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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

#51

Post by tombert »

gaze wrote: post #34
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…

I don't really know how one does a part-time PhD. The kind of work that you produce during a PhD requires 4-6 years of full dedication. A part-time masters I could see.

In England a PhD tends to take on the order of 3-4 years if done full time, largely because they generally require a masters as a prerequisite to even start the degree. A part-time PhD tends to take on the order of 5-6 years.

Of course, even doing a part-time PhD, you end up spending a fair bit of time studying (on the order of 4-6 hours/night).

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

#52

Post by mbauman »

uberman wrote: post #39

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 su…

> PhD students by law cannot work more than 20 hours a week. Most have 9 month stipend appointments.

Wat. Citation needed.

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

#53

Post by lazyjeff »

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-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).

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

#54

Post by BeetleB »

tombert wrote: post #46
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…

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…

> 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.

For people in many European countries, this is an absurd amount of debt to get a university degree.

Edit: For context: About 20 years ago, my university's annual fees was $15000/year for out of state students, and $4600 for in state - in today's dollars. Now that university charges $28K for out of state and $8.3K for in state - almost doubled after accounting for inflation. In other nearby universities I see people paying $15K/year for in state. This is a huge increase in two decades.

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

#55

Post by cratermoon »

mediaman wrote: post #41
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…

Yes you note that I didn't take into account payroll taxes.

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

#56

Post by Cerealkiller050 »

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...

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.

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

#57

Post by prepend »

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 all this tuition even going to?

I have a family member who works in the “alumni relations” department of a small, regional public university. Probably ranked like #300 or something. There are like 5 people in the department. They make a magazine, email newsletter and schedule alumni events.

It was really surreal when they explained their job and that the department exists.

There’s an admin costs problem in this country. There’s no sufficient governance or oversight in controlling university spending. This is even a public university and it’s just bizarre that they can make up positions that shouldn’t even exist.

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

#58

Post by mysterydip »

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…

I worked at a small private college for a few years in IT. Tuition increased every year, yet our budget always seemed to be the same or smaller ("we need to do more with less"), and my salary certainly didn't get proportionately larger.

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

#59

Post by notch656a »

mberning wrote: post #17
bsagdiyev wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every other country in the world. Europe pays $8/gal or more depending.

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.

People in southeast Asia have motorcycles or trikes (taxis) despite having comparatively much lower income. In China most households own a motorbike. Clearly motor transport is highly desirable and borderline "needed" to keep up the kind of industrial society that can maintain their population, healthcare systems, fertilizer production, life saving pharmaceutical production, etc. Many people would simply starve if motor vehicles could not facilitate the movement workers and goods necessary to maintain these populations.

Having avidly driven both motorcycles and cars, I can tell you the safety a car provides you is not just a luxury. It's a a way to protect your children from higher chances of death in transit. In some states in the US transporting the family on a motorcycle would simply be illegal, as they mandate minimum age for riding on the kind of vehicles that one can legally transport their family on (in Asia the family is often times 3+ up on the same tiny motorbike).

I suggest you work on repealing transportation child safety and emissions laws if you want to bring us closer to Asia. Families do not need the spoiled luxury of these foolish safeguards.

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

#60

Post by eunos »

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…

Student services in US universities are massive coupled with salaries for coterie of admins, deans and middle-men.
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