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No remotely reputable STEM PhD program in the US actually charges you tuition, they also pay you a modest wage like you describe in Europe. You might have to TA some semesters if you don't go to a top program or work for a well established prof. But the compensation even for that case includes tuition, health insurance, and stipend. It's not a bad deal especially in the early years of a program when you are actually spending most of your time taking classes and learning other background.

The capped length sounds nice, but I think the years they shave off are mostly just at the start, not the years you spend grinding out research. The first year of a US PhD would typically be separated out as an independent Master's degree in Europe.

I have no idea what the academic culture is like over there, so I can't actually say whether it would've been better with regards to the things I disliked about PhD. But the facts you presented don't make me optimistic. A lot of them I don't consider problems in the US personally, and the absolute biggest problem for me is the ridiculous professorship job pipeline.

I'd also be cautious about that 50% US drop out number. It is likely < 20% at a T25 program in any STEM field in the US, certainly in my field that is the case. Perhaps it is higher in CS because people intentionally master out after 2 years to take a lucrative tech job. But I wouldn't consider that failing with the kind of connotation "drop out" has.

I would suggest extra caution before attending a mediocre (or worse) program of course.

I don't know, when I read US PhD students posting in academic Twitter I'm under the impression that they have to pay huge tuition and go into debt, can barely subsist, are exploited for teaching and can't even do much research, and are often on the brink of depression.

I assumed reality would be somewhat less grim as my sample is probably biased towards the ones who complain, but maybe it's so biased that it doesn't even resemble reality at all.

There is professional school (med school, law school, business school) and there are PhD programs. The former do cost quite a bit in the US, but Ph.D programs in the US (at least in the sciences) don't cost anything if you get in and in fact pay you a salary (I have a doctorate in microbiology and that's how it was for me and everybody I know). That being said, this generosity has a dark side -- there are considerably more Ph.Ds produced than can have jobs in scientific research and that's because grad students are a source of cheap labor for professors.

I think it's true that many PhD students have less time for pursuing their own research interests than they would hope, it is very tied to your advisor's wishes. Brink of depression is probably not a huge exaggeration either, at least for a non-negligible subset.

Barely subsisting is definitely not true for a STEM PhD at a decent program though. You're getting paid way less than you could probably, but as long as you're willing to have a couple housemates (usually fellow students) and are not yet supporting anyone else it's a reasonably comfortable wage. Keep in mind that solid health insurance and student perks like university gym membership are also provided at 0 cost.

This might be controversial, but people who have excess expenses (for whatever reason) in their mid 20s probably shouldn't undertake a PhD in the first place. That's the only way a STEM researcher who didn't settle for a subpar school could possibly end up in additional debt as a PhD student IME.

Post doc wages, given the career stage and associated job culture/benefits, are notably shittier. Debt still feels like an exaggeration to me, but a 35 year old with a lot of training and unclear future career prospects should at least be able to support a middle class family lifestyle with their postdoc wages. A 25 year old that is working towards an actual degree and still benefiting from student status is such a different situation.

In hindsight, the maximally enjoyable thing might be to work for FIRE and then pseudo retire to being a PhD student. A PhD can be inherently valuable, the problem is just how tied it is to an insane career path.

Anyway, it's possible the posting students are humanities PhDs? At a good place they still don't pay tuition, but will often get basically 0 stipend. So they legit need loans for living expenses. Either that or Twitter amplifies complaints from schools that one really should not do a PhD at.

Don't made me start to talking about science in Spain.

> It's not even possible to go beyond 5 years

And we still wonder why nobody is trying to paint a new Giocconda now, and where are the big results

First they repeat "ad-nauseam" that only want the very passionate and ambitious people, but then force you to choose a mediocre theme to work on it, or to solve very complex problems that nobody has figured before in a couple of years, plus one to land and other to write.

- "We have very serious environmental problems that treat our survival as species. What we could do?... Oh; What if we give the people only four years to solve it and save everybody. Just to create suspense?"

This happens by two very simple rules

1. Anybody starting in science must be dumber than this boss. Scientists must be all mediocre and equally talented, have the same background and fit to the current ideas.

If I want to study a complex problem for six or ten, or twenty years with my own money, well... is my problem. I repeat. Is -my- problem.

No other fields have this restriction. You will never see things like:

- "You are an architect? If you can't build an airport or major monument in <4 years you quit and everything is burnt down. This called Sidney Opera is taking too much to build, I can't understand this shape, lets start again and trow the investment in the dumpster"

- "You are a politician?. If you don't became president in three years and a half (or are more than 30 Yo), you are fired"

Who are the politicians to say how much of my time I can invest in something, when they don't apply the same rule to themselves?. Oh, I forgot the second rule:

2. Any grant money graciously given for a politician must benefit the politician career. Period. This means that science is now crushed to fit electoral intervals of four years

Unexpected maternity? Two years of covid?, say bye to your career and the investment of decades of study

And then they delay the grants payment for two or three years, just for laughs.

You seem to make the assumption that large contributions should be made within the duration of a PhD program. In my view, a PhD program's goal is to train new researchers. If awesome breakthroughs are generated before the thesis, of course it's a big plus, but not the point... PhD graduates still have several decades of career ahead of them to paint their Gioccondas. The PhD is just to get them started, when they graduate they should be able to fly alone and generate independent research.

There is the problem that research funding (also after the PhD) is associated to projects that only last for a few years, but that seems to be pretty much universal.

> I think people from the US who consider a PhD should really look outside the US too, as many (not all, of course) of the disadvantages don't apply globally. > > For example, in Spain: > > ... > > - Tuition is a symbolic amount (something like 100 €/year or so).

Is that €400 total to complete a PhD programme? Or do you mean specifically _tuition_ fees are small, but there are still other fees applicable? (Just clarifying, cause in Ireland when I was at university, they spoke a lot about "free tuition fees", but universities still charged thousands per year to students for "administration fees", to cover everything that wasn't explicitly tuition).

Also worth bearing in mind that international students (i.e. non-EU) often have higher fees, which can be as high as double or triple what home students (EU) pay. (Though if the total is only €400 that's still obviously really good!)

I can't speak for Spain, but until recently (a bit over ten years) in France university attendance was completely free. Nowadays there's a registration fee, which is 380€ for a doctorate.

Now that you mention it, there is also a final one-time fee for the thesis defense and PhD diploma.

But putting all the fees together, it's less than €700 for the whole PhD programme. There are no administration fees or other large fees.

Denmark:

- Usually 3 year (a post graduate education expected, otherwise 5 years) - Considered a job, you are paid USD ~4k a month (depending on field)

All true, but in Europe you need a 5-year degree to start a PhD.

Yes, this is true. You cannot start directly with a US 4-year Bachelor's, you would need a 1-year Master's. I suppose this can be a deterrent for many, but I still see many people with MSc degrees that complain (understandably) about all the hurdles of US PhDs and could benefit from considering Europe.

Don’t you normally need an undergrad to start a PhD in the US as well?

In the UK an undergrad is 3 years in most cases, then 3 years for a PhD, so 6 years total.

Some institutions will technically admit you for a PhD with no prior degree at all, but nobody does this in practice.

It's less common now in the UK to admit people to PhD programs directly from undergrad. In many cases you'd be expected to do a one-year masters first, although that's not a universal requirement.

Nowhere near universal. It’s common to go from undergrad to PhD in the U.K.

Tbh most Master’s, esp MSc, don’t add anything.

Varies a lot from field to field.

>Don’t you normally need an undergrad to start a PhD in the US as well?

Yes, but not a graduate degree.

For comparison, at least in Austria, you need to have finished both a Bachelor of Science (3 years) and a Master of Science (2 years) in order to be able to start a PhD.

That's usually not the case in the USA (and some common law countries), where you only need the equivalent of a Bachelor of Science in order to start the PhD. You then do a small version of the Master of Science in parallel with the PhD.

So the UK is probably the best model - 3 years undergrad, 3-4 years PhD max.

Oh, that explains why I see more Americans going for PhD (successfully or not) than, say, Germans. It never made sense to me because I was used to it being the thing you can do after an MSc/MA and those already seemed like a questionable choice for many jobs.

This is actually not a hard requirement, you can start after your bachelor's. Not sure about having no degree at all like a sibling comment mentioned, maybe that's possible too.

That's not necessarily true in the UK. Many masters courses, like mine, take a total of four years. In some cases you can even get lucky and go straight from undergraduate to a PhD. I know at least one person who did that.

It might depend on the field, but in Math/CS at a number of good unis, the standard path is a 4-year integrated MSc (you get a BSc after 3), then apply to PhD.

It is possible to do the MSc over 5-6 years and spend some time working, whether in parallel with studies as a teaching assistant, or taking a term/year out to get some industry experience. But in terms of credits gained, an MSc is 4 years net of studies.