A doctoral student writes:

The only reason why there’s a glut of PhD graduates without jobs is that the availability of full-time tenure-track professorships has declined. Why is that? It’s not because of demand. There’s no shortage of students applying and going to college. The problem is on the supply side. Instead of filling tenure-track jobs with new tenure tracks, large universities have switched to using adjuncts.

He says many universities have no good reason to cut tenure-track positions:

At a time in which endowments, enrollment, tuition, and campus-building (including cruise-ship-quality dorms) are on the rise, it’s an absolute canard to say that universities do not have the money to create full-time professorships.  For example, my school just announced that it is halfway to its $4-billion fundraising goal – to be added to its already multi-billion-dollar endowment – and it has opened or restored a new building almost every year that I have…