PhD stipend/salary not as advertised. Any advice?

[Zzhuangzi]

Hey there,

So I'm a first year PhD student at an R1 institution in the US. Last year, I was elated to find that I was accepted into my first choice program, but now I'm facing a problem that I didn't expect.

When I received the admissions offer, it stated that I was provided a full tuition support and health insurance. On top of that, the offer stated that I would be receiving $25,000 per year as salary for a research assistant position. Sounds great right? 

Here is the problem, I thought I would be receiving a regular salary/stipend in the form of that $25,000 a year. But turns out, that $25,000 was tied to a $20/hr job for my supervisor and that "job" isn't very regular. Meaning that there would only be work when my supervisor actually needs my assistance, and the department is very strict with work reporting, so I can't just report that I've worked 8 hours a day when my supervisor hasnt given me any work at all. I take up every single piece of work that my supervisor sends my way but I've only managed to chalk up around $5000 for the past year. This is obviously not enough for my living expenses and rent. 

Any advice? I've been trying to look around for fellowships in the US but it doesn't help that (a) I'm an international student and (b) my research area is quite niche so there's very little funding and most of it as at the post-doc level. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to have tuition support at least, I know lots of PhDs these days get offers without tuition. But I'm contemplating taking out a student loan to pay for rent, with my parents as guarantors. But there's a lot of advice that say you should never take out a loan for a PhD because the job market is so bad. Would it be so bad to take out a loan for this? I burned through my savings paying for rent in my first year. If rent is covered, I could probably live off the small amount of money from the work with my supervisor. 

TL;DR: Was expecting $25000 salary which turned out to be $5000.
 

[Sigaba]

3 hours ago, Zzhuangzi said:

salary 
 

Did you see the word "salary" or did you see language indicating an hourly wage that might result in $50k/year in pay?

[Zzhuangzi]

The exact wording says "An XXX position with a salary of up to $25,000 per year". 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to find fault with the school. I'm just trying to look for advice on what else I can do to find funding or if a loan would be appropriate.

In hindsight, they are in the right since it does say "up to". So if they paid me a $1 they'd be justified as well. I just thought....that they wouldn't?

I mean, imagine if you were offered a job, but didn't get any work (or any pay), does that still count as a job offer?

I just assumed that the "up to" part would be up to me, not up to them. Since PhD students can sometimes be away for months during Summer, I thought it might scale depending on how often I decide to be on campus. Or say if I finish my PhD halfway through an academic year, they wouldnt have to pay me the whole 25k/year, which is fair.   

[Sigaba]

I don't like the situation you're in. IME, "salary" means something different than getting paid $x/hour for irregular work.

Do the terms of your employment allow you to have another job? For example, as a tutor?

[Sco]

The way it works at my university is that PhD students receive a 'base' funding of around $25k (unless they win an external scholarship), but its broken up like this:

Faculty Scholarship: $9k
TA/RA: $8k
Tuition & Fees: $8k

The TA and RA wages, while 'guaranteed', are paid by the hour and there's no real minimum you can earn, if you only TA or RA for $5k that's what you're going to see instead of the $8k you would have originally been informed about. You don't actually see the Tuition and Fees money, its billed and paid direction, plus minus zero. So your real takehome is $17k, assuming you work enough.

You got fucked on reporting your hours, and their strict policy. If you got a contract for $25k that means the $25k was allocated and your supervisor fucked up by only 'spending' 1/5th of his/her budget, money that isn't exactly going to be sitting around again next year. You should have maxed out your time sheets for every hour you were eligible to be paid.

[Zzhuangzi]

5 hours ago, Sco said:

You got fucked on reporting your hours, and their strict policy. If you got a contract for $25k that means the $25k was allocated and your supervisor fucked up by only 'spending' 1/5th of his/her budget, money that isn't exactly going to be sitting around again next year. You should have maxed out your time sheets for every hour you were eligible to be paid.

This is the weirdest part!! I've worked with university research departments before so I know that funding doesnt get rolled over. Once the timeline or the project is up, whatever you have left just gets returned. This applies for the funding for my research assistant position as well. So I don't understand why the administrative person in our department is so hard up on the timesheets. There was even one case where they doubted me and I had to prove that I had done work that week for my supervisor. 

Heck, my supervisor could just tell me to read a book or do a lit review and put that in the timesheet, there would be no loss to him. 

14 hours ago, Sigaba said:

I don't like the situation you're in. IME, "salary" means something different than getting paid $x/hour for irregular work.

Do the terms of your employment allow you to have another job? For example, as a tutor?

Yeah, I don't like it either. My definition of "salary" was definitely not this. 

They do allow me to be employed elsewhere, as long as I keep it under 20 hours a week during term time and 40 hours a week during breaks (federal laws). I am currently trying to find other part-time work in other research teams. While I am qualified for these other jobs, I'm afraid that its in a very different direction from my dissertation work. These other jobs are financially beneficial, but not academically beneficial and I'm quite afraid that the mental fatigue of juggling multiple areas of research will bog me down.

I also did a TA job last semester for a different professor, but sadly, the school compensates TAs by giving us tuition credits. There's no money for the work. The credits are pretty useless for me given that I have tuition scholarship, but the teaching experience was definitely beneficial for me. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Zzhuangzi

[PhdMultilinguaEd]

5 hours ago, Sco said:

The way it works at my university is that PhD students receive a 'base' funding of around $25k (unless they win an external scholarship), but its broken up like this:

Faculty Scholarship: $9k
TA/RA: $8k
Tuition & Fees: $8k

The TA and RA wages, while 'guaranteed', are paid by the hour and there's no real minimum you can earn, if you only TA or RA for $5k that's what you're going to see instead of the $8k you would have originally been informed about. You don't actually see the Tuition and Fees money, its billed and paid direction, plus minus zero. So your real takehome is $17k, assuming you work enough.

You got fucked on reporting your hours, and their strict policy. If you got a contract for $25k that means the $25k was allocated and your supervisor fucked up by only 'spending' 1/5th of his/her budget, money that isn't exactly going to be sitting around again next year. You should have maxed out your time sheets for every hour you were eligible to be paid.

This is one difference between US and Canadian schools. I'm a Canadian in my PhD at a R1 University in the US as well. When they say "tuition remission" in the US, you don't pay any tuition, so the "up to $25,000" is separate from tuition. You do normally pay semester fees (which also covers stuff like using the gym), but in total, I pay around $700/semester for all fees. If I didn't have tuition remission, it'd be $30,000/year for tuition. 

[PhdMultilinguaEd]

19 minutes ago, Zzhuangzi said:

This is the weirdest part!! I've worked with university research departments before so I know that funding doesnt get rolled over. Once the timeline or the project is up, whatever you have left just gets returned. This applies for the funding for my research assistant position as well. So I don't understand why the administrative person in our department is so hard up on the timesheets. There was even one case where they doubted me and I had to prove that I had done work that week for my supervisor. 

Heck, my supervisor could just tell me to read a book or do a lit review and put that in the timesheet, there would be no loss to him. 

Yeah, I don't like it either. My definition of "salary" was definitely not this. 

They do allow me to be employed elsewhere, as long as I keep it under 20 hours a week during term time and 40 hours a week during breaks (federal laws). I am currently trying to find other part-time work in other research teams. While I am qualified for these other jobs, I'm afraid that its in a very different direction from my dissertation work. These other jobs are financially beneficial, but not academically beneficial and I'm quite afraid that the mental fatigue of juggling multiple areas of research will bog me down.

I also did a TA job last semester for a different professor, but sadly, the school compensates TAs by giving us tuition credits. There's no money for the work. The credits are pretty useless for me given that I have tuition scholarship, but the teaching experience was definitely beneficial for me. 

Fellow international student (from Canada) at a R1 in the US (UW-Madison). What does your supervisor say about the situation? It's in their best interest to make it work for you, so an honest conversation with them might be first step, assuming that's possible. Another option - talk to your union rep, if you haven't yet. They tend to have a good idea of the ins and outs of those offers. Might also be someone at International Student Services that can provide some insight too. Sorry to hear that you're in this situation. 

[Zzhuangzi]

On 5/5/2020 at 1:41 AM, PhdMultilinguaEd said:

What does your supervisor say about the situation? It's in their best interest to make it work for you, so an honest conversation with them might be first step, assuming that's possible. Another option - talk to your union rep, if you haven't yet. They tend to have a good idea of the ins and outs of those offers. Might also be someone at International Student Services that can provide some insight too. Sorry to hear that you're in this situation. 

Thanks for this advice. You're right. I should probably talk to my supervisor about it and ask if he could do anything first. Maybe he doesn't think its a problem until I say it to him. I was just afraid it might be pretty awkward. Especially if he turns me down. 

[gentvenus]

On 5/4/2020 at 6:18 PM, Zzhuangzi said:

Heck, my supervisor could just tell me to read a book or do a lit review and put that in the timesheet, there would be no loss to him.

You got your solution right there mate. Go talk to your supervisor about it. If he/she has any semblance of a human being, they would know that a PhD is tight on funding and if they knew the repercussions of not assigning you work, they will try and help for sure.

[PhdMultilinguaEd]

On 5/6/2020 at 1:30 PM, Zzhuangzi said:

Thanks for this advice. You're right. I should probably talk to my supervisor about it and ask if he could do anything first. Maybe he doesn't think its a problem until I say it to him. I was just afraid it might be pretty awkward. Especially if he turns me down. 

Sometimes it can be awkward, but sometimes they are focused on their own work and unaware of your situation. My experience has also been as an international student you sometimes have to be a bit more explicit, as they may not know the reality of your situation (like you can't just go look for another job). And honestly, the more you can open up the lines of communication with your supervisor moving forward, the better!