An astonishingly small number of elite universities produce an overwhelming number of America’s professors. Getting A Ph.D. Appears to Be a Waste of Time If You Don't Get Into The Elite Schools.

Slate reports:

Robert Oprisko is among those who believe the hiring system isn’t a meritocracy. He graduated in 2011 with a Ph.D. in political science from Purdue University. He had won a hefty number of awards, published articles, and had a book contract for his dissertation. But the best he could do on the job market was a one-year visiting assistant professorship at Butler University. Now he’s a research fellow at Indiana University, a position that doesn’t pay, but, as Oprisko puts it, “makes you appear that you are still in the system, so it gives you a prayer of getting a job within the academy.”

At the same time Oprisko was struggling to find work, he says his Ivy League political science colleagues, like a friend of his at University of Pennsylvania, had no problem landing elite postdocs and professorship opportunities. “He’s a wonderful guy, but he hadn’t actually done anything,” Oprisko says of his friend from UPenn. And Oprisko doesn’t think he’s imagining this bias against him; he says he’s been told by his mentors that, “There is an imprimatur of being ‘Ivy’ all the way down. You’re the cream of the crop if you can claim to be of a certain status from bottom to top.” He’s stopped listing his master’s degree from Indiana State on his résumé. He’s been told it’s better to have it appear as if he was doing nothing at all during that time than to be associated with a low-prestige school.

For you rookies out there.