Seems like a larger version of what is happening in rad onc with the same root cause. I know people who went to pharmacy school in the early 2000's and admission was at least somewhat rigorous. Now just about anyone with a pulse can get in. Greedy "academics" never seem to want to clean up the messes they create.
The number of applicants to US pharmacy schools has been declining since 2013, leading to a national enrollment crisis. Enrollment challenges threaten the viability of many pharmacy programs. Some schools are better equipped than others to confront the risk of having to downsize or close...
www.ajpe.org
"Unprecedented academic expansion left in its wake a new era in which the Academy is facing a severe enrollment crisis. The number of verified Pharmacy College Application Service (PharmCAS) applicants has decreased every year since 2013 when it peaked at 17,617. The number had fallen to 15,335 by 2019, and based on a June 2020 PharmCAS update, is poised to fall another 11.0% to about 14,000 during the 2019-2020 admission cycle, which constitutes a drop of 20% since 2017. The average enrollment of an entering class has dropped annually since 2012, from 124 to 102. According to an American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) survey completed in March 2020, of the 134 respondent schools, 62% reported not being able to fill the entering class in 2019, with a mean of 15.6 unfilled seats. The Academy has reached an ominous point of critical mass, in which the number of applicants is barely equal to the number of available seats."
"Gone are the days of guaranteed full-time, high-paying positions for graduates straight out of pharmacy school. Many pharmacy graduates are faced with accepting part-time or per diem positions, reduced salaries, difficult working conditions, undesirable locations, and/or unemployment. It is no wonder that fewer students are choosing pharmacy as a career. The value is not what it used to be.
Some pharmacy leaders downplay the role of academic expansion as the primary cause of diminishing enrollment based on the premise that an unstable economy and fewer high school graduates are precipitating factors. However, such inferences are contradicted by the growing number of applicants to some other health profession programs. From 2002 to 2018, enrollment in medical schools increased 31%. Total enrollment of the first-year classes in colleges of osteopathic medicine grew 27% from 2013 to 2018."
"Many current faculty members occupy positions within pharmacy schools that would not exist had it not been for years of academic expansion. Between 2006 and 2018, the number of full-time pharmacy faculty members rose 60%, from 4,121 to 6,574"