Why do graduate schools offer stipends and tuition remission?

[MongooseMayhem]

I don't want to sound like a philistine, but why do (some) graduate schools in philosophy offer so much financial aid to students? I can understand that law and medical students will be better positioned (hopefully) to pay off their enormous loans after school where as philosophy students won't be, but why would universities care about that? Is it purely for the value placed in having well-trained philosophers or do these grad schools get something out of having more students?

[turambar85]

I don't want to sound like a philistine, but why do (some) graduate schools in philosophy offer so much financial aid to students? I can understand that law and medical students will be better positioned (hopefully) to pay off their enormous loans after school where as philosophy students won't be, but why would universities care about that? Is it purely for the value placed in having well-trained philosophers or do these grad schools get something out of having more students?

 

Shhhh!  You're going to ruin it for everybody....

[Establishment]

Graduate students are cheap labor.

[turambar85]

Graduate students are cheap labor.

 

Well, I think that they are referring to fellowships.  Not every program puts as much emphasis on the cheap, TA labor.  

[Establishment]

Well, I think that they are referring to fellowships.  Not every program puts as much emphasis on the cheap, TA labor.  

 

My understanding is that at most programs it's mixed. You'll teach some years, have off some others. Either way, with constant incoming students, you'll have graduate students available.

[wandajune]

Most stipends come in the form of assitantships, so many graduate students are essentially employed as teaching assistants or research assistants, etc, and are being paid for the labor associated with that. Fellowships generally don't require any form of labor from the recipients, but on my understanding, fellowships are usually only for a year or two, after which the student will take on an assitantship.

[Between Fields]

In many states, programs' productivity is measured in the number of graduates they produce per year, at least for public universities. It's to the department's benefit to meet that metric. Otherwise, it's mainly what others have said: slave labor. 

[mrs_doubtfire]

I can think of two reasons. 

 

The first reason is practical. When graduate students are taking courses, they don't have time to earn a living through another job. So a lot of departments offer fellowships during the graduate student's coursework years to relieve them of financial burdens. This way, they can, in principle, devote all of their waking hours to their courses. 

 

The second reason, which has already been pointed out, is that graduate students are cheap labor. TAs do most of the grading and they are cheaper to hire than a professor or lecturer. 

[Rollontheground]

I think it's a form of advertising. Schools allocate rewards in accordance with the applicants' merit in the hope that he or she will one day become an awesome philosophy professor with his or her own google page, which will include graduate education. Then you're supposed to think, "Wow, this dude went to Harvard; I want to go to Harvard!" That, and perhaps it's presumed that all of your students will love you and want to go to the same grad school you did. 

 

The other answer could be the Good Will Hunting situation. Every department would love to have a Will in it, but Will doesn't have any money. The department is willing to pay for Will, but doing this and not paying for others might be seen as inegalitarian. So, to get out around this, they offer all accepted applicants packages, regardless of their financial background.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Rollontheground

[Weltgeist]

The first reason is practical. When graduate students are taking courses, they don't have time to earn a living through another job. So a lot of departments offer fellowships during the graduate student's coursework years to relieve them of financial burdens. This way, they can, in principle, devote all of their waking hours to their courses. 

 

yeah, this: I mean did it not occur to you that this is the obvious reason: so their students can actually do their scholarly work in earnest AND not starve?

Edited February 26, 2014 by Weltgeist

[mrs_doubtfire]

yeah, this: I mean did it not occur to you that this is the obvious reason: so their students can actually do their scholarly work in earnest AND not starve?

is this addressed to me?

 

edit: never mind. i now see that this wasn't addressed to me. 

Edited February 26, 2014 by mrs_doubtfire

[maxhgns]

There are at least a few reasons. One, as has been pointed out, is because grad students are a relatively cheap source of high-quality academic labour (as TAs, but also as RAs, organizers of departmental events, and as participants in an intellectual climate). Another, as has already been pointed out, is that we all work a lot better when we don't have to divide our attention by having to work elsewhere.

 

Both these reasons, however, are applicable to other academic fields that don't do nearly as much to fund their students. So why is philosophy so different? One important point of difference is that if philosophy PhDs weren't funded, there'd be virtually no incentives for students to apply (and, thus, there'd be fewer profs, fewer conferences, etc.). I mean, there aren't that many pursuits out there for which just getting any kind of job counts as winning the career lottery. Ultimately, I think it really just boils down to academic culture: for one reason or another, philosophy has resisted the move towards unfunded expansions of graduate programs.

[Weltgeist]

Both these reasons, however, are applicable to other academic fields that don't do nearly as much to fund their students. So why is philosophy so different?

 

Ah, well if this is the real question then it's an interesting and not immediately obvious one; I don't know much about other fields so forgive my previous hostility. How bad is it in other fields?

[maxhgns]

Ah, well if this is the real question then it's an interesting and not immediately obvious one; I don't know much about other fields so forgive my previous hostility. How bad is it in other fields?

 

Depends on the field and the institution, but I can tell you that at my university, only about 25% of departments give their graduate students any funding, let alone full funding. Philosophy seems to be pretty unique in that most reputable departments in NA fund their students fully.

[ἠφανισμένος]

This varies by institution type, but I can think of quite a few fields where full funding is the norm at reputable PhD programs: history, English, classics, modern foreign languages, and science disciplines as well. MA funding for the humanities fields I'm familiar with tends to be more hit and miss. So philosophy is really pretty comparable to other humanities fields in terms of funding, at least in my experience.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Petros

[Table]

This varies by institution type, but I can think of quite a few fields where full funding is the norm at reputable PhD programs: history, English, classics, modern foreign languages, and science disciplines as well. MA funding for the humanities fields I'm familiar with tends to be more hit and miss. So philosophy is really pretty comparable to other humanities fields in terms of funding, at least in my experience.

 

I agree with this. I don't know of any fields where unfunded PhDs are normal. (Maybe engineering?)

 

The "cheap labor" thing can't be the whole story. Say you're getting a $20,000 stipend and TAing for 2 courses each term. If your stipend was the only thing you cost the university, they'd be getting a TA for $5,000 per class. Adjuncts are generally paid around $3,000 /class, so that's already not a great deal. And then they're also paying for professors to teach graduate classes, supervise grad students, etc. Grad students might do some departmental tasks, but I can't imagine what they do outweighs the extra work involved with running a grad program. The labor grad students provide may be why schools can afford to fund them, but having a grad program won't save schools money.

 

I want to say that academic disciplines need to fund "academic" PhDs (i.e. phds that primarily lead to academic employment, so not natural sciences, etc.) because there wouldn't be enough incentive to do them otherwise, but at this point, I think law has similar post-grad employment rates and similar average starting and mid-career salaries. Obviously employment prospects for law grads have gotten much worse recently, but I have no idea how they compared 20 years ago, etc. when academic employment was also better. And if you had to pay to get a PhD, job prospects would probably significantly improve.

 

Like maxhgns said, I think the reasons are primarily cultural—having to do with how grad students are seen as researchers, part of the academic community, etc. I'm now really curious about the history behind this. 

[Hilbert's timequake]

I am also personally very grateful for the funding package in philosophy phd program. The tuition remission and stipend usually add up to more than 60k a year. Nothing I do for the department, I think, deserve that amount of money.

 

Remember that Kant had to teach 7 courses (?) to survive. PHD is such a luxury!

[catwoman15]

Graduate students are cheap labor.

 

Because exploitation.

[katethekitcat]

Because exploitation.

 

 Was talking to my friend this morning who's currently in a PhD mathematics program - he just pulled an all-nighter (second this week) because his TA work includes grading 500 proofs per week.

[iExcelAtMicrosoftPuns]

<sub>It' not unlike Pascal's wager.

( P * G) - C = E

Let P be the probability that your graduate student will produce some Great New Thing.

Let G be the perceived value of the Great New Thing.

Let C be the cost of fellowship and support over the course of the degree.

Let E be the expected outcome for the betters.

---

So Unis are sitting here saying, "man I think Bowties is gonna do something game changing - I'm 33% sure of it" and someone else says "I dunno I think catwoman is going to produce some really great things, maybe not game changing but really great - I'm 90% sure of it". So they all debate the numbers and agree. Then they punch in the equation and the highest E gets an acceptance.

Oh then it gets more confusing. Because they have to weigh how competitive you are in other programs and they have to adjust the cost and the probablity that you'll accept with a given fellowship.

I imagine they have a big super computer that does it all.</sub>

[PerpetualApplicant No More]

_{It' not unlike Pascal's wager.}

( P * G) - C = E

Let P be the probability that your graduate student will produce some Great New Thing.

Let G be the perceived value of the Great New Thing.

Let C be the cost of fellowship and support over the course of the degree.

Let E be the expected outcome for the betters.

---

So Unis are sitting here saying, "man I think Bowties is gonna do something game changing - I'm 33% sure of it" and someone else says "I dunno I think catwoman is going to produce some really great things, maybe not game changing but really great - I'm 90% sure of it". So they all debate the numbers and agree. Then they punch in the equation and the highest E gets an acceptance.

Oh then it gets more confusing. Because they have to weigh how competitive you are in other programs and they have to adjust the cost and the probablity that you'll accept with a given fellowship.

I imagine they have a big super computer that does it all.

I want to give you two upvotes: one for the post, and one for your handle and icon.

[iExcelAtMicrosoftPuns]

I want to give you two upvotes: one for the post, and one for your handle and icon.

   

( >< )

^

Obviously a Bow Tie