a disparity between supply and demand in the market to do a PhD.
My PhD has a very direct route to helping the world, and I chose it because after about a year of searching I considered it the most efficient way to use my skills to do so. My next move might well be in the for-profit world; Ive seen some very effective stuff happening there.
Similarly, the PhD in general doesn't guarantee intellectual freedom, but mine does. This was a major factor in choosing my supervisor (there are ~20 in the consortium I wanted to work in, and I rejected several).
I have an undergraduate degree in an unrelated field (from software engineering, which is what I do). I have never really wanted to go on because the income opportunity loss was too great. But I once thought if I were independently wealthy I would go back. I recently had a chance to do a graduate-level coursework for my job. It was a real shock to remember that "getting the right answer" was more important than learning anything or making something. So if it's about learning something, I think there are better things you can do than get a degree. Especially now that education has become such a business and totally employment-oriented.
Getting the right answer on known problems is a prerequisite to getting the right answer on unknown ones. At least, if you can't get the right answer it's very unlikely you can solve ones where the answer is unknown. Also, there's a good chance you didn't really learn the material. Having taught courses at all levels I would say it's relatively rare to assign problems that are truly hard. Most just are testing your understanding of definitions and if you can't get the right answer you probably didn't understand something.
Getting a PhD isn't just about "learning" but also how to create/discover new knowledge. If all you want is to learn something get a second undergraduate degree or read on your own.
Most of the people I have met doing my PhD is doing it because they love their field and want to gain a deeper understanding, or work in the field.
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