There is an interesting piece on the evolution of the Ph.D. at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42186-2002Mar17
A major puzzle: After a lot of taught about the watering-down of the
degree, the article observes that average time to completion has risen
from 4 years to 10 or so. At least on the surface, this sounds like
standards are a lot tougher! This is just what you'd expect to happen
in a signaling model as it gets easier and easier to get grad school
funding - people have to jump through more hoops to prove the same
thing.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their
shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down 'Stupid
things!' on their slates, and she could even make out that
one of them didn't know how to spell 'stupid,' and that he
had to ask his neighbor to tell him."
Lewis Carroll, *Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*
