by Robert (Robby) Cserni*

On a Zoom call, Greg, a graduate student in social work, described a problem that had nothing to do with his ability. Strong grades, clear research questions, two years into a thesis that should have been finished. The reason it was not finished was that his two advisors could not agree on his theoretical framework. One, a senior professor, wanted the project anchored in a tradition she knew well. The other, an early career academic, pushed in a different direction entirely. Greg was not struggling with the work. He was managing a political conflict between two faculty members, and there was no one in his department whose job was to help him do that.
The gap between what scholars need and what institutions provide does not close at graduation. Emily had a PhD from a program where she felt well supported. Once she became an assistant professor, that support disappeared. She faced real decisions: whether to stay or move to another institution, how to position herself in a system she was still learning, what the hidden costs of each option might be. She needed a strategic sounding board for these questions. Her former advisor had moved on to new students. Reaching back felt like imposing. Her current institution offered no mentoring structure for early career faculty. The assumption seemed to be that the doctorate had prepared her for everything that would follow. It had not.
These are not new problems. Advisors have clashed and early career scholars have lacked mentoring for as long as universities have existed. What has changed is the scale at which they go unaddressed. What Slaughter and Leslie (1997) called academic capitalism, a framework describing the marketization of the university, the casualization of its workforce, and the prioritization of revenue over educational mission, has reshaped the conditions under which scholars develop. Three main shifts have converged to exacerbate this condition in the past two decades.
First, the permanent faculty who might once have served as mentors are a shrinking share of the academic workforce. In the US, 68 percent of faculty now hold contingent appointments, up from 47 percent in 1987, according to federal data analyzed by the American Association of University Professors. Only about a third of the workforce holds the kind of permanent position that makes sustained mentoring possible. The pattern extends internationally: in the UK, 35 percent of academic staff hold teaching-only contracts, and estimates from Australia suggest that up to 60 percent of the academic workforce is precariously employed. Faculty in precarious positions are unlikely to have the institutional security or protected time to mentor others through complex academic transitions.
Second, the population navigating these weakened structures has become far more complex. According to UNESCO, 6.9 million students now study outside their home countries, a number that has tripled since 2000. This growth is especially pronounced at the doctoral level: international students represent nearly a quarter of doctoral enrollment across OECD countries. Many of these scholars arrive in systems where the expectations around supervision, feedback, and career progression work differently from what they know, and where no one explains the differences.
Third, the formal support structures that exist within universities were designed for a smaller, more homogeneous student population and for a time when a PhD led to a more predictable career path. Neither of those conditions holds. The National Academies have noted that graduate programs often fail to prepare students for diverse career pathways. The Nature PhD surveys consistently identify career preparation and mentoring as areas of significant dissatisfaction. The job market has become radically uncertain, and the support infrastructure has barely acknowledged it.
The support function, in other words, has migrated outside the institution. Academic coaching, far from a lifestyle trend, is one of the structural responses to this shift. Practices like The Global Academic Studio have emerged where the gap between institutional promise and institutional reality has grown too wide for scholars like Greg and Hannah to navigate alone.
The mentoring function in higher education has not disappeared. It has been displaced. What was once unevenly and informally provided within the institution is now something the individual scholar seeks out externally, and increasingly, pays for. For scholars of economic sociology and political economy, this should be a familiar pattern: the same forces that restructured academic labor and commercialized research have now reached the developmental infrastructure of the university itself.
————————-
* Robert (Robby) Cserni, PhD, is an academic coach and the founder of The Global Academic Studio (theglobalacademicstudio.com), a coaching practice for international graduate students and early career academics. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Stony Brook University. His research focuses on cultural globalization, technology, and cross-national comparison. He served as Managing Editor of Men and Masculinities (14 issues) and has taught and researched across academic systems in the US, the UK, Israel and Romania.

***
Since you find value in the content and resources shared by the ES/PE community, please consider making a contribution to help sustain our work. Your support is vital to maintaining our independence and carrying forward our mission. Intellectual and civic solidarity matters now more than ever. Every contribution makes a meaningful difference and helps ensure the continuation of accessible scholarship and useful information. Donate securely now via this PayPal link. 
Thank you!