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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

#41

Post by mediaman »

cratermoon wrote: post #4

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.

I was a little skeptical of this because of the impact of state-level minimum wage laws that are higher than the federal, so I pulled up the data on how many people are paid the US federal minimum wage.

Turns out that 1.1 million people have jobs that pay the federal minimum wage or less. But that number does not include tips, and about 60% of those people work in restaurants or bars. It's hard to say how much in the way of tips they get, but it's fair to say that there are at least 440,000 people who are earning no more than the federal minimum wage and don't get tips to make up for it.

That's about 0.6% of the hourly workforce. For them, filling a 15 gallon tank of gas would take 10 hours of labor, or even more after deducting employee taxes.

Also, while the federal minimum wage demographic skews young, about half of the 1.1m figure above are over the age of 25.

Above data is per the BLS.

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

#42

Post by dgfitz »

twistedpair wrote: post #30
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…

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...

The vast majority of coaches don't make this kind of money. I refuse to believe tuition is insanely high because of coaching salaries. I was actually under the (possibly incorrect) assumption that coaches salaries come largely from boosters and things like ticket sales, jersey sales, etc.

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

#43

Post by sudden_dystopia »

FunnyBadger wrote: post #12

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

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.

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

#44

Post by nomilk »

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..

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

#45

Post by snarf21 »

natly wrote: post #3

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

Not all STEM is created equal. While there may not be thousands and thousands of jobs for a biology PhD, there are over 1 million open software/IT jobs. The good paying jobs are focused on what we value as a society. Clearly we value tweets and tiktoks and apps on mobile. We don't value teachers and nurses and lots of other essential jobs. If we want change, that is where we need to focus; find a way to value contributors to society.

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

#46

Post by tombert »

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…

To be fair, if you graduate in four years, and are alright with state universities or community colleges, and major in some kind of field that allows you to be an engineer, university doesn't have to put you in lifelong debt. Many students do community college for the first two years, and then finish at a university, and end up on the order of ~$30,000 of debt. That's a lot of money, but generally not a life-ruining amount for an engineer.

That's not even counting the weird universities like WGU, where you can get a bachelors for less than ~$15,000 without too much trouble.

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

#47

Post by twistedpair »

dgfitz wrote: post #42
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...

The vast majority of coaches don't make this kind of money. I refuse to believe tuition is insanely high because of coaching salaries. I was actually under the (possibly incorrect) assumption that coaches salaries come largely from boosters and things like ticket sales, jersey sales, etc.

Here's some real data for you, in a NY college no less.

President of my undergrad college made $884K last year [1], but a medical school professor made nearly $2M.

1. https://nonprofitlight.com/ny/rochester/university-of-roches...

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

#48

Post by hirako2000 »

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…

Most of it goes to academic instruction expenses, and operations. The fast growing expense is more likely the latter as administrations have rather grown in size per student. Land appreciates in value too, even if the universities may own campuses, it remains in the balance sheets.

Research is also a cost, even though they some of it back, they aren't VCs so this can bleed money there as well, and pretty fast, especially for underperforming institutions.

I'm shocked shocked by the tuition fees in the U.S. But comparing with India and even Europe is a bit silly since those places don't compare in term of university ranking and average income level. Those professors/researchers are packed with long years of studies plus a loan they had accumulated themselves so it's a bit like a positive feedback loop.

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

#49

Post by mrfox321 »

nomilk wrote: post #44

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 longit…

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

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

#50

Post by twobitshifter »

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…

Colorado State will allow this fully online. https://www.online.colostate.edu/degrees/online-phd.dot
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