The Ph.D. Pay Gap

[rising_star]

This is something that's been talked about on here before but, this piece brings numbers and stories to the issue by focusing on the University of Houston: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1012-the-ph-d-pay-gap

 

My favorite part might be this from a business PhD student with $33,000 per year in stipend support. 

 

 

For Ms. Krylova, the stipend she makes has helped her focus on her studies, but it doesn’t mean an extravagant lifestyle. Yes, she does most of her grocery shopping at Whole Foods or organic farmer’s markets, she says, but she has also had to wrestle with rising rents in the Houston area, which have increased in some apartment buildings by almost 30 percent in the last five years.

 

"I’m single, don’t have a family to take care of, and don’t have any health issues," Ms. Krylova says. "The money the college and department offer, I’m not sure it would be sufficient in New York or Washington, D.C., but it’s enough to sustain a good living in Houston."

 

I have to say I'm having trouble feeling sorry for her. 

 

That said, this is very much a real issue for graduate students. So, I'm curious. Did/do you consider how much of a stipend is offered when you decide where to apply? (I'm assuming people consider it when deciding where to enroll but I'm wondering if it's something that gets considered before then.) Would you support a movement on your campus to raise the pay university-wide for graduate students? 

[TakeruK]

To answer each question individually:

 

1. Yes, the stipend amount was an important factor in my decision in places to apply. However, I consider it a "cut-off" factor. Most schools in my field do publish stipend amounts and with use of GradCafe + PhysicsGRE.com results databases, I was able to know the funding amount for most places I applied. There was one school where I didn't apply to in part because of the stipend vs. cost of living (tons of people report going into debt even with $30,000/year in Hawaii).

 

Our requirement was stipend was that it supported a comfortable lifestyle. When considering whether or not to go for a PhD, we (my spouse and I) decided that we didn't want to live as a "starving student" for 5+ years without a guarantee of a good job in the end. (Similarly, we had geographical restrictions on where we were willing to live as well). So, my minimum stipend level was something that would pay for half of**: rent for a 1 bedroom place, have internet/netflix/cell phones, own a (used) car, eat out about once/week (takeout, not fancy places), take one or two trips per year (road trips or combined with conferences to save money) and save about $3000/year. 

 

(** I say "half of" because my spouse would be working and earning at least the same, if not more, than me. It took about a year to fully sort through the work authorization, for her to get a permanent job, and to recoup losses due to non-employment at first, so it was not until a year later that we got luxuries like netflix, cars, eating out, taking trips, and saving money).

 

In my opinion, one would likely be disappointed if one sought graduate school to live a very nice lifestyle and I think there are a lot of things one has to give up to attend grad school. A lot of these things are long-term things that I think could be hurting us in the long run, for example: saving up for a home down payment, saving/investing for retirement, paying down past debts, etc. Overall, I think grad school does require a modest lifestyle (e.g. I don't expect to be able to afford to shop at Whole Foods, or take vacations at exotic places, or eat at fancy places often, or buy fancy toys etc.) but I think it's reasonable for a graduate student to expect to be able to live comfortably, instead of being able to just barely afford basic necessities.

 

2. Yes, I would definitely be in favour of a movement to support an increase in pay at my University. In fact, I am actually part of such a movement right now, being part of my school's graduate student government. Currently, the policies require the minimum stipend be $28,000/year and the maximum stipend is $38,000/year. There are two main "peaks" in the stipend distribution--one around the minimum and one around $30,000/year. For reference though, the maximum stipend to qualify for Section 8 (i.e. government assisted housing cost) for a single student in my University's city is $29,500. Given the rent market in our city, a graduate student needs to earn around $32,000 per year in order to make housing "affordable" (i.e. 1/3 of income on rent+utilities). Our efforts are currently focussed on increasing the minimum stipend though, rather than increasing the average/median.

 

Note: The U Houston student earning $33k/year in Houston would be, according to a COL calculator, earning the equivalent of $42k/year where I live now. We live in a very high cost of living area. My current stipend is $30,000/year and our annual household expenses total around $55,000/year for the lifestyle I wrote about above.

 

Bonus Q: This is a topic I'm passionate about, so there's another aspect to this topic, which the article does hint at too. Arguments for paying a "fair wage" to graduate students aside (there's plenty of threads here discussing what is fair, what "market value" do we have etc.), there's another good argument for paying graduate students more. And that is to increase socioeconomic diversity in academia. At my school and in my field, this is something we're working on. If we pay graduate students minimal income, we are 1) discouraging potential students that can't afford to live like this (e.g. have high health costs, or need to support children, or need to support parents) and 2) placing students who have higher costs at a disadvantage (more stress, might have to work side jobs, less able to focus on studies). My school currently has some programs that supplement your income based on need (e.g. graduate students with dependents effectively get a $1200/year per dependent supplement for dependent health insurance costs), but we are working on increasing this.

 

I guess this is related to question #2 above. We are approaching the "increase stipends" issue in two ways. We use arguments for paying a "fair wage" for our "market value" to raise the overall/mean/median stipend on campus. This is a hard argument to make, because the University generally counters with "your degree has market value to you", which is true--the students and the administration just do not agree on where the balance is. We use arguments for diversity and equity to argue for raising the stipend of those who need it the most: the students earning the minimum stipend on campus and the students with extra costs (whether it's health or dependents or something else). This is generally an easier argument to make. The University will counter with arguments like "it's the student's choice to do X" and sometimes they are right, but a lot of the times, these are sexist or otherwise discriminatory so we have a way to attack these counterarguments. In addition, the thing they care about most is attracting the most talented people, so here, we can make the argument that without certain income supplement programs, excellent applicants who have higher expenses because of X are choosing other schools instead of our school (and we have testimonial data to back this up!). This seems to be the line of reasoning that gets the most attention.

[Jay's Brain]

I'm beginning my Masters this coming Fall, so I may not be the best to discuss the implications of funding throughout the graduate studies. That being said, I can provide insight from a recently minted graduate student. Funding did make a big decision for me, but, in my case, I received the most funding from the program that I was most interested in too which biases my decision somewhat.

I do come from Toronto, and recently two of the bigger universities here (University of Toronto and York University) went through a very tumultuous period when the graduate students from both went on strike for an extended period of time. At UofT the TAs wanted a raise in their basic funding salary that had been frozen and unchanged since 2000. I'm not sure how the system works for American schools, but even with a seemingly appropriate movement this was met with severe backlash.

Here's an from a local newspaper for anyone interested:
http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2015/02/27/u-of-t-teaching-assistants-strike-late-night-deal.html

Edited May 25, 2015 by Jay's Brain

[ss2player]

This is something that's been talked about on here before but, this piece brings numbers and stories to the issue by focusing on the University of Houston: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1012-the-ph-d-pay-gap

 

My favorite part might be this from a business PhD student with $33,000 per year in stipend support. 

 

I have to say I'm having trouble feeling sorry for her. 

 

Ha, I have to agree with you. I live in Houston, a 33K stipend is hella generous! I get 29K from my school which is ~2150 a month after taxes. I pay $875 for my 1BDRM and bike to campus or live close enough to take the shuttle system. I can afford a car payment and fund a savings account and after that a Roth IRA. Am I taking exotic vacations and eating at lavish restaurants? Of course not, but I am more than comfortable and have enough fun money every month to do some things and visit home every 6 months or so.

 

When I applied, I had a spreadsheet where I assigned scaled numbers to stipend and COL in the school area. I had other categories computed in and ran it through an algorithm to get a raw "score" for each school. It really helped make my decision easier and I'd recommend getting things down on paper like that. Don't forget an X factor category for "gut feeling"; that can often break close ties betweens schools.

[Cheshire_Cat]

Looking at it from an economic perspective-  Currently the demand for business professors outweighs the supply.  Business schools are also cash cows for a university.  If we've done our jobs correctly, we have a lot of rich alumni.  And we don't have quite the research costs of the other disciplines.  However, the AICPA actually had to run a program to subsidize accounting Ph.D student's salaries for a few years because no one in their right mind would leave a 60k a year job for 25k and 5 years of misery.  Unfortunately the program ended a year before I graduated college.  In that way, the market kind of took care of itself.  There was more of a demand, so someone stepped up to meet the supply.  Also, I'm apparently not in my right mind.  I won't be making nearly as much as the business student in the article.  I won't even make as much as ss2player.  My COL is lower though.  

 

OTOH, there are more liberal arts Ph.Ds than they need.  So the "smart" thing to do would be to raise barriers of entry.  One of those is the ability to support yourself through the Ph.D program.  Is that the correct barrier to raise, I don't know.  But there has to be something so the "market" won't be flooded, thus driving the salaries for liberal arts Ph.Ds down even further than they already are.  Making the program harder isn't a good barrier because then you have greater costs for people who don't even succeed. So the only logical thing to do would be to raise salaries of accepted students, but cut back on the number of students accepted.  That seems like a logical plan to me, but it does make it a lot more competitive for those trying to get into a program.

[random_grad]

I think it is fair that students in in-demand fields would get more funding while humanities pay less - this will make a person think twice before applying. As long as funding is above the poverty line for a given city (yes, I follow the Toronto situation with great interest), that imo is reasonable funding. Some unis offer need based grants. Problems start when you add dependents to the equation. Would an employer pay more if you tell you have kids? Probably not. Should PhDs be able to support their families? Definitely. Would it be fair to make funding contingent on kids? It can lead to terrible abuses. How do you think the family issue should be negotiated?

[Marst]

No, I did not consider it at all, even though I could have gotten a stipend triple the amount I receive now. My current stipend is 22k (half of that goes to rent and utilities, but I will probably move to slightly cheaper accommodation in a year). Mind you that 22k is a fixed amount here. It is all everyone gets. Given what I have spent this year, it is plenty to live off for a single student enjoying himself but not being wasteful. I would like to save a couple of grant or go on exotic holidays, but I am not getting my hopes up.

[victorydance]

I don't really care about graduate stipends. I currently live on 13K a year and have an independent income/passive income. Granted, I live in Latin America so costs are much cheaper, but I also travel a lot. I see no reason why I would ever hit above 20K in the USA. 

 

If you cannot live on 25-30K a year then that's a problem. Most jobs pay around 30-40K, there is no reason that a student should make that much.

[TakeruK]

Problems start when you add dependents to the equation. Would an employer pay more if you tell you have kids? Probably not. Should PhDs be able to support their families? Definitely. Would it be fair to make funding contingent on kids? It can lead to terrible abuses. How do you think the family issue should be negotiated?

 

I agree with you that this is tricky. There are strong points for and against things like family subsidies. In the "for" column, I argue that you can't say "real jobs don't provide X, so why should students get X?" because unlike real jobs, students have very little negotiating power once you start your program. In a "real job", if you have children, you can start looking for a better paying job at a different company and/or negotiate a higher pay rate. A PhD student cannot just up and leave after 3 years. I believe that because graduate students commit to their PhD school for a long time and provide a lot of good work for the school and are generally underpaid, the school should be responsible for the students' well being and ensure all of their students get the support needed.

 

In the "against" column, it's tricky because if the school subsidizes dependents, then the school is making some value judgement on what their students should be able to do or not do. Sure, maybe "not allowing children to starve" is a clear "yes we should do this" (although I know some people would argue against this too) but there will be other cases where the school will have to make decisions. And even though I think the school should subsidize students with dependents, I'm uncomfortable with the school having the power to decide what is "allowed" to be subsidized and what isn't.

 

As for "abuses", what kind of abuse of the system are you afraid of? I think this is a very common complaint people bring up but they often are not substantial complaints. 

[random_grad]

Potential abuses:

- people claim dependents who really could fend for themselves

- people start having more kids than intended

- people choose to have kids earlier than ready

- spouse choses to stay at home bc of stipend increase while otherwise could work and/or use daycare

Edited May 25, 2015 by random_grad

[TakeruK]

Potential abuses:

- people claim dependents who really could fend for themselves

- people start having more kids than intended

- people choose to have kids earlier than ready

- spouse choses to stay at home bc of stipend increase while otherwise could work and/or use daycare

 

Responses to these abuses (note: it might matter to clarify that these stipend supplements are in the $1000-$5000 range):

 

1. So what? People with dependents will have higher costs, whether or not they can fend for themselves. However, it is possible to make this a needs-based award too (based on total household income)

 

2. What do you mean by "intended"? It's the parents' intent to have as many children as they want--the school should not dictate their students' reproductive choices. (but again, if they wanted to, they can make it a cap so you get the same supplement whether it's 1 kid or 10 kids).

 

3. The school should not have a say in when it is "too early" to have children.

 

4. I agree that having the spouse feel like they need to stay home in order to receive the stipend increase is a bad thing. Currently, my school offers a supplement up to $4000 for use towards childcare only if the student is a single parent, or if the other parent works at least 20 hours per week. Also, daycare costs about $20,000 per year, so it's not really possible to abuse the system. I would be in favour of an additional stipend increase that is not dependent on the spouse's employment (40% of our students are international, and their spouses are not eligible to work)--and the independence of employment means that there is no incentive for the spouse to not work to get more money. In fact, this allows the parents to choose whether they want to return to work or not.

[victorydance]

I agree with you that this is tricky. There are strong points for and against things like family subsidies. In the "for" column, I argue that you can't say "real jobs don't provide X, so why should students get X?" because unlike real jobs, students have very little negotiating power once you start your program. In a "real job", if you have children, you can start looking for a better paying job at a different company and/or negotiate a higher pay rate. A PhD student cannot just up and leave after 3 years.

 

They can however take on more TA jobs, RA positions, or apply for more grants (both external and internal) if they need to so I don't see how it is that relevant. 

 

The thing is that I don't feel like individuals who decide to have children despite the inability to really provide for them should be supported any more than someone who decides not to have children. If an individual is incapable of working due to disability or whatever, then fine, but that's not the case here. I don't think having children while being in grad school is a good life decision. It can be done and if they can make it work all the power to them but that doesn't mean they should be supported anymore than someone who doesn't make that decision.

[ProfLorax]

I don't think having children while being in grad school is a good life decision. 

I don't think judging other people's reproductive choices is a good life decision.

[ProfLorax]

TakeruK, I kinda love you right now. Thanks for thinking of the brilliant scholars and teachers who are shut out of academia because of financial reasons. As a grad student and a mom, I would love to see grad programs offer (a) paid parental leave and (b ) quality subsidized campus infant and childcare. Pretty much what staff and faculty get. I think those two moves would make grad school much more accessible for grad students with families. Heck, I'd be happy if grad students could utilize FMLA, which yes, is unpaid, but provides security and continuation of benefits. At my program at least, there is no institutionalized leave program for students who get sick themselves or have to care for a family member (child, partner, sibling, or parent). 

[victorydance]

I don't think judging other people's reproductive choices is a good life decision.

 

Good for you.

[TakeruK]

They can however take on more TA jobs, RA positions, or apply for more grants (both external and internal) if they need to so I don't see how it is that relevant. 

 

Not always. For example, my current program does not allow us to earn any more stipend no matter how much we TA or RA or get external grants, unless we happened to get an external grant that either explicitly provides a stipend above the current stipend level, or pays both our tuition and stipend and leaves us leftover money (this would need to be an award worth over $70,000/year. Also, my counter argument is that by setting this higher standard for student parents, you are placing them at a disadvantage (i.e. in order to have the same stability, they have to work more hours or win more fellowships than another graduate student without a family).

 

The thing is that I don't feel like individuals who decide to have children despite the inability to really provide for them should be supported any more than someone who decides not to have children. If an individual is incapable of working due to disability or whatever, then fine, but that's not the case here. I don't think having children while being in grad school is a good life decision. It can be done and if they can make it work all the power to them but that doesn't mean they should be supported anymore than someone who doesn't make that decision.

 

I don't think judging other people's reproductive choices is a good life decision.

 

This exchange basically sums up the main ideological arguments currently presented by both sides on my campus right now (note: there are students, faculty, and deans on both sides, it's not simply a students vs. administration issue!). 

 

And there are students who have children before starting grad school. There are plenty of different groups that are marginalized in academia and that face the message "Academia is not for you", and "you don't belong here" over and over again, that we don't need to add to it by inequitable financial policies. I think it's important to fight for these issues because I want academia to be a place where we are all able to succeed, regardless of our family and reproductive choices.

[GeoDUDE!]

I think if you think graduate school isn't 100% analogous to a job you are in a rude awakening.... you would never tell a grade school teacher never to have a child because she/he only makes 30k a year.

 

The thought that anyone is special for going to graduate school is special, or that graduate school is special just because its graduate school is really arrogant and misinformed. Its up to the individuals to make that time special, just like anything else. There is a reason why graduate students don't walk around in black and white robes like nuns. 

Edited May 25, 2015 by GeoDUDE!

[victorydance]

And there are students who have children before starting grad school. There are plenty of different groups that are marginalized in academia and that face the message "Academia is not for you", and "you don't belong here" over and over again, that we don't need to add to it by inequitable financial policies. I think it's important to fight for these issues because I want academia to be a place where we are all able to succeed, regardless of our family and reproductive choices.

 

But there are people who are marginalized in all industries and in the economy because that's how the current system works. 

 

It can be reasoned that having children is a sacrifice and that sacrifice comes with it restraints on other parts of your life, including your profession or job paths. Academia is no different and I don't believe it should be made into some kind of utopian place that is different than the rest of the economy. 

Edited May 26, 2015 by victorydance

[random_grad]

Responses to these abuses (note: it might matter to clarify that these stipend supplements are in the $1000-$5000 range):

 

1. So what? People with dependents will have higher costs, whether or not they can fend for themselves. However, it is possible to make this a needs-based award too (based on total household income)

 

2. What do you mean by "intended"? It's the parents' intent to have as many children as they want--the school should not dictate their students' reproductive choices. (but again, if they wanted to, they can make it a cap so you get the same supplement whether it's 1 kid or 10 kids).

 

3. The school should not have a say in when it is "too early" to have children.

 

4. I agree that having the spouse feel like they need to stay home in order to receive the stipend increase is a bad thing. Currently, my school offers a supplement up to $4000 for use towards childcare only if the student is a single parent, or if the other parent works at least 20 hours per week. Also, daycare costs about $20,000 per year, so it's not really possible to abuse the system. I would be in favour of an additional stipend increase that is not dependent on the spouse's employment (40% of our students are international, and their spouses are not eligible to work)--and the independence of employment means that there is no incentive for the spouse to not work to get more money. In fact, this allows the parents to choose whether they want to return to work or not.

1. I was thinking more in terms of a person claiming a dependent being on disability while really it's a fake document they obtained in the country where the parent lives and where there is corruption

2. There are plenty of cases where people choose to have many kids to claim special benefits from the government, so why not university/

3. But subsidies can work as an extra incentive to have kids, when the parents might have benefited from postponing for a variety of reasons (maturity, relationship, dissertation)

 

I mean, most people will not abuse the system. But some might, and that's gonna be at everyone else's expense.

Edited May 26, 2015 by random_grad

[GeoDUDE!]

But there are people who are marginalized in all industries and in the economy because that's how the current system works. 

 

It can be reasoned that having children is a sacrifice and that sacrifice comes with it restraints on other parts of your life, including your profession or job paths. Academia is no different and I don't believe it should be made into some kind of utopian place that is different than the rest of the economy. 

 

I don't think its good to think that just because one situation is shitty another place should also be shitty. That is essentially your argument, in case you want to revise. 

[dr. t]

I didn't apply based on stipends, but the fact that one of my two choices was offering about $10k more was a significant factor in my final decision. Money is an incredibly important factor in success, and we shouldn't pretend it isn't.

 

As to how schools can afford larger stipends? Take on fewer graduate students; the market is bad enough as is.

[Dedi]

I did not apply based on stipend either. However, when it came down to it, funds are what influenced my final decision. It was either only getting funding for my first year of my masters (second year I had to apply to grants or pay out of pocket) at one university or getting funding for a PhD for five years + a major award at another university. I'm by no means greedy (I live very modestly as is from my socioeconomic status) but when you have those kinds of choices, the decision becomes pretty clear.

 

I agree with Telkanuru--we all hate to say it, but there would be more funds to go around if grad schools accepted fewer students...

[Cheshire_Cat]

Another argument for making allowances for children-  children with better educated parents are more likely to be successful in their own lives.  Yes, it may be bad timing to have kids in grad school, but there never really is a good time to have kids.  Currently, people who are less educated and less successful are having a lot more kids than those who are successful, because by the time we are settled enough to consider children, we are past prime child-bearing years.  As the system is right now, you have to put your family aside for career stability in the workplace or academia.  Wouldn't it be better if that wasn't the case?  It doesn't happen in industry, but people in industry don't get tenure either.

 

I see the abuses, I audit government programs for a living.  But I feel like there should be some way to increase the work/life balance of a graduate student so they don't always have to make the choice between career or children.  I'm not sure if more money is the answer, but I think it is something to be considered. 

[victorydance]

I don't think its good to think that just because one situation is shitty another place should also be shitty. That is essentially your argument, in case you want to revise. 

 

That's not really what I am saying.

 

I don't think it is "shitty" anywhere. My point was that the way society is set up, people make some sacrifices and with those sacrifices comes restraints or lack of opportunities. Starting a family is one of those restraints. If you want to get married and/or have children, you have to recognize that your opportunities will be more limited than they were before. Doesn't mean you can't succeed in whatever you may want to succeed in but it still means there are more restraints. It's a fact that people with families are going to be more risk-adverse and less likely to strive to become leaders of their fields because someone that has a family is going to value more stability and place less value on ambition. 

 

I don't think people should be paid more because they have a family. Nor do I think students should receive more funding if they have a family. It was their choice to have a family. 

 

The world isn't full of roses and free rides, well for the vast majority of people anyways. Simple fact is that breaking into academia is difficult and if you want to put more restraints on that pursuit by having children then so be it, you shouldn't get any advantages because you did so. And it doesn't matter anyways, because there is always going to be someone in line to take your place if you aren't passionate enough/willing to make sacrifices to break into academia. And that's the way it is everywhere. 

 

It's just a matter of entitlement. I want a nice house, a family, a Ph.D., and a tenure-track job please. Well, you might have to forfeit one or more of those things to get the other. 

[bsharpe269]

I don't think that people with families should get bonuses to their stipends. I completely support anyone who wants to have a family in grad school but I don't think they should get extra money to do so.

 

I have 2 dogs that can be quite expensive. One of them had heartworms when I got her and juggling that on a grad school income was rough. Having dogs has limited me in grad school. It makes it harder to find housing and I have additional fees for vet care and pet deposits and have to figure out how to either come home on my lunch break to let them out or pay for a dog walker. I recognize that I chose to get dogs though and so I live with the pros and cons that come with that. Why should someone with kids get extra money when I don't? My dogs aren't as expensive as kids but they are still an extra expensive and grad school can be difficult with dogs.

 

Everyone chooses to live differently. Some people choose to have kids or spouses or pets in grad school. Others choose to live in one bedroom apartments instead of studios or decide to have roommates or live near campus. Some people choose to eat organic food. These are all life choices. I think that people should be free to live however they wish to in grad school but I don't think that stipend should be determined based on life choices.

Edited May 26, 2015 by bsharpe269