Should You Get a PhD? 5 Reasons for & Against

Only about 1.8 percent of Americans have a PhD.¹ Getting a PhD is rare.

If you are considering joining this academic minority, keep reading. What follows is a short guide meant to help you think honestly about the decision. Perhaps I will talk you into it. Perhaps I will talk you out of it. Either way, the goal is clarity.

Let me talk you into a PhD

There are many reasons why people might pursue a PhD. Some are healthy. Some are not. I once had someone tell me he wanted to earn a PhD so no one could ever argue with him again. That confidence would not survive long. He would only need to wait until he published a monograph and received a one-star review from a freshman.

Still, there are good reasons to do the work. Here are five:

1. You have an itch that will take five to seven years to scratch

When I first started asking whether I should pursue a PhD, I talked to a friend who was nearing the end of his thesis. I expected a long speech.

Instead he said, “Only do it if you have an itch you want to scratch for five to seven years.”

A PhD requires a subject you care about deeply enough to live with it for a long time. You will read about it constantly. You will return to the same question again and again as days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. During my own program, I spent seven Christmas breaks working on my topic!

But this is also the gift of the PhD. It is one of the few seasons in life where you are allowed to examine one idea more carefully than almost anyone else in the world has examined it.

2. You want to produce original research to contribute something unique

In my book A World Without God: The Search for Meaning in a World Overcome by Despair, I describe the digital age as the peak of modernization. We are drowning in information. Everyone is repeating someone else. It becomes exhausting.

What the world actually needs are people who step out of that current and contribute something genuinely thoughtful.

Mortimer Adler wrote in How to Read a Book, “To be informed is to know simply that something is the case.” Much of what passes for expertise today falls into that category. People know facts. They repeat facts. They repeat them loudly. But Adler continues:

To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about. Why it is the case. What its connections are with other facts. In what respects it is the same and in what respects it is different.²

A PhD moves a person from being informed to becoming enlightened, albeit in a narrow area of study. The process pushes you to understand not only what something is but also why it matters and how it connects to everything around it.

3. Your work will be tested by other scholars

One of the most difficult aspects of doctoral work is also one of the most valuable. Your thinking will constantly be examined.

Your supervisor will challenge your claims. Other scholars will question your assumptions. Every argument will be pressed. As a sports fan, I often think of this as full-court pressure that lasts for years.

My own thesis was 180,000 words. My supervisor required me to defend every sentence. Sometimes I would submit a chapter and receive pages of comments in return. At the time it felt exhausting. Later I realized it was a gift. He was preparing me for the final defense. He wanted to make sure I knew my own argument better than anyone else in the room.

When the process is complete, something meaningful happens. Other scholars recognize that your work has been examined and tested. In a world where anyone can start a podcast or self-publish anything they want, peer review still matters. It signals that your work has endured scrutiny.

4. You want to teach in higher education

If your goal is to become a professor, a PhD should be on your radar.

In most universities, especially those accredited by the Association of Theological Schools, doctoral training is required for teaching certain subjects. That means that if you want to teach New Testament, Old Testament, hermeneutics, or theology at the graduate level, the PhD becomes necessary. The degree signals that you have spent years studying the discipline deeply enough to guide others through it.

5. You value the formation that comes through endurance

When someone earns a PhD, it says something about their character.

It means they can commit themselves to a long process. They can develop a method for studying a problem. They have engaged hundreds of books and articles. They wrote something substantial that contributes to an ongoing conversation.

That level of endurance requires discipline, patience, and humility (because you will be corrected often).

The process trains you to think carefully and to persist through long stretches of work that offer little immediate reward. That formation alone can make the experience worthwhile.

Let me talk you out of a PhD

I have also watched many people begin the PhD conversation with great excitement. Then the process stalls before a proposal is ever written.

So here is the other side of the conversation. As the old proverb says, Caveat emptor (“Let the buyer beware!”).

1. There are no shortcuts

A PhD usually takes five to seven years. Sometimes longer.

Certain chapters may take a year or two to complete. You will read books that turn out to be useless and buy expensive monographs that contribute only a single footnote. I once purchased a book for ninety dollars and realized within two minutes that I did not need it.

Your supervisor will return drafts with comments that send you back to work again. At one point, I spent nine months writing my first chapter, only to be told that the structure was wrong and needed to be rewritten.

There is no clever way around the work.

2. It is expensive

Doctoral programs vary widely in cost, but it is common to hear numbers between forty and eighty thousand dollars.

Some programs offer scholarships. Some universities provide funding packages. Those opportunities exist. Still, many people pay a significant portion of the cost out of pocket.

Other pressures tend to accompany the intellectual and financial pressures: tuition payments arrive while chapters are still unfinished, conferences require travel, and books continue to accumulate.

The rewards, if they come, arrive slowly.

3. Mental health can suffer

We need to be honest here: Studies suggest that depression and anxiety are highly prevalent among PhD students.³

When people imagine doctoral study, they picture the prestige of the degree, the books they might publish, or the conferences where they will present. What they often overlook is the isolation.

You may spend long stretches working alone. Deadlines will loom constantly. Drafts will return with pages of corrections.

During my own program, I gained forty pounds. My weakness became key lime pie. After long writing sessions, I would sit at my desk and eat an entire one straight from the tin with a fork. I also developed a kind of obsessive attention to detail. Hours disappeared while adjusting footnotes. Parsing through bibliographical entries trained me to fuss over everything in my personal space: the wrinkles in my clothes, the objects in my home, the way my refrigerator was organized. It was misery.

4. The academic job market is tight

The number of full-time faculty positions is shrinking. Many universities have reduced or merged programs in the humanities. Theology departments face similar pressures. Adjunct teaching has increased. Tenure-track positions appear less frequently.

The familiar image of the gray-haired professor lecturing in a tweed jacket in a quiet hall is fading. That does not mean doctoral training is useless. It does mean that those who complete the degree may need an extra dose of creativity to figure out how to use their expertise.

5. You might become unbearable

There is also a social risk.

When you pursue a PhD, you spend years thinking about your thinking. You constantly analyze arguments, evidence, assumptions, and conclusions.

Eventually that habit follows you everywhere. You begin explaining things that no one asked about. Conversations drift toward analysis when they were meant to be casual. Friends may grow weary when ordinary discussions turn into miniature lectures.

It is difficult to notice when this shift happens. It is even harder to stop.

You decide!

The decision to pursue a PhD carries both risks and rewards. The process can shape your mind and open doors that would otherwise remain closed. It can also cost years of effort, a great deal of money, and a fair amount of emotional strain.

Before moving forward, it is wise to discuss the decision with the people closest to you. An informed decision is always the best decision. Whether your answer is yes or no, clarity is a gift.

Share your thoughts

Why should—or shouldn’t—one get a PhD? Join us in the Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Resources for further reflection

Related content

• Applying for a Doctoral Program? 7 Essential Tips
• 8 Tips for Finding a Thesis or Dissertation Topic
• 3 Misguided Narratives About Success in Seminary
• The Importance of Theological Education | Albert Mohler

1. See “PhD Percentage per Country 2026,” World Population Review, accessed March 8, 2026, https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/phd-percentage-by-country.
2. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading (Simon & Schuster, 1972), 11.
3. For more mental health statistics related to PhD studies, see Emily N. Satinsky et al., “Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Depression, Anxiety, and Suicidal Ideation among Ph.D. Students,” Scientific Reports 11 (2021).