Six months ago I conducted a focus group at Columbia University. My group comprised 17 women in the fifth year of graduate study, on the brink of getting that long-sought-after PhD.

One of the startling takeaways: Only three of the participants were planning on a career in academia. Four were struggling to cross over into the private sector. But fully 10 were intent on abandoning their fields altogether. One women was joining a brokerage house, another was about to take a job as a paralegal.

Why this brain drain?

These women were profoundly turned off by the academic career path. Looking ahead they saw intense competitive pressure and the likelihood of major sacrifice on the family front.

Career pressures are at fever pitch during the “make or break” period that leads to the tenure decision—a period which has lengthened in recent years. According to Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason Ekman (Mothers on the Fast Track), a ramping up of standards and – at least in science – the proliferation of postdocs, has pushed out the tenure decision to age 38. Women in the academic sector must either delay childbearing until after the tenure decision and risk age-related infertility – or attempt to fold children into an 80-hour workweek.

At the heart of the problem: academic institutions make few accommodations to women’s lives. They have much to learn from the private sector.

Over the last five years, cutting-edge companies have re-fashioned career paths so as to do a much better job retaining and reattaching female talent.

Ernst & Young, for example, offers a rich menu of flexible work arrangements. 27% of female senior managers now work on formal flexible work arrangements such as reduced schedules or telework arrangements, and all employees have access to day-to-day flexibility.

American Express has launched the Project Resource Team (PRT), an innovative flexible working model to help retain high-performing individuals, in several businesses, with plans to expand in 2008. Through the PRT, high value, strategic work is “chunked out” as consulting assignments. This platform helps retain employees who might otherwise leave and helps to ensure that their careers are not interrupted.

Lehman Brothers is also a case in point. In 2005, Lehman started an on-ramping program called Encore which welcomed back women who had taken “time out” of financial sector careers. By offering highly qualified off-ramped women a second shot at careers in the financial sector, Lehman is tapping into a talent pool that was going to waste. Goldman Sachs and UBS have created similar programs.

Universities should pay attention here. Women comprise half of the academic talent pipeline, and yet only 24% of full professors around the country are female. It’s high time the academic sector figured out how to better utilize this precious talent.