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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

If you can afford to go to grad school without borrowing to do it, maybe that would be a good idea for some people. But this is probably a terrible, terrible time to bet on getting a well paying job in the future based on current degree programs (edit: by "bet" I mean for purposes of repaying student loans).

The pandemic has upended the economy and the economy was already something of a mess. We don't know what the future of work looks like and people are pretty bad at predicting the future under the best of circumstances.

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Academic here -- this brings up something that I always like to spread the word about: Contrary to some apparently common perceptions, grad school, especially in the sciences, generally pays you rather than the other way around.

Things like professional masters degrees (incl. some engineering degrees) are likely to cost money, but in the sciences both MS and PhD should be fully funded at reputable universities -- either through TAing, your advisers grants, or if you're lucky, fellowships.

I'm 32 years old, and returning to school to finish my undergrad with the intention of grad school afterwards. A grad school salary is a starvation wage that would be tolerable if it were just me, not so much now that I have a family. Which is fine -- I'll pay my way though grad school and study part time. Thankfully my field of interest is one where this kind of arrangement isn't so unusual.

But I'm mainly responding with this because a lot of "perks" of schooling like this are structured assuming you followed a traditional path -- namely, you're 18-24, single, no dependents, not much in the way of actual, adult responsibilities. The more you deviate from that the more inaccessible grad school and school in general become.

You're definitely right about it being structured to assume you followed the traditional path. That said, top schools will pay grad students about the US median salary ($35k/yr). Other schools potentially much less. Whether the US median salary is itself a starvation wage is, I suppose, another question.

I have a relative at West Virginia University who is paid $32k while doing a bio PhD. Not a top school, not terrible money given the low cost of living.

This doesn't seem quite right to me. $35k seems like a big overestimate, outside of very high CoL areas or the richer private institutions. Top-ranked public institutions will offer more like $20-25k because they can get away with it due to prestige. Lower ranked schools seemingly have to offer more to try to attract students.

Here are the current grad student salaries at UC Davis [1].

A "Teaching Assistant" (AKA a grad student is TAing) is paid $45,138.00 per year, and a grad student who is currently paid out of grants earns between $42,729.00 for "Graduate Student Researcher - Step I" and $83,727.00 for "Graduate Student Researcher - Step X". I was slightly shocked, but this is the official salary scale. Granted, very few grad students are likely compensated at the upper end of that range, but still.

UC Berkeley [2] and UC San Diego [3] appear to be quite similar, so this is would seem to be somewhat representative of the UC system overall.

My own institution would seem to be actually lagging behind somewhat compared to this.

In any case, graduate student compensation has increased significantly in absolute terms over the past decade or two.

[1] https://grad.ucdavis.edu/resources/student-employment/salary...

[2] https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/1819...

[3] https://grad.ucsd.edu/financial/employment/student-pay-rates...

You were slightly shocked because you are misunderstanding the table. Those are FTE (full-time equivalent salaries). The actual students work at most 50% time (during the 9 month academic year), so get at most half the amounts listed there.

I remember being a Graduate student in math at UC Berkeley in the late 90s, and getting just over $13K/year - it sucked (and grad students were striking back then)! So I also took out many student loans, which worked out for me because my salary once I got a real job was enough to pay them back very quickly (as I was used to living on so little money). I was a grad student at NAU in Flagstaff before that and got under $9K/academic year...

there's gotta be something weird going on here. either they are rolling "tuition" waivers into this, or they are quoting salaries for 40 hours but the actual positions are paid at 20 hours (on paper).

as a more typical example, the University of Illinois offers somehwere around $22k to CS grad students (and it's one of the strongest CS programs in the world), and $20k to math.

https://cs.illinois.edu/about/awards/graduate-fellowships-aw...

https://math.illinois.edu/admissions/graduate-admissions/fin...

I think it is FTE 40 hour salaries, based on the linked pdf.

I can confirm that $20-25k at top public schools is about right circa 10 years ago, and that $35k is currently about right at a top Ivy League (both for math).

I’m 32 and planning to attend a PhD program. I don’t have kids I am single and I’m fine living off a graduate student wage. I find research much more satisfying than what I’ve done in industry and am looking forward to the opportunity.

All I can say is, good luck.

I discourage everyone from doing a PhD, but it sounds like you've made your mind up.

Be very careful with your choice of advisor and department, and if it isn't working, be ready to walk away--sounds like you have a career to go back to.

Having just finished a 10 year PhD stint, I second this advice. It is absolutely critical to have a supportive department, secure funding sources, and an advisor with whom you can work well. If any of those is not the case, it’s a recipe for a bad time.

If it's a good PhD program then they will pay you to attend. No need to take out loans.

If you can arrange to further your education without incurring new debt, furthering your education is the only way to be unemployed that has a pretty consistent track record of improving your future career and earnings.

But ability to arrange to do so without incurring new debt is very much a personal matter and depends on many variables, such as marital status, existing dependents, current debt load, existing health issues, etc.

A PhD -- especially in CS -- is not really best understood as "furthering your education" in the traditional sense. It's better understood as a paid apprenticeship in R&D.

It's preparation to become either a professor at a university or an independent researcher at an industrial/government research lab. It won't increase your lifetime earnings or job prospects, but it does open up doors to jobs whose primary allure is intellectual freedom rather than material reward.

If you don't go one of those two routes after a CS PhD, then a CS PhD has rather high negative expected value except in a few special circumstances (e.g., BS from NoName Branch Cappus to PhD from mit/cmu/stanford. But that's not the typical case for non-immigrants.)

>f you can arrange to further your education without incurring new debt

How do?

Scholarships.

Grants.

Going to school where college is cheap and/or cost of living is low.

Testing out of classes.

Taking a job where your employer will pay for your education.

Living with relatives while attending school on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Different people work this out different ways. The exact details will vary tremendously.

I have done all of the above at various times. I have nearly six years of college and only ever took out one student loan for a boot camp style summer program where I completed a year-long certificate program in eight weeks.

Only if you're young enough and unattached enough to live off relatively small stipends. For a 35 year old with a family, that's not really an option. Retooling for a career change is very expensive, in time, money, and salary lost when you start on the bottom rung of the ladder.

I interpreted medymed's comment to mean it's a good time to already be in grad school. If that's the case then you likely don't have a family (for all the reasons you just mentioned). I don't think people are advocating now as a good time to switch from industry to grad school.

Correct, no change, not if you already have a job or the ready prospect of getting a new one. But if you were a regional manager overseeing a dozen restaurants in a now bankrupt chain, your job prospects aren't very good, and retraining a long upward hill battle.

It was never meant to be even close to competitive to a senior-level professional salary. Besides, to be competitive in academia, which is the actual end goal in mind for any student going through a decently ranked PhD program, the target demographic is not someone looking for a career change so late in life, nor would they even be admitted if they had no relevant research experience or potential.

You're absolutely right, but it seemed to me the context of the suggestion was that an economic downturn was a good time to go back to school if you were without a job, and that a good PhD program would pay you while you were in it. I was pointing out that such a thing wasn't an option for many people.

Raising 2 kids on $30K/yr requires loans.

Or a lifestyle change. Take your pick.

Literal poverty isn't a "lifestyle".

Poverty guideline for 2 kids is $26k

But who is getting 30k anyways? If that is the stipend of one grad student, you need to double it to get the household of two grad students, and then it is over the median household income. The median income is not poverty

> Poverty guideline for 2 kids is $26k

Typical grad stipends outside of top-5 schools are closer to $20K.

$30K is damn close to an upper bound. That's what the tippy-top schools pay the top 1% of students. The few schools that go higher -- AFAIK in CS only NYC+Boston+CA -- are in markets where a single bedroom in a shared house runs $1K+/mo. And in that sort of rental market the federal poverty guideline is rote bullshit.

$16K is perfectly normal for the vast majority of folks who aren't at top 5 programs in the most in-demand field.

> But who is getting 30k anyways? If that is the stipend of one grad student, you need to double it to get the household of two grad students

Yeah but then you subtract child care and someone might as well stay home because it's literally costing them money to work.

>Typical grad stipends outside of top-5 schools are closer to $20K.

I am doing a PhD in Germany and get 54k €

The wage is regulated, everyone who has worked full-time at the university for a few years will earn the same. Although most grad students will earn much less, because most only have a part time position, and finish their thesis sooner.

In the first year without a full-time position, I was getting 20k €

>Yeah but then you subtract child care and someone might as well stay home because it's literally costing them money to work.

In Germany, child care costs between nothing and 500€/month depending on the city (e.g. in Hamburg it is free for 30h/week)

Smart people don't take out loans to finance a lifestyle that's not compatible with their income.

...I think you lost the thread of the conversation, buddy.

Pretty certain any type of engineering is a good bet. But you wouldn't have trouble finding an engineering job with just an undergraduate degree (possible exception of CS since there are not many junior roles).

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