> 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.
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
#62So 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 got an ebike and filling that up costs me very little. Not to mention the savings on insurance, registration, parking, smog, maintenance and they can be cheap to buy if you know where to look
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#63I 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.
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*
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#64It'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…
Typical culprits:
- Too much admin per student compared to 40 years ago
- (Much more likely): Severe decline in funds from the state. I know at least one nearby university that showed the data that the increase in tuition from 1980 to 2010 was almost entirely due to government cuts, and that the budget spending per student hadn't changed in that time frame - adjusted for inflation.
- Fancy buildings
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In most of the US a car is a necessity. Public transport is either non-existant or so badly done it is effectively unusable.
> or so badly done it is effectively unusable
This is intentional. See General Motors streetcar conspiracy.
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#66How is this any different from 20, 30, 40 years ago?? Hint: it's not.
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.
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#67So 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.
Pop Quiz: How many people in the US are working for the Federal Minimum wage right now today... I am willing to bet it is very few given what I have seen advertised for traditional minimum wage jobs. I am not sure how pointing to what the legal minimum wage is holds any value in the conversation, that matters is the current market rate for labor, we should not be looking to government as the basis of our economic wor…
About 1.1 million people have jobs that pay the federal minimum wage or less. Not counting farm jobs (think migrant labor).
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#68So 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…
Doesn’t make sense to use federal average gas price here. Anyone making the federal minimum wage is in one of the lowest cost of living parts of the country and will subsequently also have one of the lowest gas prices to go along with that lowest income.
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#69Earlier 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...
Athletics is normally (always?) a separate self-funding enterprise attached to th e university. Tutition dollars don't pay the coaches; alumni donations/gifts, sponsors, and ticket sales do.
Re: PhD students face cash crisis with wages that don’t cover living costs
#70It'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…
We don’t have to guess. Most US universities are public institutions so you can just Google up their budget.
As an example, here is the UC system:
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4511
https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2021/chapt...
About 70% of the UC budget goes to salaries and benefits. Of that, 70% of staff is non-academic.
Full context below:
Non-academic staff employees constitute nearly 70 percent of UC’s workforce and are responsible for health services, student services, instruction and research support, compliance, and general administration (6.1.1). In October 2020, this group included 143,188 individuals. Overall, this staff workforce represented over 115,577 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees in that month.
STAFF WORKFORCE About six out of every ten UC staff FTE are working for the University of California Health system. These frontline workers (including doctors, nurses, administrators, technicians, and allied health professionals) are playing a critical role in California’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 97 percent of these employees are supported by non-core funds, typically the revenues generated by hospital services. Students often work part-time on campus as part of their financial aid packages or for research experience. During the pandemic, UC campuses transitioned to remote instruction. With staff, faculty, and students no longer on campus, student employee headcount at general campus halved from 36,000 in October 2019 to 18,000 in October 2020. General campus, non-student employees are the remainder of the University’s staff, at 43,752 FTE. This includes student services employees, career advisors, IT specialists, research administration, laboratory staff, food and auxiliary service workers, accountants, maintenance and janitorial staff, safety workers, and analysts (6.1.1).