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Survey says 53% of PhDs back in the 80s wanted to be profs.<p>Also, this crazy idea comes from talking to all these fine young people who want my letter of recommendation for graduate school. In pure math, there is not much point in going to grad school unless you&#x27;re at least considering being a tenure-track academic. No one aspires to be an adjunct, you can get a job making real money out of college, and so unless you just think math is so fun that you want to do 7 years of grad school and <i>then</i> get a job, you are thinking of being a prof.<p>Other fields are certainly different.... but why get a PhD in art history if you don&#x27;t want to be an academic?