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PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs

236 points by Thebroser 4y ago

jnash 4y ago
US Universities are investment funds with a bit of teaching/research attached to it.
IMTDb 4y ago
Note that this applies to biology PhD. Isn't a solution to reduce the amount of fellowship offered and increase the stipend. This would reduce the amount of publications, but potentially increase the average "quality" if more money means that students won't have to look for money on the side, and also if there is a more careful selection of the candidates.
- hwbehrens 4y ago
  > Note that this applies to biology PhD. While the article specifically calls out biology programs, at my university the CS department is similarly affected. (Stipends are set at a standard rate for all engineering depts.) If your stipend is $19K, a single student's take-home pay is $16,734, less ~$1,600 in required departmental fees. So, you've got about $1261/mo to pay for everything. If you split a 1-bedroom for $2.2K (not including utilities), that means you've got $161 for electricity, food, phone, internet, fun, literally every other expense for the rest of the month. The rapid rise in rents is the big killer here -- the difference between $500 and $1000 for a shared room is more than enough to break the bank.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > If your stipend is $19K, a single student's take-home pay is $16,734, less ~$1,600 in required departmental fees. So, you've got about $1261/mo to pay for everything. If you split a 1-bedroom for $2.2K (not including utilities), that means you've got $161 for electricity, food, phone, internet, fun, literally every other expense for the rest of the month. Where is this? When I started my PhD in the early 2000's, my after tax monthly income (state school) was $1400-1500 per month, which is more than what you listed above. Granted, we got paid only 11 months of the year, and yes, did pay university fees, so the total per month may have been similar, but: Seriously, this was almost 20 years ago - I'm sure they pay more now. Either your numbers are off, or your school sucks (sadly, quite likely). When I went to grad school, my original goal was Berkeley. But when I found out how expensive it was to live there, I picked a top school in a cheaper town. The monthly stipend was only $100/mo less than at Berkeley, but rent was several hundred dollars cheaper. Edit: Hard to find numbers quickly, but just checked and one of the engineering programs there currently pay $2300/mo (11 months a year). That's $25K vs your $19K. Of course, in some cities, that's still not enough.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    If you know you're going to be living on $1261 / mo there are plenty of decent engineering schools in low cost of living areas. I don't know why on earth you would choose a place with that kind of housing market if you know you're going to live on poverty wages.
  - kevinventullo 4y ago
    The last point is critical. This issue could largely be mitigated by subsidized grad student housing. It might be more like a dorm than an apartment, but I think many grad students would be fine with that.
natly 4y ago
Almost as if the STEM shortage wasn't a shortage in the first place hm..
- arminiusreturns 4y ago
  Is it just me or is the rampant abuse of the H1B system absolutely prolific but a sort of hush topic in SV? The more I see the hiring from the inside the more obvious the exploitation seems. I would really like some context from someone with a more positive view of the subject as it is really souring me to current management methodologies from a nationalistic perspective at least within my filter bubble.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Let me burn up my hard-earned karma to answer your question honestly. I hope you catch this before it’s flagged and downvoted into oblivion Yes, the H1B system is grossly abused. Yes, it is a hush-hush topic in Silicon Valley and on this site. The evidence is right there in front of us. 40 years ago, the USA was the clear leader in technology. We had no trouble producing both factory workers and tech geniuses. We were literally the envy of the world. Doctors were paid more than they are now, we made our own cars from scratch, and our press pretended not to be partisan a lot of the time. Other countries got smart and started sending their students here, in the cases of countries like China, as official acts in their national interest. Along with the H1B visa problem, the US has been leading in massive numbers of immigrants, legal and illegal, who are not asked to respect citizenship in their own country. Imagine China, Denmark, Iceland, or Japan doing something like that. It would be unthinkable to them. The biggest villain is of course the citizens of the United States. They no longer encourage their children to tackle Issues that may be difficult for them or that may make them feel bad as they struggle to learn. They no longer regard the founding principles as unique and precious, which they most certainly are. They no longer view the United States as uniquely suited to help move the world forward in civil rights or ingenuity. And finally, our political class doesn’t give a shit about citizens. Republicans and Democrats are equally rife with corruption and exist only to preserve their own power. The uniparty sends our children and our treasure to wars where no national interest is present. Our three letter institutions violate their own principles, the law, and the sovereignty of other countries routinely. Anyone who has read the history of Rome or Britain or China can see where we are in the lifecycle of this special experiment called the United States of America. It is a tragedy not only for us, but for the rest of the world as well.
cratermoon 4y ago
So do vast swathes of Americans. Pop quiz: In what countries does it cost a full day's wages or more to fill a car's gas tank? US minimum wage is $7.25/hr. As of this writing, US gas prices average $4.71/gal. For a typical car the gas tank holds about 15 gallons. Even a small car would have a 12 gallon tank.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > In what countries does it cost a full day's wages or more to fill a car's gas tank? Most countries.
- bsagdiyev 4y ago
  Pretty much every other country in the world. Europe pays $8/gal or more depending.
  - mberning 4y ago
    People in the US are very spoiled in this regard. In Europe and Asia having a car and being able to afford to drive it is honestly a luxury.
    - tyoma 4y ago
      In most of the US a car is a necessity. Public transport is either non-existant or so badly done it is effectively unusable.
      - cratermoon 4y ago
        > or so badly done it is effectively unusable This is intentional. See General Motors streetcar conspiracy.
    - rabuse 4y ago
      It's not really "spoiled", as that is the price due to the fuel taxes in Europe, where the U.S. pays almost nothing in fuel tax. If they don't like that high of a fuel price, then they're free to vote for another party.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
I think the PhD is overrated, and along with that I think a lot of university education is overrated; note this is someone with two BA's and a Masters. Unless you're teaching, or doing some hard core research, I don't see that the PhD is necessary or even a good investment. That time could have been spent gaining experience, which IMHO, is extremely valuable.
- s1dev 4y ago
  I don’t think anyone does grad school expecting that it’s going to be a good investment. Most people I know do it because they can’t imagine themselves doing anything other than research. Is it a waste if afterwards you just get some 9-5 software or finance gig? Definitely. That said, there’s few other ways you get to spend several years becoming a world expert *in a topic of your choice*
- tombert 4y ago
  Part of the annoyance there is that most research gigs are gatekept behind doctorates. I cannot tell you how many times I've been declined from Microsoft Research, despite having a bachelors degree and more than a decade of industry experience, specifically because I'm "not qualified enough" for a research engineer experience. > That time could have been spent gaining experience, which IMHO, is extremely valuable. I certainly agree that if your goal is to maximize earning potential, than there's no question that industry experience is substantially more valuable than a PhD.
  - zenithd 4y ago
  - hedora 4y ago
    MSR is pretty competitive. How many papers do you publish in a typical year?
    - tombert 4y ago
      None thus far. To be clear, and I realize that the tone of my comment might come off as a bit more bitter than I intended it to, I don't blame MS for declining me. Obviously they're free to decline anyone they'd like, and I'm sure they get people with PhDs and industry experience all the time.
tombert 4y ago
It's a bit of a shame that the US doesn't really allow part time PhDs (at least not in any of the schools that I asked). If they did, conceivably a lot of these students could get a relatively well-paying job in engineering or a lab or something, and as such the schools could get away with paying less. Part of the reason that I didn't bother trying to pursue the CUNY PhD in mathematics was specifically because the stipend they were offering wouldn't be enough to cover my mortgage (~$2,000/month), and they didn't offer any kind of part-time plan.
- FunnyBadger 4y ago
  They definitely do in engineering - USC and UCLA had most of its PhD students working full time in industry and only part time in their PhD program and grad school generally. I know because I was one of them.
  - david38 4y ago
    I have never heard of this for computer science. I went to UIUC so I am only talking about the Midwest. How would you have time to finish? A full time PhD works a LOT. I can’t imagine doubling the time to a PhD.
    - abhgh 4y ago
      I did a part-time PhD (not in the US, so I am only responding to the latter part of your comment). It's hard, exhausting and can occasionally be frustrating. I gave up most of my weekends during the time. My sleep hours were less than what they should have been - and I did this for years. If you're wondering, it did lead to some health problems (esp. my back), thankfully not major, most of which I've recovered from. Do it only if research really interests you - this was my case, so the sense of gratification from learning and finding out things offset many of the negatives. Also, having a patient advisor and good friends helped a lot.
      - tombert 4y ago
        Out of curiosity, since you've gone through this before, do you have any advice on the best way to manage your time doing a part-time PhD. I've started my part-time a month ago, and it's been pretty exhausting already, and I suspect it will get harder. How did you budget time to talk to family, or to do something for yourself to avoid burnout?
pastor_bob 4y ago
Newsflash: "Not having a profitable job well into your 30s leaves you poor, study finds"
Kevin_S 4y ago
I know biology and many other STEM stipends are very low. As someone in a business field with a very high stipend (32k), I am also feeling the pinch. My wife and I keep a relatively strict budget and I track with YNAB, and gas alone is pretty damaging to our spare income. And I am lucky to be at an institution in a college town with a relatively low cost of living. I don't know how my peers in cities like Boston do it.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Have you considered a used bicycle for transportation? Hobbyists refurbish old steel frames that last forever and work as well as they did on day one, and they're usually $100-$300 depending on your desired comfort level.
FunnyBadger 4y ago
How is this any different from 20, 30, 40 years ago?? Hint: it's not.
- fny 4y ago
  Hint: it's a lot worse.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  Does that make it viable or worth continuing? Hint: No.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sudden_dystopia 4y ago
  I believe that FunnyBadger is pointing out that people have been pointing this out for a long time and is frustrated that nobody has paid attention to it until it became a crisis. You know, kind of like how we treat every other problem we have.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    It's not a crisis. People are simply louder about it now. When people stop signing up for PhD programs, THEN it's a crisis. Until then, the system has no reason to care, thus the general public will remain completely oblivious.
- coldcode 4y ago
  I was accepted into a Chem PhD program in the early 80's, but knew it would pay crap for years, so I figured I could work as a programmer for a couple years and save some money. 40 years later - I never went back to the PhD.
- muh_gradle 4y ago
  Wages are sticky. Inflation keeps on going up. It's worse.
kyle_martin1 4y ago
uberman 4y ago
While I agree that PhD students don't get enough cash on a weekly basis to get buy, they are certainly compensated well above what is quoted in the article. International PhD students by law cannot work more than 20 hours a week. Most institutions cap paid responsibilities at 20 hours a week. Most have 9 month appointments, most likely get the full cost of their tuition and fees waved. Most of the time waved costs such as tuition are not counted as compensation so are tax free. Most likely get healthcare. A PhD student at U-FL has an effective compensation package well above 75k per year even though they only directly see 18k in pay.
- mbauman 4y ago
  > PhD students by law cannot work more than 20 hours a week. Most have 9 month stipend appointments. Wat. Citation needed.
  - uberman 4y ago
    Sorry, I posted faster than I was thinking. F1 students are limited by law to 20 hours a week and where I work, stipend responsibilities are similarly capped at 20 hours though though that is not a legal cap, just one that aligns with the international cap.
    - mbauman 4y ago
      There are both TA assistantships and research assistantships. As a graduate student researcher, your stipend "responsibilities" include research output.
      - uberman 4y ago
        I'm not sure where you are going with this. Certainly you can have a TA/RA/FA appointment and sometimes a combination of the three. At the university I work at, you should not technically be assigned more than 20 hours a week over those responsibilities. This blanket policy means faculty don't have to account for the potential visa limits of the individual students they work with. Note though that an RA is research of behalf of a faculty member. Your RA and compensation for it is for assisting with that research. It is not for conducting your own research even if you dovetail it it to a larger research/lab project. In fact, you almost certainly need to pay for the use of the lab and project data via authorship (sometimes first authorship). I'm not debating that this is fair. Going back to my original post though I'm just calling out that the total compensation package for phd candidates far exceeds their take home pay.
nomilk 4y ago
3 years' of pain is worth it for many in computing, data science, and engineering, because it will definitely give candidates an edge for the rest of their careers. But PhDs in some (not all) non-STEM fields almost seem like a blight on one's resume, and could make a PhD candidate's career harder, not easier. Is that a signal there's an oversupply of PhDs in some disciplines? Possibly. Interested to look into longitudinal studies of PhD students of different disciplines and where they end up 10 years' later..
- mrfox321 4y ago
  In the us, a PhD is 5-6 years if you include the masters that is potentially received along the way.
lazyjeff 4y ago
I recently collected the first-year PhD stipends in computer science across 39 university departments, to have a real sense of the numbers. Basically to have a fair comparison, because a lot of reported stipends aren't clear whether they are 9-month or 12-month stipends, and stipends can different depending on the year/candidacy of the student. Data: https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#verified-computer-science-phd-stipends https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#verified-c... The main conclusions I arrived at from this exercise is that 1) CS stipends vary quite a bit but have slowly been increasing, but NSF funding needs to catch up for them to go higher, 2) the 12-month stipend makes a big difference from the 9-month stipend, and I think universities should guarantee the 12-month stipend (which only half do), rather than making summer stipend dependent on availability of advisor funding or student jobs (like TAing).
- Aperocky 4y ago
  It can be argued that the credential to land a PhD in CS in any of these university would have most of the time guaranteed a much much higher paying job in the industry, and potentially less stressful one at that.
- bachmeier 4y ago
  > universities should guarantee the 12-month stipend I'm not sure how this would work in practice. If you hand out 12-month contracts, you'll lose a ton of students, because they often want the summer for themselves (in many cases, they are from another country and want to travel home, or they have a spouse working somewhere else in the country). If you give the students the option on an annual basis, a school like Columbia might have the money to cover unanticipated expenses, but mine does not. > rather than making summer stipend dependent on availability of advisor funding or student jobs (like TAing) The money has to come from somewhere.
  - lazyjeff 4y ago
    > I'm not sure how this would work in practice. It's already working in practice for almost half the universities: summer stipends are guaranteed, but if students choose to intern elsewhere, you don't get the summer stipend. Nothing changes if their advisor is already funding them. I'm just saying the other half of universities should be doing this as well, that it should be universal. Yes it does cost a bit, but if you think about what's happening now for universities with no summer guarantee, it's that PhD students without summer internships are getting no pay in the summer. And even the ones that do find summer pay, it's still a stressful situation for them during the academic year, so a complete distraction. Honestly, I can't think of a better use of university money than to be paying PhD students who would otherwise be working for free in the summer (if their advisor can't fund them).
miked85 4y ago
> spark calls for action If the action is having everyone else (including many who never attended college) pay off their debt, that seems like a bad idea. This just seems like a bad decision on the PhD student's part.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Or... universities could... PAY THEM? Look at the endowments. Look at the tuition costs. Look at the grants. Where is the money going? As usual in the US, not to the people doing the work.
boldlybold 4y ago
This led to me consulting during my PhD to supplement the stipend up to a reasonable salary. A lot of PhD students, especially if your work touches on computational sciences, are a lot more valuable than the university would like you to believe. After moving to industry, I'm starting to realize how valuable the consulting experience was. The project management and scoping skills, and wearing multiple hats, were big benefits.
- lnwlebjel 4y ago
  > than the university would like you to believe. You may not know it, but the truth is more like "than the university is able to pay". These are non-profit institutions, typically. Consulting is a great idea for many reasons, not the least of which is building your network.
  - boldlybold 4y ago
    Non-profit institutions with billion-dollar endowments, massive overhead costs, and "tuition" charges that make no sense. I have a really hard time believing this for the larger institutions.
- lupire 4y ago
  > are a lot more valuable than the university would like you to believe. Category error. Correction: You have the ability to do outside work that pays more than anything the University needs. It's not the university's fault if you want to do a low value research job at the university.
  - seoaeu 4y ago
    The rate universities charge external funding agencies for one hour or one year of grad student research work is substantially higher than what the student gets paid for that amount of work
debacle 4y ago
Getting a PhD is an investment. How do you delineate a bear market for skills? Is it generally congruous with a bear market for assets/investment?
29athrowaway 4y ago
Economically punishing prospect scientists is the reason we don't have flying cars.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DickieStarshine 4y ago
I'm a software developer in a large german city and I'm facing this issue. Rent is very high, around 50% of my net income. Food gets more expensive by the day and the war in the Ukraine isn't even factored in yet. I can't live outside the city since I need to go to the office 2-3 times per week just for the privilege to stare at my monitor there, just like at home.
throwaway956373 4y ago
I'm a CS PhD student in a place where rents are really high, but I pay no rent because I have an RA position in an undergrad dorm. It's not very much additional work, and saves me a lot of money. If you're a cash-strapped PhD student and your university allows grad student RAs, you owe it to yourself to apply.
lightweightbaby 4y ago
In case some is curious about how it is in Europe: I'm a PhD student (physics) in Denmark and I get 2500$/month after tax. I save from 1000$ to 1500$ each month. Disclaimer: I bike everywhere and share a 1400$/month flat with partner. Also, the entire pay comes directly from the university, I never had to apply to get funding after getting accepted (this was the main reason to go to Denmark).
- plopilop 4y ago
  Here in France: I had a ~1 900€ salary after taxes (incl. income tax, 2 000€ otherwise) but because I was working in a company fulltime (the contract stated I was to devote myself 100% to my research, the reality was different but that's another topic). My partner, on the other hand, has a public contract (with teaching charge), she gets around 1 400€ after taxes. Living with this in Paris is not easy (1 studio of 15m² will cost around 650-700€)
sbarbarian 4y ago
I deferred joining a Bio lab out of undergrad after being pulled aside during my acceptance visit and given an 'academia life 101' from a postdoc. There were too many bio PhDs, too few academic positions, and too few opportunities in the business sector to have a lucrative and fulfilling career. Unless I was very lucky - according to this postdoc - I was making a poor decision. He advised me to go to industry a few years then reconsider. I never looked back, and I often reflect on his intervention. It saddens me greatly that many of my friends still in Bio have lived this prediction, while meanwhile academica's administrative staff counts (and salaries) balloon. For all the promise to human economy, bio is still astoundingly complex, difficult to monetize, and hard to justify increased budgets for. On the flip side, as essential to our planet and culture as understanding esoteric biological knowledge is (e.g. deep-sea fish behavior), nobody is willing to fund it at the scale needed before much of it disappears forever thanks to climate change. Not sure how the wage issue can be solved, but more sources of funding towards hard research for research's sake (i.e. fact-finding in-vivo science) seems like it could help. So too, could forcing schools to obviously pay more by reducing the amount of admitted students. Less labor supply could give some leverage to often powerless grad students.
dathinab 4y ago
As far as I can tell what he did is more or less common business in high speed currency trading (and part of the reason the EU originally planed to ban it, until lobby corruption happened). If your trading bot (here the "algorithm of the index") messes up you are deep in problems because other bots and people will find it and will use it to their advantage.
tpoacher 4y ago
Meanwhile, PhD students in the UK: https://imgflip.com/i/6i0u84 https://imgflip.com/i/6i0u84

236 points by Thebroser 4y ago

US Universities are investment funds with a bit of teaching/research attached to it.

Note that this applies to biology PhD. Isn't a solution to reduce the amount of fellowship offered and increase the stipend. This would reduce the amount of publications, but potentially increase the average "quality" if more money means that students won't have to look for money on the side, and also if there is a more careful selection of the candidates.

hwbehrens 4y ago
> Note that this applies to biology PhD. While the article specifically calls out biology programs, at my university the CS department is similarly affected. (Stipends are set at a standard rate for all engineering depts.) If your stipend is $19K, a single student's take-home pay is $16,734, less ~$1,600 in required departmental fees. So, you've got about $1261/mo to pay for everything. If you split a 1-bedroom for $2.2K (not including utilities), that means you've got $161 for electricity, food, phone, internet, fun, literally every other expense for the rest of the month. The rapid rise in rents is the big killer here -- the difference between $500 and $1000 for a shared room is more than enough to break the bank.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > If your stipend is $19K, a single student's take-home pay is $16,734, less ~$1,600 in required departmental fees. So, you've got about $1261/mo to pay for everything. If you split a 1-bedroom for $2.2K (not including utilities), that means you've got $161 for electricity, food, phone, internet, fun, literally every other expense for the rest of the month. Where is this? When I started my PhD in the early 2000's, my after tax monthly income (state school) was $1400-1500 per month, which is more than what you listed above. Granted, we got paid only 11 months of the year, and yes, did pay university fees, so the total per month may have been similar, but: Seriously, this was almost 20 years ago - I'm sure they pay more now. Either your numbers are off, or your school sucks (sadly, quite likely). When I went to grad school, my original goal was Berkeley. But when I found out how expensive it was to live there, I picked a top school in a cheaper town. The monthly stipend was only $100/mo less than at Berkeley, but rent was several hundred dollars cheaper. Edit: Hard to find numbers quickly, but just checked and one of the engineering programs there currently pay $2300/mo (11 months a year). That's $25K vs your $19K. Of course, in some cities, that's still not enough.
- notch656a 4y ago
  If you know you're going to be living on $1261 / mo there are plenty of decent engineering schools in low cost of living areas. I don't know why on earth you would choose a place with that kind of housing market if you know you're going to live on poverty wages.
- kevinventullo 4y ago
  The last point is critical. This issue could largely be mitigated by subsidized grad student housing. It might be more like a dorm than an apartment, but I think many grad students would be fine with that.

natly 4y ago

Almost as if the STEM shortage wasn't a shortage in the first place hm..

arminiusreturns 4y ago
Is it just me or is the rampant abuse of the H1B system absolutely prolific but a sort of hush topic in SV? The more I see the hiring from the inside the more obvious the exploitation seems. I would really like some context from someone with a more positive view of the subject as it is really souring me to current management methodologies from a nationalistic perspective at least within my filter bubble.
- tomcam 4y ago
  Let me burn up my hard-earned karma to answer your question honestly. I hope you catch this before it’s flagged and downvoted into oblivion Yes, the H1B system is grossly abused. Yes, it is a hush-hush topic in Silicon Valley and on this site. The evidence is right there in front of us. 40 years ago, the USA was the clear leader in technology. We had no trouble producing both factory workers and tech geniuses. We were literally the envy of the world. Doctors were paid more than they are now, we made our own cars from scratch, and our press pretended not to be partisan a lot of the time. Other countries got smart and started sending their students here, in the cases of countries like China, as official acts in their national interest. Along with the H1B visa problem, the US has been leading in massive numbers of immigrants, legal and illegal, who are not asked to respect citizenship in their own country. Imagine China, Denmark, Iceland, or Japan doing something like that. It would be unthinkable to them. The biggest villain is of course the citizens of the United States. They no longer encourage their children to tackle Issues that may be difficult for them or that may make them feel bad as they struggle to learn. They no longer regard the founding principles as unique and precious, which they most certainly are. They no longer view the United States as uniquely suited to help move the world forward in civil rights or ingenuity. And finally, our political class doesn’t give a shit about citizens. Republicans and Democrats are equally rife with corruption and exist only to preserve their own power. The uniparty sends our children and our treasure to wars where no national interest is present. Our three letter institutions violate their own principles, the law, and the sovereignty of other countries routinely. Anyone who has read the history of Rome or Britain or China can see where we are in the lifecycle of this special experiment called the United States of America. It is a tragedy not only for us, but for the rest of the world as well.

cratermoon 4y ago

So do vast swathes of Americans. Pop quiz: In what countries does it cost a full day's wages or more to fill a car's gas tank? US minimum wage is $7.25/hr. As of this writing, US gas prices average $4.71/gal. For a typical car the gas tank holds about 15 gallons. Even a small car would have a 12 gallon tank.

chrisseaton 4y ago
> In what countries does it cost a full day's wages or more to fill a car's gas tank? Most countries.
bsagdiyev 4y ago
Pretty much every other country in the world. Europe pays $8/gal or more depending.
- mberning 4y ago
  People in the US are very spoiled in this regard. In Europe and Asia having a car and being able to afford to drive it is honestly a luxury.
  - tyoma 4y ago
    In most of the US a car is a necessity. Public transport is either non-existant or so badly done it is effectively unusable.
    - cratermoon 4y ago
      > or so badly done it is effectively unusable This is intentional. See General Motors streetcar conspiracy.
  - rabuse 4y ago
    It's not really "spoiled", as that is the price due to the fuel taxes in Europe, where the U.S. pays almost nothing in fuel tax. If they don't like that high of a fuel price, then they're free to vote for another party.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I think the PhD is overrated, and along with that I think a lot of university education is overrated; note this is someone with two BA's and a Masters. Unless you're teaching, or doing some hard core research, I don't see that the PhD is necessary or even a good investment. That time could have been spent gaining experience, which IMHO, is extremely valuable.

s1dev 4y ago
I don’t think anyone does grad school expecting that it’s going to be a good investment. Most people I know do it because they can’t imagine themselves doing anything other than research. Is it a waste if afterwards you just get some 9-5 software or finance gig? Definitely. That said, there’s few other ways you get to spend several years becoming a world expert *in a topic of your choice*
tombert 4y ago
Part of the annoyance there is that most research gigs are gatekept behind doctorates. I cannot tell you how many times I've been declined from Microsoft Research, despite having a bachelors degree and more than a decade of industry experience, specifically because I'm "not qualified enough" for a research engineer experience. > That time could have been spent gaining experience, which IMHO, is extremely valuable. I certainly agree that if your goal is to maximize earning potential, than there's no question that industry experience is substantially more valuable than a PhD.
- zenithd 4y ago
- hedora 4y ago
  MSR is pretty competitive. How many papers do you publish in a typical year?
  - tombert 4y ago
    None thus far. To be clear, and I realize that the tone of my comment might come off as a bit more bitter than I intended it to, I don't blame MS for declining me. Obviously they're free to decline anyone they'd like, and I'm sure they get people with PhDs and industry experience all the time.

tombert 4y ago

It's a bit of a shame that the US doesn't really allow part time PhDs (at least not in any of the schools that I asked). If they did, conceivably a lot of these students could get a relatively well-paying job in engineering or a lab or something, and as such the schools could get away with paying less. Part of the reason that I didn't bother trying to pursue the CUNY PhD in mathematics was specifically because the stipend they were offering wouldn't be enough to cover my mortgage (~$2,000/month), and they didn't offer any kind of part-time plan.

FunnyBadger 4y ago
They definitely do in engineering - USC and UCLA had most of its PhD students working full time in industry and only part time in their PhD program and grad school generally. I know because I was one of them.
- david38 4y ago
  I have never heard of this for computer science. I went to UIUC so I am only talking about the Midwest. How would you have time to finish? A full time PhD works a LOT. I can’t imagine doubling the time to a PhD.
  - abhgh 4y ago
    I did a part-time PhD (not in the US, so I am only responding to the latter part of your comment). It's hard, exhausting and can occasionally be frustrating. I gave up most of my weekends during the time. My sleep hours were less than what they should have been - and I did this for years. If you're wondering, it did lead to some health problems (esp. my back), thankfully not major, most of which I've recovered from. Do it only if research really interests you - this was my case, so the sense of gratification from learning and finding out things offset many of the negatives. Also, having a patient advisor and good friends helped a lot.
    - tombert 4y ago
      Out of curiosity, since you've gone through this before, do you have any advice on the best way to manage your time doing a part-time PhD. I've started my part-time a month ago, and it's been pretty exhausting already, and I suspect it will get harder. How did you budget time to talk to family, or to do something for yourself to avoid burnout?

pastor_bob 4y ago

Newsflash: "Not having a profitable job well into your 30s leaves you poor, study finds"

Kevin_S 4y ago

I know biology and many other STEM stipends are very low. As someone in a business field with a very high stipend (32k), I am also feeling the pinch. My wife and I keep a relatively strict budget and I track with YNAB, and gas alone is pretty damaging to our spare income. And I am lucky to be at an institution in a college town with a relatively low cost of living. I don't know how my peers in cities like Boston do it.

uoaei 4y ago
Have you considered a used bicycle for transportation? Hobbyists refurbish old steel frames that last forever and work as well as they did on day one, and they're usually $100-$300 depending on your desired comfort level.

FunnyBadger 4y ago

How is this any different from 20, 30, 40 years ago?? Hint: it's not.

fny 4y ago
Hint: it's a lot worse.
kingkawn 4y ago
Does that make it viable or worth continuing? Hint: No.
deleted 4y ago
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sudden_dystopia 4y ago
I believe that FunnyBadger is pointing out that people have been pointing this out for a long time and is frustrated that nobody has paid attention to it until it became a crisis. You know, kind of like how we treat every other problem we have.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  It's not a crisis. People are simply louder about it now. When people stop signing up for PhD programs, THEN it's a crisis. Until then, the system has no reason to care, thus the general public will remain completely oblivious.
coldcode 4y ago
I was accepted into a Chem PhD program in the early 80's, but knew it would pay crap for years, so I figured I could work as a programmer for a couple years and save some money. 40 years later - I never went back to the PhD.
muh_gradle 4y ago
Wages are sticky. Inflation keeps on going up. It's worse.

kyle_martin1 4y ago

uberman 4y ago

While I agree that PhD students don't get enough cash on a weekly basis to get buy, they are certainly compensated well above what is quoted in the article. International PhD students by law cannot work more than 20 hours a week. Most institutions cap paid responsibilities at 20 hours a week. Most have 9 month appointments, most likely get the full cost of their tuition and fees waved. Most of the time waved costs such as tuition are not counted as compensation so are tax free. Most likely get healthcare. A PhD student at U-FL has an effective compensation package well above 75k per year even though they only directly see 18k in pay.

mbauman 4y ago
> PhD students by law cannot work more than 20 hours a week. Most have 9 month stipend appointments. Wat. Citation needed.
- uberman 4y ago
  Sorry, I posted faster than I was thinking. F1 students are limited by law to 20 hours a week and where I work, stipend responsibilities are similarly capped at 20 hours though though that is not a legal cap, just one that aligns with the international cap.
  - mbauman 4y ago
    There are both TA assistantships and research assistantships. As a graduate student researcher, your stipend "responsibilities" include research output.
    - uberman 4y ago
      I'm not sure where you are going with this. Certainly you can have a TA/RA/FA appointment and sometimes a combination of the three. At the university I work at, you should not technically be assigned more than 20 hours a week over those responsibilities. This blanket policy means faculty don't have to account for the potential visa limits of the individual students they work with. Note though that an RA is research of behalf of a faculty member. Your RA and compensation for it is for assisting with that research. It is not for conducting your own research even if you dovetail it it to a larger research/lab project. In fact, you almost certainly need to pay for the use of the lab and project data via authorship (sometimes first authorship). I'm not debating that this is fair. Going back to my original post though I'm just calling out that the total compensation package for phd candidates far exceeds their take home pay.

nomilk 4y ago

3 years' of pain is worth it for many in computing, data science, and engineering, because it will definitely give candidates an edge for the rest of their careers. But PhDs in some (not all) non-STEM fields almost seem like a blight on one's resume, and could make a PhD candidate's career harder, not easier. Is that a signal there's an oversupply of PhDs in some disciplines? Possibly. Interested to look into longitudinal studies of PhD students of different disciplines and where they end up 10 years' later..

mrfox321 4y ago
In the us, a PhD is 5-6 years if you include the masters that is potentially received along the way.

lazyjeff 4y ago

I recently collected the first-year PhD stipends in computer science across 39 university departments, to have a real sense of the numbers. Basically to have a fair comparison, because a lot of reported stipends aren't clear whether they are 9-month or 12-month stipends, and stipends can different depending on the year/candidacy of the student. Data: https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#verified-computer-science-phd-stipends https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/#verified-c... The main conclusions I arrived at from this exercise is that 1) CS stipends vary quite a bit but have slowly been increasing, but NSF funding needs to catch up for them to go higher, 2) the 12-month stipend makes a big difference from the 9-month stipend, and I think universities should guarantee the 12-month stipend (which only half do), rather than making summer stipend dependent on availability of advisor funding or student jobs (like TAing).

Aperocky 4y ago
It can be argued that the credential to land a PhD in CS in any of these university would have most of the time guaranteed a much much higher paying job in the industry, and potentially less stressful one at that.
bachmeier 4y ago
> universities should guarantee the 12-month stipend I'm not sure how this would work in practice. If you hand out 12-month contracts, you'll lose a ton of students, because they often want the summer for themselves (in many cases, they are from another country and want to travel home, or they have a spouse working somewhere else in the country). If you give the students the option on an annual basis, a school like Columbia might have the money to cover unanticipated expenses, but mine does not. > rather than making summer stipend dependent on availability of advisor funding or student jobs (like TAing) The money has to come from somewhere.
- lazyjeff 4y ago
  > I'm not sure how this would work in practice. It's already working in practice for almost half the universities: summer stipends are guaranteed, but if students choose to intern elsewhere, you don't get the summer stipend. Nothing changes if their advisor is already funding them. I'm just saying the other half of universities should be doing this as well, that it should be universal. Yes it does cost a bit, but if you think about what's happening now for universities with no summer guarantee, it's that PhD students without summer internships are getting no pay in the summer. And even the ones that do find summer pay, it's still a stressful situation for them during the academic year, so a complete distraction. Honestly, I can't think of a better use of university money than to be paying PhD students who would otherwise be working for free in the summer (if their advisor can't fund them).

miked85 4y ago

> spark calls for action If the action is having everyone else (including many who never attended college) pay off their debt, that seems like a bad idea. This just seems like a bad decision on the PhD student's part.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Or... universities could... PAY THEM? Look at the endowments. Look at the tuition costs. Look at the grants. Where is the money going? As usual in the US, not to the people doing the work.

boldlybold 4y ago

This led to me consulting during my PhD to supplement the stipend up to a reasonable salary. A lot of PhD students, especially if your work touches on computational sciences, are a lot more valuable than the university would like you to believe. After moving to industry, I'm starting to realize how valuable the consulting experience was. The project management and scoping skills, and wearing multiple hats, were big benefits.

lnwlebjel 4y ago
> than the university would like you to believe. You may not know it, but the truth is more like "than the university is able to pay". These are non-profit institutions, typically. Consulting is a great idea for many reasons, not the least of which is building your network.
- boldlybold 4y ago
  Non-profit institutions with billion-dollar endowments, massive overhead costs, and "tuition" charges that make no sense. I have a really hard time believing this for the larger institutions.
lupire 4y ago
> are a lot more valuable than the university would like you to believe. Category error. Correction: You have the ability to do outside work that pays more than anything the University needs. It's not the university's fault if you want to do a low value research job at the university.
- seoaeu 4y ago
  The rate universities charge external funding agencies for one hour or one year of grad student research work is substantially higher than what the student gets paid for that amount of work

debacle 4y ago

Getting a PhD is an investment. How do you delineate a bear market for skills? Is it generally congruous with a bear market for assets/investment?

29athrowaway 4y ago

Economically punishing prospect scientists is the reason we don't have flying cars.

deleted 4y ago

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DickieStarshine 4y ago

I'm a software developer in a large german city and I'm facing this issue. Rent is very high, around 50% of my net income. Food gets more expensive by the day and the war in the Ukraine isn't even factored in yet. I can't live outside the city since I need to go to the office 2-3 times per week just for the privilege to stare at my monitor there, just like at home.

throwaway956373 4y ago

I'm a CS PhD student in a place where rents are really high, but I pay no rent because I have an RA position in an undergrad dorm. It's not very much additional work, and saves me a lot of money. If you're a cash-strapped PhD student and your university allows grad student RAs, you owe it to yourself to apply.

lightweightbaby 4y ago

In case some is curious about how it is in Europe: I'm a PhD student (physics) in Denmark and I get 2500$/month after tax. I save from 1000$ to 1500$ each month. Disclaimer: I bike everywhere and share a 1400$/month flat with partner. Also, the entire pay comes directly from the university, I never had to apply to get funding after getting accepted (this was the main reason to go to Denmark).

plopilop 4y ago
Here in France: I had a ~1 900€ salary after taxes (incl. income tax, 2 000€ otherwise) but because I was working in a company fulltime (the contract stated I was to devote myself 100% to my research, the reality was different but that's another topic). My partner, on the other hand, has a public contract (with teaching charge), she gets around 1 400€ after taxes. Living with this in Paris is not easy (1 studio of 15m² will cost around 650-700€)

sbarbarian 4y ago

I deferred joining a Bio lab out of undergrad after being pulled aside during my acceptance visit and given an 'academia life 101' from a postdoc. There were too many bio PhDs, too few academic positions, and too few opportunities in the business sector to have a lucrative and fulfilling career. Unless I was very lucky - according to this postdoc - I was making a poor decision. He advised me to go to industry a few years then reconsider. I never looked back, and I often reflect on his intervention. It saddens me greatly that many of my friends still in Bio have lived this prediction, while meanwhile academica's administrative staff counts (and salaries) balloon. For all the promise to human economy, bio is still astoundingly complex, difficult to monetize, and hard to justify increased budgets for. On the flip side, as essential to our planet and culture as understanding esoteric biological knowledge is (e.g. deep-sea fish behavior), nobody is willing to fund it at the scale needed before much of it disappears forever thanks to climate change. Not sure how the wage issue can be solved, but more sources of funding towards hard research for research's sake (i.e. fact-finding in-vivo science) seems like it could help. So too, could forcing schools to obviously pay more by reducing the amount of admitted students. Less labor supply could give some leverage to often powerless grad students.

dathinab 4y ago

As far as I can tell what he did is more or less common business in high speed currency trading (and part of the reason the EU originally planed to ban it, until lobby corruption happened). If your trading bot (here the "algorithm of the index") messes up you are deep in problems because other bots and people will find it and will use it to their advantage.

tpoacher 4y ago

Meanwhile, PhD students in the UK: https://imgflip.com/i/6i0u84 https://imgflip.com/i/6i0u84