More Ph.D.s needing food stamps

When students pursue a graduate degree to make a little extra money, just about none of them expect that added cash to come from food stamps.

Between 2007 and 2010, the number of people with master's degrees and doctorates who have had to apply for food stamps, unemployment or other assistance more than tripled, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Census data released in March 2011 indicates that while 22 million Americans held master's degrees or higher in 2010, about 360,000 were receiving public assistance.

By those numbers, graduates with doctorates fared only slightly better than those holding master's degrees. While more than 293,000 master's recipients needed public assistance in 2010, up from 102,000 in 2007, nearly 34,000 doctorate recipients used food stamps and other assistance programs. That's a sizable increase from the 9,800 doctorate holders who needed support back in 2007, but these numbers in a vacuum don't tell the complete story.

For example, Census numbers don't indicate what fields of study those degrees covered, which would make it a lot easier to identify low-demand job segments. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics sees increasing demand for registered nurses, for example, Ph.D.s looking to become judges aren't nearly as coveted.

Also, while the folks at OnlineColleges pointed out that 5,000 doctorate recipients worked as janitors in 2010 while 21% of graduates holding a bachelor's degree or better worked as customer service representatives that year, they failed to mention when students attained those degrees or if those jobs were their primary means of employment. In either equation, both masters and doctorate recipients are far better off in the job market than those with some college experience or none at all.

Students with associate degrees, for example, are faced with a slew of careers experiencing declines in job numbers. Want to be an aerospace technician, air traffic controller or forest and conservation technician? Good luck with that. High school grads, meanwhile, are looking at a work environment where dozens of jobs with entry-level or mid-level pay are evaporating.

As OnlineColleges points out, one in six Americans received food stamps in 2011. That's about 52.5 million people, which means even if every graduate degree holder on public assistance was on food stamps, they'd be less than 1% of the total.

The recession proved that degrees aren't necessarily a guarantee of future employment. That said, they don't seem to hurt a recipient's odds, either.

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