Stipends & Cost of Living - How to Compare?

[muskratsam]

I have been mulling this, and am unclear on how to best calculate this.  Let's say I have an offer with a $20K stipend in a location with a Cost of Living Index of 97.  And I have one for $24K from a location with a COL of 110.  How do I turn those into "like for like" dollars for comparison purposes?  It certainly isn't the main way I plan to pick a program, but I'd like to be able to compare them, and the calculation is not obvious to me.  The range of COLs for the programs I applied to is really wide (89-148).  Can anyone help?  Thanks!

[steve3020]

check out this website: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/comparison.jsp

Cost of living index is inclusive of all the different costs, so perhaps it's more accurate to compare the prices of things you will need most. 

[fuzzylogician]

In addition to using these online comparison sites, I found it helpful to simply talk to some current students at each program I was considering about how far their stipend takes them. Ask about where people live (if everyone lives far away from campus because it's too expensive to live nearby, that may be a concern), if people can afford to live without roommates (though many may choose to have roommates anyway, but it's still worth knowing how many and if anyone does live alone), if students ever need to take out loans or run out of money, if people work second jobs, if they generally feel comfortable with what they make. You can learn a lot by just asking if people feel like they make enough. Remember to ask more than one person; it's amazing how the same amount may be more than enough for some and not nearly enough for others. You want to get more than one opinion. 

[TakeruK]

When I was comparing stipends, I didn't find the COL numbers very useful for direct comparisons. They are good for big picture comparisons between cities but I wouldn't use them in a numerical calculation because I find that grad student expenses don't always scale with COL indicators (at least for me).

My method was to determine the major variable costs of each school/city. The first one is rent. I find that actually taking a look at rent costs in the areas you want to live in for each city works better than just scaling with the COL number. (i.e. a small town with little transit options might have a low COL but there may still be high rents near campus). 

The second major variable cost, from my experience, is health insurance because the coverages vary a lot from school to school. At some places, I would only pay a few hundred dollars per year for my premiums but at others, I would pay at least $3000! 

The third major variable cost may be things like vehicle maintenance and insurance, if you plan on having a vehicle. (Or maybe you'll need a car in some places and not others so this is a big cost in some places and not others).

The last major variable cost, for me, was travel costs to visit home. A school on the other side of the country likely means it will cost a lot more if you plan on visiting home fairly often. 

Once I determined these major variable costs, I subtract them from the take-home stipend and see what's left over. I compared these numbers directly to determine the "value" of each stipend offer. In my experience, the cost for things like food is fairly uniform across the US/Canada, except for really remote places. Yes, food does cost more in some places, but I figure I spend around $50/week on groceries, so something like a 10% difference is only a few hundred dollars. This variation is a lot smaller than the major categories above.

Finally, I think the non-adjusted cost of living numbers are also important because I'm interested in saving the money. The stipends in my field generally will cover all living expenses and my goal in making comparisons is to determine how much I'd be able to save each year. Putting $1000 (or whatever value) per year into your bank account is still $1000 no matter if it's a high COL or low COL city. 

[ChrisTOEFert]

To add onto this, big stipends don't necessarily go very far, even if you're frugal, live with roommates, and do everything in your power to not overspend.  So I got into a dream program that any new researcher would have killed to get into that started Oct 1 of 2016.  I was funded for €57,700 per year, which included a €600/month travel benefit.  My flights were covered as I was going to have to intern at 4 different home-base universities, my materials were covered, and I got 2 free laptops.  So, basically, if we convert to Canadian money, I was banking about $90,000/year, which is beyond ridiculous for a PhD salary.  I was making the same as my supervisors in my undergrad and MSc.  BUT! the one problem was, I was going to be living in Copenhagen.  I did my research, I knew Copenhagen was expensive.  I'd heard the horror stories of the €12 pint of beer, the $2000 CAD a month room rentals, etc.  I thought I was prepared.  I wasn't.

So I rented a room in Copenhagen, that I frankly lucked out on.  It was quite literally across the street from my lab.  The rent was cheap for the location, $1,100 CAD/month for a 15m2 room (so about 5m long and 3m wide), in a quiet apartment complex, and my roommates were a married couple in their mid-to-late 30s that went to their vacation house every Friday and returned late on Sunday...and they had a super cute, friendly dog.  Then I had to buy a new phone...which was $600 CAD, then food came (which yes, $50 a week is doable, if you eat beans and rice).  It was closer to double that.

Realistically, my stipend was insane...for Canada and the US. But it was actually basically directly on par with University stipends in Canada (~$17,000) with maybe an extra 2-3 thousand thrown on top once you took the Scandinavian COL into account, which NOBODY told me about.  Even my supervisor whom I was in contact with frequently never mentioned how insanely expensive it was, he undershot several things by several hundreds of dollars.  Buying clothes was completely out of the question for me, as Levi's jeans that I could easily get at home for around $50 on sale were $200+ in Copenhagen.  

As the others have said here, be prepared.  Ask your supervisors realistically about the COL.  Ask to be put in touch with a friendly grad student that has lived in the area for a couple of years.  If they do a meet and greet/wine and dine and you're invited, ask the grad students honestly.  I did an interview in Germany for a PhD placement and my first question was point blank: how much money do you make, and is it livable?  I got some honest answers that told me that had I been accepted, I probably would not have chosen to go.  They made decent money for the region, which was a small town in Thuringia, "East" Germany, but the COL for apartments was dumb high for the area, doubling or tripling that of nearby towns and cities.  

Good luck.

Edited January 16, 2017 by ChrisTOEFert

[CoffeeFueledAnxiety]

I also don't think COL is very helpful in terms of considering your budget.

First, the COL will consider the whole city average but not specific area in which you would probably like to live in. If the city is quite big, the different areas COL could vary a bit. Second, I think the COL was built with consideration of a "normal" working families or households, which I don't think really fit the situation of graduate students. Third, it is quite hard to convert their index number onto a dollar based calculation.

IMO the better way to consider this is either by asking the current student, or by listing your likely expenses then look for their average pricing around forums like citydata, reddit, or even craiglist. At least people talk in terms of dollars in those forums.