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Comment by davesque | Hacker News Reader

As much as PhD students are often "funded" by their university, they're only really surviving at best. I'd like to do a PhD more than almost anything. However, at 41 and well into a career with each job paying higher than the last, the opportunity cost is becoming more and more prohibitive. Stepping back from earning (and saving!) for five years seems like a kiss of death to me and a virtual guarantee that I won't be able to retire comfortably. These kinds of articles, while well meaning, really irk me. They come across as completely tone death and inadvertently cast a fair bit of light on the author's personal financial situation (or perhaps their lack of awareness of it).

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Doing a PhD later in my life is also my bucket list and I suspect I probably won’t be able to cross it off unless I really prioritise it or get lucky. That being said I think you are being a bit unfair to the author. They do acknowledge that you need to have an opportunity.

> My advice is: if you have the opportunity to dive into a new field, take it

Also, you are 41 and I would definitely agree that doing one when you are in your 40s would be almost impossible due to things like career, kids and mortgages etc. But the author around 60! I don’t think it’s “tone deaf” to suggest that one may be able to find some freedom to squeeze in a phd while working part time after working till 60.

Edit: I will acknowledge that having a good job and being able to comfortably retire or cut income around 60 is a privilege that many people unfortunately won’t have. But I don’t think its unachievable though.

If you can free up one day per week from your regular job, you can pursue a PhD in part-time. It would likely be unfunded, take a little longer, and there may be expenses involved, but still, the option is there.

Moreover, this dramatically lowers the opportunity cost.

At least here in Sweden it is not uncommon for employers to help sponsor employees getting their PhD. The basic deal is you split your time 50/50 between work and study and your research has to be something directly relevant and useful to to company and what you do there. Often you will be directly applying the research you do at the university to a project you have at work, and your work project will be the 'platform' on which your research is tested and evaluated.

In exchange the company will pay you 50% of your salary plus a stipend so that your total take home salary doesn't drop off too much. Does such a thing exist where you live?

Wow, det visste jag inte. Det är jättekul!

Yea, it's called "Industridoktorand" and many of the larger engineering/tech companies (say 1k+ employees) I've been involved with had 1 or 2 people doing it.

we have a similar thing in France, called CIFRE :)

I'm wondering if you would define a higher than median US salary to be "surviving at best", as most CS PhD programs are at that amount plus health insurance. But certainly far from a FAANG salary, and I agree that there are disciplines usually with smaller programs that are "surviving at best."

The highest stipend I've been offered by a CS PhD program has been 50k. In NYC. Most other offers I had were around the 30k-40k region.

The median household income in 2020 was $67,521 [1]

[1]: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-27...

At ETH in Zurich it is around 60k.

Of course there is also cost of living, and, quoting the AVETH survival guide (2012): "It is common in many departments to reduce the amount of payment from 100 percent to 80 percent or 60 percent. However, you are still expected to work full time. Make sure you know what you are about to sign."

That's not the correct comparison. Household income often includes two incomes, which is going to bring the value up. Your same link says the median earnings for a male individual is $61,417. Not significantly less, but this distinction is often important.

> The median household income in 2020 was $67,521

Median personal income is around $36k. [0] Annualized median earnings of the full-time employed are around $52k. [1] Households often have more multiple income earners.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm

Wikipedia notes, "The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median personal income at $35,977 in 2019 with a base year of 2019 for all people over 15 years old.[3] The U.S. Census Bureau lists the annual real median earnings at $41,535 in 2020 for all workers with earnings[4] and lists the annual median earnings at $56,287 in 2020 for people who worked full-time, year round."

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