(4 of 11)
There is a nationwide decline of from 5% to 15% in applications to graduate schools of business. And there is a New Consciousness among the students now enrolled. Many business graduates are either forsaking large corporations for smaller firms, where there is more freedom of movement, or going into business for themselves. Five years ago, only three Harvard M.B.A.s went into business for themselves directly upon graduation; this year, 25 plan to take the plunge, and some are turning down high salaries to do it. One self-starting venture is the new Cambridge, Mass., "Autotorium"—an electronics-equipped auto-repair garage founded by three 1971 M.B.A.s, one of whom is planning to further his education by taking a night course in mechanics. The Autotorium is part of the rapidly growing service industry, which also includes amusements, hotels and a multitude of other enterprises.
Not only the button-down accounting major becomes an entrepreneur these days. "Business? Like wow! Most of my friends are in business," explains one barefoot boy in bell-bottoms and beads, referring to the lucrative new counterculture enterprises that constitute what is sometimes known as Hip Capitalism. Hundreds of erstwhile flower children have become proprietors of record stores, organic-food shops, restaurants and boutiques. One recent graduate of Xavier University, Steven Reece, 23, of Cincinnati, has become the manager of nine pop artists, including his wife, Barbara Howard, for whom he has booked appearances on the Mike Douglas and David Frost shows. Reece also gives free advice to black high school kids eager to become performers.
GRADUATE SCHOOL. This year applications to graduate schools are up slightly over 1970 totals, despite the fact that it is now clear that the long climb up the ladder to the Ph.D. no longer guarantees secure footing at the top. Economic recovery will provide some new jobs for these specialists, but not enough of them. Says New York University Chancellor Allan Cartter: "We have created a graduate-education and research establishment in American universities that is about 30% to 50% larger than we shall effectively use in the 1970s and early 1980s."
This impressive but top-heavy creation is primarily due to Sputnik, which blasted off when the class of 1971 was in second grade. Thanks to the threat of Soviet dominance in science and technology, the nation's doctorate programs were vastly expanded. In 1957, about 9,000 Ph.D.s in all fields were granted in the U.S. This spring there will be more than 30,000, and unless the machinery slows down, 60,000 will be turned out annually by 1980.
All this may provide an admirable addition to the sum total of human knowledge and much personal satisfaction as well. But as far as jobs go, big numbers spell big trouble. Industrial and Government research work has been drastically cut back, and colleges and universities simply cannot begin to accommodate the new Ph.D.s, or even the old ones for that matter. The Cooperative College Registry in Washington, D.C., a placement service for teachers, receives ten applications for every available job. Some sociologists and