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

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

#121

Post by yumraj »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #16
tombert wrote: post #7

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 st…

Where is all this tuition even going to? Schools in the US charge an absurd amount of tuition compared to schools in Europe/Asia and yet these colleges are also systematically underpaying PhD students, Teaching Assistants, etc. College Professors don't exactly make the big bucks either. Yet, universities in the US have made put many Americans in lifelong debt. These colleges are all "nonprofit" (and get significant t…

> where is the money even going?

Paying for stadiums, sports teams and millions in coach salaries.

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

#122

Post by colinmhayes »

uberman wrote: post #116
oefrha wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> effective compensation well above 75k per year What are you even talking about? Are you counting the bullshit known as “tuition” in the compensation? PhD candidates are really employees, not students. Even a Princeton postdoc’s comp doesn’t reach 75k. A bit more than 50k actually in the physics department (might have risen a bit in the past few years, not sure).

Of course tuition should be counted as part of compensation just as health care should be counted. You can be mad at the cost of tuition or healthcare if you like, but that is a separate issue. Waved tuition is a benefit and it was a hairs breath from being a taxable benefit in the USA several years ago. It is still the case that if your employer pays more than about 5k of your tuition then that is taxable so clearly…

Universities aren't actually providing a service to the phd candidates though. The candidates are providing a service to the university. No one would get a phd if they had to pay tuition.

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

#125

Post by DickieStarshine »

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.

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

#126

Post by uoaei »

Kevin_S wrote: post #11

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 i…

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.

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

#127

Post by RaoulP »

haakonhr wrote: post #80
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is all this tuition even going to? Schools in the US charge an absurd amount of tuition compared to schools in Europe/Asia and yet these colleges are also systematically underpaying PhD students, Teaching Assistants, etc. College Professors don't exactly make the big bucks either. Yet, universities in the US have made put many Americans in lifelong debt. These colleges are all "nonprofit" (and get significant t…

I don't think it is fair to compare with Europe. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, as an example, got around 1b USD over the national budget. Stipends and loans to students are provided by another governmental body (Lånekassen), but in the US some students get a "full ride" (incl. accommodation and so on). However, the amount of debt you hear some americans ending up with is crazy.

Just to add to that - Students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology do not pay tuition fees. So the stipend and loan provided by Lånekassen go mainly to living expenses.

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

#128

Post by compsciphd »

tombert wrote: post #7

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 st…

when I was a phd student at Columbia, we had a student in our lab who was a full time employee at TJ Watson and his work at Watson was part and parcel of his phd. Basically supervised by both his IBM manager and my advisor.

When I was looking at programs, as I already had been working at a military lab since I was in HS, I asked every advisor I interviewed with if research work I was doing at the lab could be the basis of the phd if I wanted (i.e. to do the same thing as the labmate mentioned) and almost everyone I spoke to had zero issues with it, with the proviso that the work was appropriate for a phd.

At the end of the day, I did it all on campus (with many summers spent at labs or industry), but a good chunk of the work I did could easily have been done with proper guidance in an industry setting as well (though that's more in retrospect, I wouldn't have known how to sell the ideas to industry back then).

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

#129

Post by leothecool »

Cerealkiller050 wrote: post #56
twistedpair wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever seen Football coach, and college president salaries? For state colleges, they're often some of the highest paid employees in the state. [1] 1. https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/28261213/dabo-s...

Then you look at the revenue college football brings in to the rest of the university, the coach salaries looks like a bargain. Not only that, for most universities college football (some men's basketball) cover all the other men's and women's sports that hemorrhage money.

Coach salaries -would- look like a bargain if revenue correlated with win-loss rate or quite frankly any measurable activity the coaches do. But, they don't.

IMO the guy in big-10 football who deserves a multi million dollar salary is the guy in the mascot fursuit.

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

#130

Post by throwaway956373 »

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.
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