Preventing cannibalism

Academia eats its young. For breakfast. I think it especially delects on its daughters, but generally devours its young, perhaps but for the prickliest or feistiest.
I am, like everyone else, heavily informed by my own experience.
Back in February, Lawrence Summers, no less than president of Harvard, went to a National Bureau of Economic Research conference and said that to his mind, the lack of women in academia had less to do with discrimination than with inate ability, there being simply fewer exceptionally intelligent women than men. This touched off quite a tempest, and a continuing debate in the editorial pages of scientific journals.
Over the summer, Ben Barres, professor at Stanford, wrote a pointed and also deeply personal rebuke in Nature. His piece was heavily informed by his own experience as a transgendered person, havig begun his scientific career as a woman prior to his sex change. To me, the most poignant part of his article was when, after he began living as a man in 1997, Barres overheard another scientist say, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but his work is much better than his sister's work."
Then in September, the National Academies published a study which stated that U.S. universities foster "a culture that fundamentally discriminates against women." More letters to editors again.
In the pages of Science a couple of issues ago, another (male) prof weighs in "There are, in fact, cultural reasons why women are less represented in academia. Academic jobs favor individuals who are able to commit to the long hours that it takes to make it to the top. Many such individuals have stay-at-home spouses. [...] Perhaps rather than reflexively blaming every gender difference on "bias," we should be telling women to marry a man who makes less money than she does. "
A couple of years ago, when I was done with my PhD and working as an Executive Fellow in the Governor's Office, I left work early one afternoon to attend a seminar with Mike back on campus. The speaker was an upper-echelon mucky-muck at the USDA where I might have liked to apply for a job. I was dressed in my Gov's Office suit, Mike in his grad student grunges. After the seminar, I waited dutifuly for the speaker to get done with another prof to introduce myself. Mike roamed around waiting for me. Then, after a long while, Mike came to stand beside me. Within seconds, mr. muck turned around to introduce HIMself to Mike and shake his hand. I had apparently morphed into a piece of furniture, unbeknownst to me.
You go to college for four years like all your peers. Then, your advisors in college recognize that you are on top of your stuff, that you are doing well, and they see something of themselves, they encourage you to think about graduate school to attain their ranks. Your peers are heading to law/business/medical/professional school but you are choosing that other route, you loved college and you basically want to stay in school forever. You head for a PhD, so you can join the ranks for whom campus is home. Five years of advertized normative time stretch easily to eight (and I was lucky) and by then, you are sick of it. Were you to follow the beaten path, you would then head into the first of perhaps up to four post-doctoral fellowships, continue to hone and hone and hone your skills (keep sharpening a knife and you'll have very little of it left, though), and then finally achieve that hallowed "tenure-track" job which means another five years of rat-race and prove yourself worthy of tenure. If you're normal, by then, you are, what, 40 years old? Kids, what kids? Life, what life? Each one of those jobs has meant relocation, dislocation, a new university, a new culture. The only people for whom this works are the single, unattached, preferrably unattachable. Monks. The monastic model having after all been the foundation for universities to begin with of course.
That guy with the idea that academics should marry low-ambition spouses isn't that far off.
I fell off the horse somewhere. I said no thanks. I decided for the softer "academic affairs" route, deciding that I could perhaps negotiate campus life by opting for a fringe career in academic service. I find many peers here, fallen PhDs who simply have better things to do than offer themselves to martyrdom. I am so glad I did. My children shall not go to graduate school, it simply is not worth it. Please never ask me again to advise enthusiastic high-achieving undergraduates on graduate school admission. It is not worth it. Graduate school is some kind of fancily dressed pyramid scheme. Universities need low-cost specialized labor to accrue research prominence, the more people they recruit the more they accrue, and the poor tired Amway grad students finally rise up the ranks, but can only make their own mark and assure their own position by exploiting students themselves.
What I'd like to do now is somehow warn undergraduates to fear to tread into graduate school. I've spoken to countless people, faculty and others with PhDs, who are committed to keeping their own offspring out of academia. But how do you warn the unwitting masses, especially those "in the pipeline," recruited from working class ranks, bedazzled by the promise of authority and title? Go be an attorney, a physical therapist, a teacher, fine professions that get you earning, authority and freedom so much sooner. You can come back to campus and visit anytime; it's a nice place to visit but you might not want to live here.