The number of students who want to learn AI has risen 200%, and there are not enough teachers to go around

In 2018, for example, 60% of schools surveyed have limited the number of students in popular courses, 61% have or plan to eliminate small classes, and 42% have or plan to raise the admissions threshold for CS majors ......

Why this imbalance?

It's not all because of the brain drain to industry

Previously, experts warned that universities are facing a brain drain due to higher salaries and easier access to resources in industry, among other reasons.

This is true.

For one thing, it's true that many university professors have been poached by some tech companies.

The most famous cases include YouTubers poaching nearly 40 experts from CMU's robotics lab in a few months in 2015 and Yann LeCun becoming the head of Meta's artificial intelligence research in 2013.

In one case, LeCun still retains his position teaching at NYU.

Such "dual affiliations" are common, with many professors spending only 10-20% of their time working for companies, but in general, there are more examples of people joining industry full-time.

On the other hand, although the number of AI-related PhD graduates is increasing, the number of those entering academia has remained largely unchanged for 20 years, while the number of those entering industry has increased rapidly. This trend can be clearly observed from the curve in the table below.

The CRA has criticized the industry for admitting students before they graduate with a PhD.

However, the brain drain to industry is not the whole reason.

In fact.

(1) The survey shows that "poaching by industry" has not increased significantly over the past two decades, and that retirement and job changes within academia are common reasons for the loss of college faculty.

(2) At the same time, there is a small movement of talent from industry to academia.

In 2020, 32% of schools reported that their teachers were hired by industry; 38% also hired experts from industry to be teachers.

It is also interesting to note that some teachers choose to return to academia after a few years in industry, citing industry as boring and short-sighted, despite its high salaries and resources.

This has mitigated the brain drain of university teachers to some extent.

(3) In addition, for many Ph.D. students, their career choices do not represent career preferences. On the contrary, the survey shows that many PhD students are more interested in research and teaching jobs in academia.