Top 20% of PhD Programs Produce 75% of Political Science Faculty

📊 What the placement data covers

A complete census was compiled of every tenure-track (TT) faculty member in the 122 PhD-granting political science departments in the United States to identify which graduate programs place faculty into the discipline's research universities.

📚 What the numbers show

• The top 20% of departments produced 75% of all faculty at research universities.
• The bottom 50% of programs accounted for less than 5% of all TT faculty members at research universities.
• Forty-nine programs had no graduates placed in a TT position at a PhD-granting department in the past 10 years.
• Eighteen programs have never had a graduate in a TT position at a PhD-granting department.
• The overwhelming majority of TT faculty members are employed at departments that are ranked equal to or lower than their PhD programs.

🧭 What this means for students and the field

These placement patterns indicate a highly concentrated academic job market in political science: a small set of PhD programs supplies the bulk of tenure-track faculty at research universities. This concentration has direct consequences for prospective graduate students' career prospects and may shape the future composition and intellectual trajectories of the discipline.

🔎 How the study was done

• Data: A full count of TT faculty across all 122 U.S. PhD-granting political science departments.
• Objective: Trace doctoral origin to current TT placement at PhD-granting research departments to measure program-level placement outcomes.

⚖️ Why readers should care

The stark disparities in placement rates provide actionable information for prospective PhD applicants evaluating programs and raise questions about how program prestige and hiring patterns influence diversity, opportunity, and the long-term health of the discipline.