Graduate Stipends Aren't What They Used to Be.

[NNadir]

I found out my kid is getting $2500/month for his stipend.

That seems like a lot to me, but then again, I'm an old guy, something about which my wife reminded me because I thought a car battery should cost around $40. (I paid $160.)

Of course, my father thought a loaf of bread should cost 30 cents.

Still, $2500/month seems like a lot of money to make for having fun.

[lapfog_1]

1. seems about right

as i recall i was paid around $800/month in 1979 as an "Instructor" at a midwestern university. my rent was $400/month... so $100 a week for groceries and entertainment.

I always made a little more because I would volunteer for any "extras" offered by the department.

[NNadir]

3. I guess. I've turned into my father. Like him...

...I think everything should be priced the same as when I was 21.

[TexasTowelie]

2. $2,500 a month is a lot of money.

That is about what someone who works 40 hours a week making $15 an hour would take home each month and considering the amount of down time there is for vacations and breaks between semesters, it is quite generous.

[lapfog_1]

5. very often stipends are not paid

in the summer breaks... mine was tied to me teaching about 1/2 time while keeping a "full" (graduate student) course load and a good GPA and recommendation of my department chairman.

I don't know about the requirements these days, but it's usually not a "free ride".

[TexasTowelie]

10. Never said that it was a free ride.

However, I briefly returned to school after I received my bachelors degree to get a teaching certificate (thinking that it would be the most likely way to gain employment compared to getting a masters degree in mathematics). Midway through that first semester it became apparent that my roommate was going to leave and it was running about $4,000 a semester. If I knew that I could take in $1,000 a month to take care of expenses then I would have considered a post-grad degree and wouldn't have had any qualms accepting a teaching assignment since that would open up the road to become a professor instead.

My choice at the time was to continue going backwards financially with little help from the family because my father took early retirement and my older brother quit his job, or take full-time employment instead. It was a shame because when I withdrew I had a 4.0 GPA and three of the math classes that I had as an undergrad were considered as graduate level classes at the university I attended. I even helped one of the post-grad students in their complex analysis class. I didn't see a lot of value in getting a masters degree from a university that had a poor reputation.

[dawg day]

4. Having fun?

Doesn't he have to teach?

I keep thinking that a car payment is about $200 a month. It's always a shock to see the actual "nut" as we used to call it.

[NNadir]

8. No.

It's a special type of program, a scholarship from the university wherein he gets a year long Masters degree based on his undergraduate performance. He has not signed up for a Ph.D. there, but I guess they want him to do so.

The summer after his Freshman year they sent him to France on a paid research fellowship. The summer after that, he had an internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Last summer he worked (from home, because of Covid) on a paid international fellowship in lieu of going to England, cooperating by Zoom with the people with whom he would have worked had he been allowed to travel, paid b the NSF. He graduated half a year early, completing his last semester mostly with graduate courses and they put him in this program.

The little brat has had an experience that I certainly wouldn't have expected. In fact, I can't say that I know too many people who had that kind of experience. When he started college, my wife and I were expecting him to have summer jobs, I don't know, at an ice cream shop or something like that.

I kind of worry that he lacks perspective on how hard things can be for some people.

[dawg day]

11. He must be pretty smart!

Some people just fall into good situations. A young friend of mine got a summer internship at one if the big tech companies, and most of the job was going to lunch with various dept heads trying to recruit him to join them after graduation. His college friends who were working the fryer at burger King sure let him know he was lucky!

of course, he was also smart, but there are a lot of smart people who aren't lucky. I just wanted him to realize that luck and connections also played a role.

[NNadir]

12. He is. It's almost intimidating.

Fortunately, he doesn't have a swelled head about it, mostly because for his whole life I've had a depreciating sense of humor, as well as the fact that he's developed the good habit of hanging out with people as smart or smarter than he is.

I love hearing him converse with his brother. They're generally fairly high level conversations that leave me wondering what happened to my little babies.

The time goes so fast and then time's up.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Having fun?

Graduate students are lucky if they have time to take bathroom breaks.

Along with their own research and the writing of their dissertation, they usually have teaching duties.

My son is in grad school, and I believe he is getting $2500/month. He's actually a Research Assistant, not a teaching assistant, but he has to do things like help conduct on-line tours of the campus telescope (he's in astronomy). Before Covid he did them in person. Now he's spending all day, seven days a week, studying for qualifying exams he'll be taking later this month, while keeping a hand in his research, which involves a lot of computer programming.

I mean, he does like what he's doing but, even he wouldn't describe his stipend as a lot of money for having fun.

He lives in Fairfax, VA, just outside of Washington, DC. I think his rent is $1300/month. Maybe more.

[NNadir]

9. It's fun if you love what you do.

It used to annoy me if I had to leave the lab to sleep.

It was very hard work, and probably, on reflection, dangerous, and there were plenty "what the fuck?" kinds of times, but there were lots of other times I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else, except maybe in my wife's arms or in a library.

My son rents a pretty big (albeit run down) house with 5 other students. His share of the rent is $500/month.

[malthaussen]

13. Gawd, I got 2500 a year!

That *was* in the 80's, though. But that's a better rate than a lot of adjuncts get, and adjuncts actually have to work for a living.

-- Mal