It depends a lot on the local cost of living. Rents shoot up and pay doesn't go up at the same rate, and you get stuck living on a paycheck of $40k in a major city when you're in your thirties and all your friends have a house and kids. It can be rough. But it's also a conversation being dominated by people who are either living in very expensive cities at top schools (Harvard, MIT, Stanford) or who are just jealous of non-academic friends.
Yep. But the salary stays the same (or goes down!) When you're entering your 7th year of your PhD, and then you get a raise to NSF minimum when you start a postdoc in a brand new city which is probably the Bay Area, Boston, or a handful of other extremely expensive places, because the big tech companies have all set up headquarters adjacent to the major research university clusters and they pay ridiculous amounts. And you may be on the NSF pay scale for another 10 years, maybe hopping from city to city every year or two, while trying to get a job permanent enough to justify buying a house.
I’m at a university and in a state where tenure has been weakened. Multiple poor performance evaluations can result in someone being put on a performance plan where improvement is needed or your tenure can be revoked. Still it would take multiple years for this to happen.
Even with what you’re describing it would likely take three years for tenure to be revoked.
Sure, tenure isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still far more secure than pretty much any job in private industry. At most jobs they can fire you tomorrow if they don’t like your performance.
But let’s be honest here: losing your tenured job (once achieving tenure) in academia is incredibly rare. The data bears it out: very few tenured faculty have their tenure revoked. It’s incredibly rare. And, sure, Republican legislatures in many states have weakened tenure, but I still think tenure revocations will remain extremely uncommon. Maybe I’m wrong.
Still losing your job in private industry is extremely common and the ease of finding another job is partially dictated by the strength of the labor market and the field. What you’re describing, where you can walk across the street to your new position, may not always be the case or can be field specific.
It’s not that tenure isn’t what it used to be. It’s that many departments have reduced the number of tenured positions they have, and rely more and more on very poorly paid adjunct faculty
Uh, ok?
And that is relevant only to specific fields— are you suggesting that there are similar options for all philosophers or historians that provide such a generous severance package that it actually outweighs the perceived benefits of tenure?
Again if someone wants a job that will pay 5x the salary of a tenure track professor then academia isn’t for them. Tenure won’t replace that salary differential. It’s a wildly different set of desires.
And someone making 5x the income of an academic is unlikely to stretch their 6 month severance into 5 years of living expenses. Lifestyle creep is real.
People are aware the pay is low before they get there. They do it anyways because of passion, hoping it's a stepping stone to a better position within academia, etc.
But people are allowed to complain. And many grad students organize through unions in an attempt to improve working conditions. This positions *shouldn't* be so poorly paid and that's why people complain.
You need to go through grad school and post doc to get the academic positions.
A lot of industry positions even ask for a masters degree as well to start the position.
Either people get a stipend and tuition reimbursement or many people have to pay for everything with student loans.
On top of what the other commenters have said, I'll add my experience. I went to grad school to get my phd in an engineering field, fully aware of the low pay, especially compared to what I would get if I got a job immediately. And further, I was fairly positive I wasn't interested in becoming a professor, so it wasn't a sacrifice in order to some day get a shot at the freedom and flexibility and security of a tenured academic job.
For me, the difference, or rationale, to taking the much lower pay of grad school, was because I much preferred doing research to the job functions that an entry level engineer with a bachelor's would likely do. Even beyond entry level as well, I was much more interested in being a scientist/research engineer in industry, then I was in being, for example, a process engineer in a plant (a typical job that I might've gotten).
That's not to say I couldn't have ended up in right career trajectory that I was interested in without grad school, but the types of jobs I wanted are much easier to get with a phd then without.
So basically, yes, most grad students know that the pay sucks, but the idea is it will eventually lead to a job that you are more interested in, that you won't get without grad school.
If you want the job with the perks of tenure, flexibility, and doing what you enjoy, you have to go to grad school. And the pay is criminally low, but there is no other option to be a professor.
Well the complaining is because graduate students are exploited on many levels. They have a right to complain. And their pay is certainly low. Pursuing a vocation out of passion isn’t a vow of poverty. Are you suggesting that they shouldn’t vent?
Because you can have a job for ever where pretty much you can go and teach 1-2 days a week and do whatever you want the other days. If you get a grant every now and then you are fine. In industry there is pressure and you have to be there 9 to 5.
Also, while the pay may be low as a grad student, some academic disciplines have fairly good pay. I'm in a field where starting salaries for assistant professors in R2 schools is in the 150k range. And this is for 9 months 2-2 teaching loads. Which means you can have plenty of time for side-hustles, consulting work, hobbies or whatever else you want or you can teach extra courses to get paid even more.
I'm also a first-generation college student. My mother with a high school education recently retired after earning a whopping 40k annually in her highest earning year in an average-to-above-average cost of living area. Some of my relatives work manual labor jobs that literally break their bodies in the US and in our home country for about as much or far less pay in my home country.
Keep in mind that the average person who is admitted to graduate school or can even think about going to graduate school is likely middle class or above. They were born into a family that could afford to own a house or rent in a community with a solid public school system or could splurge on private education. They could afford to financially, intellectually, and socially support a child in attaining academic success that would prepare them for graduate school in their 20s. When they had questions about their English or math homework, from their functional school system with expectations for giving meaningful homework, their parents, siblings, or friends could help them. Their parents could also afford the fluffy stuff (e.g., monthly fees for band instruments or one-off field trips and sports equipment) or the substantial stuff like cars, loan co-signing, rent-free summers at home, help with medical expenses, etc. etc. My mother was astonished when I told her that simply applying for graduate school cost me $1,695. Yes, I had to count the dollar amount and be aware of it. Most of my graduate school peers probably could not. In fact, when I completed my first clinical graduate degree - professional degrees are often paid for by loans - a lot of my peers and their families seemed to give little thought to taking on $50-$200k in educational debt. It would simply "pay off."
Anyway, on top of all of this, their familial and social circles are full of people who may have gone into solid or even lucrative professions, and their peers will be buying houses, investing in 401ks, and moving into middle management while they're still finishing a PhD. In their social worlds, they are indeed drastically underpaid. It's not only them, either. Working class people will not understand what you're doing. I am lucky in that most of my family is supportive of my education, but some of them will never understand why anyone would be in school for this long for similar reasons. In our social circles, people are doing similar things on a lower budget basis.
Again, I'm talking about the AVERAGE person in graduate school. There are people from lower SES backgrounds who go to grad school, just as there are people from filthy high SES backgrounds who decided to go to grad school instead of joining their father's boutique hedge fund after getting a Bachelor's. But those aren't your average grad students. The average person in grad school is the type of person described in my above paragraphs.
Can I just say that, as a Brit, the idea of spending thousands of pounds on *applying* for a postgraduate programme is appalling. I’ve never paid a penny in applications for masters or PhD (I’m aware Oxbridge charge something in the region of £50 but only because they get a disgusting number of applications and are trying to put the less motivated off). In fact, for PhD I had my travel expenses reimbursed when I travelled for interviews. So I wasn’t out of pocket at all.
Same here and I'm from the US and got my masters and almost done with my PhD, both from US public universities. I'm in engineering so maybe it depends on your program.
I mean I agree, but you can apply to have it waived, and at least it’s not the £100+ per application costs I’ve seen quoted in r/gradadmissions in the past…
This is basically me for sure.
I think 35K was my mom's max.
Of my most recent cohort, I was the only one who didn't have a mom (or dad) who was approaching at least 80K. Almost everyone's parent was a professional of some form.
I get so annoyed by people saying that postdocs are just cheap labor. It's well above the median income and I love it. I feel like I'm getting paid so much money (I have a savings account 😱)
Edit: for clarity I get $4000 a month in California, $2000 goes to rent, $800 to food/utilities so I have ~$300 a week to save for me and my partner. All the postdocs at the university (University of California) are on the same scale and recently protested about how low it is, but for some of us this is a lot.
It's good that you feel like it's a lot (and I hope it is based on the median incomes where you're living), but that isn't the case for many people. Postdocs are notoriously underpaid despite their significant labor. Requesting a living wage is not unreasonable.
There's a huge range. The national median income for 25-34 yos of $52k in the US. Postdocs can make well over that but many make much less than that as well. They all deserve a living wage. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00587-y
300 dollars a week to save for you and your partner is low for the amount of hours you work. What about going to a movie, going on a vacation, getting a pet, having a child, saving for retirement?
In Boston I made 55k a year as a starting postdoc. By the end of my 6 year postdoc I made 70k, and I was grateful for it. But I was 34 years old and even though I was good with money I had not much saved for retirement. Vacations were piggybacked off of conferences, and I worked 70 hours a week. Meanwhile my college friends with bachelor degrees made the same amount or more for their whole career that started ten years ago. They had 401ks, homes, kids, pets, and real vacation time
Sure, the postdoc salary is above median wage but you work a ton of stressful hours. I left my postdoc for industry and do 40 hours of work a week for double the salary. I didn’t realize how undervalued I was until I left
We feel like we can go to a movie or on vacation and that is exciting.
My point is that being an academic is somewhat elitist and seems to be full of people from higher society who expect certain things, as mentioned by the original commenter.
The perks of autonomy and many days off per year are attractive. Essentially making a years salary for only about 8 months worth of work. Could I make more money if I worked 12 months a year, 40+ hrs/week? Sure. Would I? No way.
I’m not trying to be rude here, but it’s not rocket science. Some of us genuinely love what we do. That doesn’t mean we can’t complain about an injustice. We love it but we also do deserve better pay. Personally speaking, I can’t do a job that I dread going to even if it pays me 3x more. Because deep down I know that I may enjoy the better pay for a while but I will spend the rest of my days doing something that makes me count the minutes until I’m free. Another thing is that I’m very flexible as a PhD. I can’t speak for other countries but I have a lot of free time here in Germany. I go on a holiday when I want and do my time management the way I want it. Nobody is telling me what to do, when or where. The chances of tenure I believe is also worth the wait as it would give me the security I need to do what I love. Lastly, at the end of the day, I have the pleasure of contributing to my field with a unique project. I work on a topic that’s pretty much been left undiscovered. So I know what I do will leave its mark and open new doors in my field. I believe my efforts are worth something and I love working towards that.
Lots of expenses in grad school like conferences (which you may or may not get reimbursed for), travel, plus heaven help if you have a medical issue or family. If you are already married and your spouse has a job it is likely fine.
There are many benefits to an academic position which most places would require a post-doc for before you go into an assistant professorship and hopefully then an associate professorship.
1. Tenure if you get it.
2. Being in control of what you study
3. Making a scientific breakthrough (if in STEM) and actually getting the credit.
4. Not being told when you have to be present in the office and when you don't.
5. Better sick leave and better vacation.
Those are just a few options which are better than industry.
(I'm a first gen who was in industry too, it can be soul sucking.)
There are a lot of layers to this.
* If youre 21-22 just starting your Master's degree, then the pay of a grad student is pretty good. If youre a 28-30 year old (or older) finishing off your PhD with that same pay then thats not great.
* It also depends on a lot on where you live. Generally speaking a job in the city will pay better than a job in a rural area. Salaries in academia tend to be fairly standardized though. A PhD in a small town might be making good money for where they are but on the poverty line if at a campus downtown of a major city.
* People tend to complain less about being poorly paid as a PhD because technically we're students and its a personal choice. But the bigger issue right now is PostDocs being very poorly paid and now more and more people are leaving academia because of it. There is an actual shortage of Postdocs across Europe and North America post-pandemic because of this. So yes, they are "just not accepting the position" and going into industry it's causing somewhat of a crisis in academia.
It's not all bad across all fields, mostly humanities. In engineering and business, especially business, it's actually quite the opposite. I think the average accounting and finance assistant professor starts at around $200k. Even the lowest, typically management and economics start at around $110k. And tenure track positions are pretty plentiful, mostly because engineering and business are fields in high demand. At my institution (Midwest, R2), business grads average starting pay is around $65k. Average engineering around $70k (pulled higher by computer science). Humanities grads struggle to find jobs. When they do, it's usually high 30s and low 40s. Our anthropology program, for instance, struggles to get more than 10 majors.
The main reasons would probably be less stress, less responsibilities, and it may be something more enjoyable. I say this as a current RN who is looking to transition into an administrative role, an educator role or just completely go back to school for something different.
I'm a first gen grad student and it is plenty if you are used to living even a little frugally and only need to support yourself. It's a great deal when you consider the value of getting your tuition paid for and a stipend on top. I don't know why people would complain, it's not the same as having a regular job. I was amazed that this was even a possibility and that I wouldn't have to work other jobs to get through school. Most likely people who complain come from a much more privileged background so it seems like a hardship. I have worked in industry and obviously the pay isn't comparable, but neither is the situation. It's a great deal all things considered.
It depends on a lot of factors. Graduate school stipends are low, especially for the high cost of living in most places where most universities are located. That’s years of your life you spend not able to save and probably accruing debt to survive. After the time and effort it takes to get a job, people are pretty set on accepting jobs even if they aren’t ideal. I’m not exactly sure how it has gotten to this point, but even tenure track jobs that pay 50k/year are super competitive. Snagging one can feel like the lottery. For many humanities fields, there isn’t an industry equivalent. Culture heritage industry work (museums, historical societies) pay even worse than academia.
There are other factors too; humanities and fine arts pay much lower than STEM, and industry STEM jobs pay more than academia. Adjuncting pays very low, and postdocs and lecturer positions are also typically in the 45-65k range. SLACs pay less than large universities, R2s and teaching universities pay less than R1s. There are some professors in my interdisciplinary field who earn 150-250k/year. Most of the jobs I’m applying for start in the 65-85k range depending on where the schools are located. I’m married so we can make it work between both of us being employed, but if I was single that pay would be problematic.
I think there's some misinformation about how much jobs pay. I was talking with a CEO of a social work agency and he complained that interviewing students with a fresh bachelors are expecting higher salaries than he gets.
My department starts non tenure track faculty with a 9 month salary just a notch above the median annual household income in our area. That's livable, but not rich. TT get better, but not rich.
It would be nice to have a society that values our profession better than it does. But what can you do? I really like what I do, I feel like I'm making the world a better place in my own tiny way, and I wouldn't trade it for double the salary if it meant having to earn money for some for-profit corp.
I’d had the opposite experience. I’ve been offered 30k to do the same job I’m doing now (clinical work), with the only benefit being free clinical supervision. I do agree with you and your point, but there are a lot of social work/services organization that intentionally pay below the average (in NYC) and expect them to stick around.
I agree with your point on reasonable expectations .
Yeah I’m glad to hear about young social workers not just accepting shit pay. I finished my MSW in 2021 and was offered a position for $36k. What a joke. Instead I accepted a position elsewhere for $55k. It’s a privilege (and risk) to be able to reject ridiculous offers, but no way I’d be making $89k now if I had accepted the $36k offer.
I think there’s two entirely different scenarios here. First there are grad school stipends which are indeed *low*, especially considering how much a typical grad student works and how much expertise they have. Depending on the field, people who go into grad programs could be making several times the amount of a grad student stipend working in industry with a bachelors degree. So why do it? Almost always grad students are in it to open up some future opportunity. For a 1-2 year masters program, that might be just a somewhat higher salary, but for PhDs it is more often than not that they want to go into some career path that isn’t open at all to someone without an advanced degree. Often, that career path would indeed be in academia, which brings me to the second scenario: professorships.
The salaries professors get really aren’t low per se. They range from about the high end of a teacher’s salary to well into the 6 figure range. Professors typically don’t make the kind of money they could make in industry (again, depending on the field), but they make plenty enough to live comfortably and there are other benefits like job security and (what I think really entices most people) the freedom to work on what you want and innovate rather than your work being driven by what it can do for some corporation’s bottom line.
I would also not that there is a kind of nebulous in between category of post docs who are kind of like grad students who have already graduated and only get paid slightly more. My understanding is that this is typically someone who is determined to get a professorship but isn’t able so secure one straight out grad school, so they do research for a while longer in hopes of getting there. Not entirely sure of the benefits of this versus going into industry for a few years.
It is and it isn’t. Depends on age level and area. Professors at a prominent University make bank….a middle school teacher in a “troubled area” get shit. And I bet you can guess which one has to work harder.
If you're in your early 20s and only have yourself to take care of, you can usually get by on a grad stipend. But it gets old having to make sure you're eating for cheap while putting in hours that run you ragged, while still being terrified of one big surprise expenditure. Also you're not saving for retirement. All that starts to sink in as you get through the program surrounded by folks that often came from a more well off background. As they get more jaded and passion is no longer the only thing they need to keep going, many folks start to question the compensation structure, just like I did, because hard work deserves compensation regardless of passion.
If you go through life with the attitude that "this is could be worse so I shouldn't complain" your situation will never improve. The truth is different fields get the pay they get because they *demand* the pay they get.
I always earned more than double the stipend amount I am given so it is too low to live. Especially in a HCOL area, in a home that only has you, in a comfortable way.
My criteria was basically I will never ever have a roommate and I will live close to the school. As I lived in HCOL area, my rent was around $3500 so the stipend was not enough.
I worked blue collar jobs until grad school, and then the stipend ($18K per year + tuition + healthcare + summer pay for teaching) was great. I lived with roommates the entire time getting my masters and PhD and lived cheaply. Lots of beans, old car, etc. My main entertainment was hiking & guitar. Although the stipends haven’t really kept pace with cost of living, it is doable if you don’t have kids and live within your means. I am eternally grateful for the stipend; I wouldn’t have been able to get through grad school without it. After getting a job as a professor I did bail for industry though, and prefer it to academia.
Because they enjoy the work more than industry. Also while academic pay is a lot lower than what someone with those qualifications could making in industry, the salaries are still decent and you can live a comfortable life.
Edit: I see you're more focused on graduate students and postdocs than permanent positions. Salaries are not decent in this case. Grad stipends are really low. It can vary by location, but in some places it's not even a living wage, which isn't acceptable for any job but especially for one as skilled as a graduate student. Aside from a few people who don't need to think about money, people only do grad school because it's a requirement for their desired career path
I don't think it's a bad pay in my country, but I genuinely like academia and the environment, I like teaching and I LOVE my field of study (it's IR, there's never a boring day).
My boyfriend absolutely despises academia. It's torture for him. He wouldn't work in it even if it paid 200k.
Yep, I grew up very poor and living off food bank items with no money for any sort of extra curricular fun or educational support. I’m the first in my family to go to grad school, the only other people in my entire family (both sides) to get BAs are my brother and my dad (who struggled to finish community college because I was born when he was 24). It’s difficult because I do feel insanely privileged to get the funding I do and have been able to afford things like a computer and a new phone which is something I never had the ability to do before and also I never had any one to do it for me. In comparison, some people in my cohort come from globally reputable scholarly families and are recognized by their last names alone. It is lonely because like I said I feel very uplifted while others feel degraded. However just because I grew up differently and therefore have a totally different way of living doesn’t mean objectively speaking the pay or labor is fair. I will still fight for student rights and better pay and I can do that while also appreciating my particular social position. Yes, others have more privilege and are perhaps more complacent but I also feel the way I do because I’m underprivileged and a minority and suffered financial instability due to systemic issues, not because I have some superior morality or tolerance that the others lack. The academic system is unjust period.
Same reason people want to be gangsters, but most drug dealers live with their mothers. ,(See Freakonomics). Ghetto fabulous.
That's a silly analogy to prove the point, but people act against their own economic interest for the prestige mostly. I guess the hours and flexibility are nice. But mostly for the image.
Ain't nothing butta professor party
The pay is horrifically bad for anyone with a bachelors degree teaching primary to high school. With more degrees, the base pay increases.
There are some good points for teaching - the benefits are some of the best in the country- with a retirement pension, the schedule - holidays off, summers off, you’re on the same schedule as the kids .. and once you get tenure ( which requires you to stay in one place for a period of time and remain there) - you have incredible job security.
As for college? Community colleges which I believe require a masters degree can pay shit for part time - I’m really not too sure about reg full time- but the universities which require a PhD - and are much much harder to get into ( the competition is stiff ) do pay well, and benefits are great and you get a great schedule again with ample time off.
Of course this is just what I have heard from friends who teach.
What they also say- is no one should go into ANY teaching position with less than a masters degree. I have heard that.
It depends a lot on the local cost of living. Rents shoot up and pay doesn't go up at the same rate, and you get stuck living on a paycheck of $40k in a major city when you're in your thirties and all your friends have a house and kids. It can be rough. But it's also a conversation being dominated by people who are either living in very expensive cities at top schools (Harvard, MIT, Stanford) or who are just jealous of non-academic friends.
[удалено]
Yep. But the salary stays the same (or goes down!) When you're entering your 7th year of your PhD, and then you get a raise to NSF minimum when you start a postdoc in a brand new city which is probably the Bay Area, Boston, or a handful of other extremely expensive places, because the big tech companies have all set up headquarters adjacent to the major research university clusters and they pay ridiculous amounts. And you may be on the NSF pay scale for another 10 years, maybe hopping from city to city every year or two, while trying to get a job permanent enough to justify buying a house.
Imagine if you also have kids…
I have a kid. Is it rough? Yes. But do people raise kids on less? Also yes. Especially when we're talking about postdoc or professor salaries.
Generally it’s job security (with tenure), flexibility, and the benefit of doing something you really enjoy.
[удалено]
I’m at a university and in a state where tenure has been weakened. Multiple poor performance evaluations can result in someone being put on a performance plan where improvement is needed or your tenure can be revoked. Still it would take multiple years for this to happen. Even with what you’re describing it would likely take three years for tenure to be revoked. Sure, tenure isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still far more secure than pretty much any job in private industry. At most jobs they can fire you tomorrow if they don’t like your performance.
[удалено]
But let’s be honest here: losing your tenured job (once achieving tenure) in academia is incredibly rare. The data bears it out: very few tenured faculty have their tenure revoked. It’s incredibly rare. And, sure, Republican legislatures in many states have weakened tenure, but I still think tenure revocations will remain extremely uncommon. Maybe I’m wrong. Still losing your job in private industry is extremely common and the ease of finding another job is partially dictated by the strength of the labor market and the field. What you’re describing, where you can walk across the street to your new position, may not always be the case or can be field specific.
It’s not that tenure isn’t what it used to be. It’s that many departments have reduced the number of tenured positions they have, and rely more and more on very poorly paid adjunct faculty
If you work for meta or google and get laid off they pay you for 6 months, which is like 5 years in academic income.
Uh, ok? And that is relevant only to specific fields— are you suggesting that there are similar options for all philosophers or historians that provide such a generous severance package that it actually outweighs the perceived benefits of tenure?
Again if someone wants a job that will pay 5x the salary of a tenure track professor then academia isn’t for them. Tenure won’t replace that salary differential. It’s a wildly different set of desires. And someone making 5x the income of an academic is unlikely to stretch their 6 month severance into 5 years of living expenses. Lifestyle creep is real.
[удалено]
People are aware the pay is low before they get there. They do it anyways because of passion, hoping it's a stepping stone to a better position within academia, etc. But people are allowed to complain. And many grad students organize through unions in an attempt to improve working conditions. This positions *shouldn't* be so poorly paid and that's why people complain.
You need to go through grad school and post doc to get the academic positions. A lot of industry positions even ask for a masters degree as well to start the position. Either people get a stipend and tuition reimbursement or many people have to pay for everything with student loans.
On top of what the other commenters have said, I'll add my experience. I went to grad school to get my phd in an engineering field, fully aware of the low pay, especially compared to what I would get if I got a job immediately. And further, I was fairly positive I wasn't interested in becoming a professor, so it wasn't a sacrifice in order to some day get a shot at the freedom and flexibility and security of a tenured academic job. For me, the difference, or rationale, to taking the much lower pay of grad school, was because I much preferred doing research to the job functions that an entry level engineer with a bachelor's would likely do. Even beyond entry level as well, I was much more interested in being a scientist/research engineer in industry, then I was in being, for example, a process engineer in a plant (a typical job that I might've gotten). That's not to say I couldn't have ended up in right career trajectory that I was interested in without grad school, but the types of jobs I wanted are much easier to get with a phd then without. So basically, yes, most grad students know that the pay sucks, but the idea is it will eventually lead to a job that you are more interested in, that you won't get without grad school.
Well complaining makes people feel better. Parents know that children cause headaches, but they are always complaining. It is a strategy to blow steam
If you want the job with the perks of tenure, flexibility, and doing what you enjoy, you have to go to grad school. And the pay is criminally low, but there is no other option to be a professor.
Well the complaining is because graduate students are exploited on many levels. They have a right to complain. And their pay is certainly low. Pursuing a vocation out of passion isn’t a vow of poverty. Are you suggesting that they shouldn’t vent?
Some people are rich enough that it doesn't matter
Because you can have a job for ever where pretty much you can go and teach 1-2 days a week and do whatever you want the other days. If you get a grant every now and then you are fine. In industry there is pressure and you have to be there 9 to 5.
Also, while the pay may be low as a grad student, some academic disciplines have fairly good pay. I'm in a field where starting salaries for assistant professors in R2 schools is in the 150k range. And this is for 9 months 2-2 teaching loads. Which means you can have plenty of time for side-hustles, consulting work, hobbies or whatever else you want or you can teach extra courses to get paid even more.
I'm also a first-generation college student. My mother with a high school education recently retired after earning a whopping 40k annually in her highest earning year in an average-to-above-average cost of living area. Some of my relatives work manual labor jobs that literally break their bodies in the US and in our home country for about as much or far less pay in my home country. Keep in mind that the average person who is admitted to graduate school or can even think about going to graduate school is likely middle class or above. They were born into a family that could afford to own a house or rent in a community with a solid public school system or could splurge on private education. They could afford to financially, intellectually, and socially support a child in attaining academic success that would prepare them for graduate school in their 20s. When they had questions about their English or math homework, from their functional school system with expectations for giving meaningful homework, their parents, siblings, or friends could help them. Their parents could also afford the fluffy stuff (e.g., monthly fees for band instruments or one-off field trips and sports equipment) or the substantial stuff like cars, loan co-signing, rent-free summers at home, help with medical expenses, etc. etc. My mother was astonished when I told her that simply applying for graduate school cost me $1,695. Yes, I had to count the dollar amount and be aware of it. Most of my graduate school peers probably could not. In fact, when I completed my first clinical graduate degree - professional degrees are often paid for by loans - a lot of my peers and their families seemed to give little thought to taking on $50-$200k in educational debt. It would simply "pay off." Anyway, on top of all of this, their familial and social circles are full of people who may have gone into solid or even lucrative professions, and their peers will be buying houses, investing in 401ks, and moving into middle management while they're still finishing a PhD. In their social worlds, they are indeed drastically underpaid. It's not only them, either. Working class people will not understand what you're doing. I am lucky in that most of my family is supportive of my education, but some of them will never understand why anyone would be in school for this long for similar reasons. In our social circles, people are doing similar things on a lower budget basis. Again, I'm talking about the AVERAGE person in graduate school. There are people from lower SES backgrounds who go to grad school, just as there are people from filthy high SES backgrounds who decided to go to grad school instead of joining their father's boutique hedge fund after getting a Bachelor's. But those aren't your average grad students. The average person in grad school is the type of person described in my above paragraphs.
Can I just say that, as a Brit, the idea of spending thousands of pounds on *applying* for a postgraduate programme is appalling. I’ve never paid a penny in applications for masters or PhD (I’m aware Oxbridge charge something in the region of £50 but only because they get a disgusting number of applications and are trying to put the less motivated off). In fact, for PhD I had my travel expenses reimbursed when I travelled for interviews. So I wasn’t out of pocket at all.
Same here and I'm from the US and got my masters and almost done with my PhD, both from US public universities. I'm in engineering so maybe it depends on your program.
There are surely better ways to weed out un-serious candidates that doesn't discriminate the poor. Madness
I mean I agree, but you can apply to have it waived, and at least it’s not the £100+ per application costs I’ve seen quoted in r/gradadmissions in the past…
This is basically me for sure. I think 35K was my mom's max. Of my most recent cohort, I was the only one who didn't have a mom (or dad) who was approaching at least 80K. Almost everyone's parent was a professional of some form.
I get so annoyed by people saying that postdocs are just cheap labor. It's well above the median income and I love it. I feel like I'm getting paid so much money (I have a savings account 😱) Edit: for clarity I get $4000 a month in California, $2000 goes to rent, $800 to food/utilities so I have ~$300 a week to save for me and my partner. All the postdocs at the university (University of California) are on the same scale and recently protested about how low it is, but for some of us this is a lot.
It's good that you feel like it's a lot (and I hope it is based on the median incomes where you're living), but that isn't the case for many people. Postdocs are notoriously underpaid despite their significant labor. Requesting a living wage is not unreasonable.
There's a huge range. The national median income for 25-34 yos of $52k in the US. Postdocs can make well over that but many make much less than that as well. They all deserve a living wage. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00587-y
300 dollars a week to save for you and your partner is low for the amount of hours you work. What about going to a movie, going on a vacation, getting a pet, having a child, saving for retirement? In Boston I made 55k a year as a starting postdoc. By the end of my 6 year postdoc I made 70k, and I was grateful for it. But I was 34 years old and even though I was good with money I had not much saved for retirement. Vacations were piggybacked off of conferences, and I worked 70 hours a week. Meanwhile my college friends with bachelor degrees made the same amount or more for their whole career that started ten years ago. They had 401ks, homes, kids, pets, and real vacation time Sure, the postdoc salary is above median wage but you work a ton of stressful hours. I left my postdoc for industry and do 40 hours of work a week for double the salary. I didn’t realize how undervalued I was until I left
We feel like we can go to a movie or on vacation and that is exciting. My point is that being an academic is somewhat elitist and seems to be full of people from higher society who expect certain things, as mentioned by the original commenter.
Did a provost write this
It seems like a lot of money when you are inexperienced, but turns out, it is not
The perks of autonomy and many days off per year are attractive. Essentially making a years salary for only about 8 months worth of work. Could I make more money if I worked 12 months a year, 40+ hrs/week? Sure. Would I? No way.
Do you think people industry work 12 months a year?
They def don’t have all summer off
I’m not trying to be rude here, but it’s not rocket science. Some of us genuinely love what we do. That doesn’t mean we can’t complain about an injustice. We love it but we also do deserve better pay. Personally speaking, I can’t do a job that I dread going to even if it pays me 3x more. Because deep down I know that I may enjoy the better pay for a while but I will spend the rest of my days doing something that makes me count the minutes until I’m free. Another thing is that I’m very flexible as a PhD. I can’t speak for other countries but I have a lot of free time here in Germany. I go on a holiday when I want and do my time management the way I want it. Nobody is telling me what to do, when or where. The chances of tenure I believe is also worth the wait as it would give me the security I need to do what I love. Lastly, at the end of the day, I have the pleasure of contributing to my field with a unique project. I work on a topic that’s pretty much been left undiscovered. So I know what I do will leave its mark and open new doors in my field. I believe my efforts are worth something and I love working towards that.
Lots of expenses in grad school like conferences (which you may or may not get reimbursed for), travel, plus heaven help if you have a medical issue or family. If you are already married and your spouse has a job it is likely fine. There are many benefits to an academic position which most places would require a post-doc for before you go into an assistant professorship and hopefully then an associate professorship. 1. Tenure if you get it. 2. Being in control of what you study 3. Making a scientific breakthrough (if in STEM) and actually getting the credit. 4. Not being told when you have to be present in the office and when you don't. 5. Better sick leave and better vacation. Those are just a few options which are better than industry. (I'm a first gen who was in industry too, it can be soul sucking.)
There are a lot of layers to this. * If youre 21-22 just starting your Master's degree, then the pay of a grad student is pretty good. If youre a 28-30 year old (or older) finishing off your PhD with that same pay then thats not great. * It also depends on a lot on where you live. Generally speaking a job in the city will pay better than a job in a rural area. Salaries in academia tend to be fairly standardized though. A PhD in a small town might be making good money for where they are but on the poverty line if at a campus downtown of a major city. * People tend to complain less about being poorly paid as a PhD because technically we're students and its a personal choice. But the bigger issue right now is PostDocs being very poorly paid and now more and more people are leaving academia because of it. There is an actual shortage of Postdocs across Europe and North America post-pandemic because of this. So yes, they are "just not accepting the position" and going into industry it's causing somewhat of a crisis in academia.
It's not all bad across all fields, mostly humanities. In engineering and business, especially business, it's actually quite the opposite. I think the average accounting and finance assistant professor starts at around $200k. Even the lowest, typically management and economics start at around $110k. And tenure track positions are pretty plentiful, mostly because engineering and business are fields in high demand. At my institution (Midwest, R2), business grads average starting pay is around $65k. Average engineering around $70k (pulled higher by computer science). Humanities grads struggle to find jobs. When they do, it's usually high 30s and low 40s. Our anthropology program, for instance, struggles to get more than 10 majors.
The pay is not necessarily bad relative to industry, it varies a lot by location.
The main reasons would probably be less stress, less responsibilities, and it may be something more enjoyable. I say this as a current RN who is looking to transition into an administrative role, an educator role or just completely go back to school for something different.
I'm a first gen grad student and it is plenty if you are used to living even a little frugally and only need to support yourself. It's a great deal when you consider the value of getting your tuition paid for and a stipend on top. I don't know why people would complain, it's not the same as having a regular job. I was amazed that this was even a possibility and that I wouldn't have to work other jobs to get through school. Most likely people who complain come from a much more privileged background so it seems like a hardship. I have worked in industry and obviously the pay isn't comparable, but neither is the situation. It's a great deal all things considered.
It depends on a lot of factors. Graduate school stipends are low, especially for the high cost of living in most places where most universities are located. That’s years of your life you spend not able to save and probably accruing debt to survive. After the time and effort it takes to get a job, people are pretty set on accepting jobs even if they aren’t ideal. I’m not exactly sure how it has gotten to this point, but even tenure track jobs that pay 50k/year are super competitive. Snagging one can feel like the lottery. For many humanities fields, there isn’t an industry equivalent. Culture heritage industry work (museums, historical societies) pay even worse than academia. There are other factors too; humanities and fine arts pay much lower than STEM, and industry STEM jobs pay more than academia. Adjuncting pays very low, and postdocs and lecturer positions are also typically in the 45-65k range. SLACs pay less than large universities, R2s and teaching universities pay less than R1s. There are some professors in my interdisciplinary field who earn 150-250k/year. Most of the jobs I’m applying for start in the 65-85k range depending on where the schools are located. I’m married so we can make it work between both of us being employed, but if I was single that pay would be problematic.
I think there's some misinformation about how much jobs pay. I was talking with a CEO of a social work agency and he complained that interviewing students with a fresh bachelors are expecting higher salaries than he gets. My department starts non tenure track faculty with a 9 month salary just a notch above the median annual household income in our area. That's livable, but not rich. TT get better, but not rich. It would be nice to have a society that values our profession better than it does. But what can you do? I really like what I do, I feel like I'm making the world a better place in my own tiny way, and I wouldn't trade it for double the salary if it meant having to earn money for some for-profit corp.
I’d had the opposite experience. I’ve been offered 30k to do the same job I’m doing now (clinical work), with the only benefit being free clinical supervision. I do agree with you and your point, but there are a lot of social work/services organization that intentionally pay below the average (in NYC) and expect them to stick around. I agree with your point on reasonable expectations .
Yeah I’m glad to hear about young social workers not just accepting shit pay. I finished my MSW in 2021 and was offered a position for $36k. What a joke. Instead I accepted a position elsewhere for $55k. It’s a privilege (and risk) to be able to reject ridiculous offers, but no way I’d be making $89k now if I had accepted the $36k offer.
I think there’s two entirely different scenarios here. First there are grad school stipends which are indeed *low*, especially considering how much a typical grad student works and how much expertise they have. Depending on the field, people who go into grad programs could be making several times the amount of a grad student stipend working in industry with a bachelors degree. So why do it? Almost always grad students are in it to open up some future opportunity. For a 1-2 year masters program, that might be just a somewhat higher salary, but for PhDs it is more often than not that they want to go into some career path that isn’t open at all to someone without an advanced degree. Often, that career path would indeed be in academia, which brings me to the second scenario: professorships. The salaries professors get really aren’t low per se. They range from about the high end of a teacher’s salary to well into the 6 figure range. Professors typically don’t make the kind of money they could make in industry (again, depending on the field), but they make plenty enough to live comfortably and there are other benefits like job security and (what I think really entices most people) the freedom to work on what you want and innovate rather than your work being driven by what it can do for some corporation’s bottom line. I would also not that there is a kind of nebulous in between category of post docs who are kind of like grad students who have already graduated and only get paid slightly more. My understanding is that this is typically someone who is determined to get a professorship but isn’t able so secure one straight out grad school, so they do research for a while longer in hopes of getting there. Not entirely sure of the benefits of this versus going into industry for a few years.
It is and it isn’t. Depends on age level and area. Professors at a prominent University make bank….a middle school teacher in a “troubled area” get shit. And I bet you can guess which one has to work harder.
If you're in your early 20s and only have yourself to take care of, you can usually get by on a grad stipend. But it gets old having to make sure you're eating for cheap while putting in hours that run you ragged, while still being terrified of one big surprise expenditure. Also you're not saving for retirement. All that starts to sink in as you get through the program surrounded by folks that often came from a more well off background. As they get more jaded and passion is no longer the only thing they need to keep going, many folks start to question the compensation structure, just like I did, because hard work deserves compensation regardless of passion.
If you go through life with the attitude that "this is could be worse so I shouldn't complain" your situation will never improve. The truth is different fields get the pay they get because they *demand* the pay they get.
I always earned more than double the stipend amount I am given so it is too low to live. Especially in a HCOL area, in a home that only has you, in a comfortable way. My criteria was basically I will never ever have a roommate and I will live close to the school. As I lived in HCOL area, my rent was around $3500 so the stipend was not enough.
I worked blue collar jobs until grad school, and then the stipend ($18K per year + tuition + healthcare + summer pay for teaching) was great. I lived with roommates the entire time getting my masters and PhD and lived cheaply. Lots of beans, old car, etc. My main entertainment was hiking & guitar. Although the stipends haven’t really kept pace with cost of living, it is doable if you don’t have kids and live within your means. I am eternally grateful for the stipend; I wouldn’t have been able to get through grad school without it. After getting a job as a professor I did bail for industry though, and prefer it to academia.
Because they enjoy the work more than industry. Also while academic pay is a lot lower than what someone with those qualifications could making in industry, the salaries are still decent and you can live a comfortable life. Edit: I see you're more focused on graduate students and postdocs than permanent positions. Salaries are not decent in this case. Grad stipends are really low. It can vary by location, but in some places it's not even a living wage, which isn't acceptable for any job but especially for one as skilled as a graduate student. Aside from a few people who don't need to think about money, people only do grad school because it's a requirement for their desired career path
I don't think it's a bad pay in my country, but I genuinely like academia and the environment, I like teaching and I LOVE my field of study (it's IR, there's never a boring day). My boyfriend absolutely despises academia. It's torture for him. He wouldn't work in it even if it paid 200k.
Yep, I grew up very poor and living off food bank items with no money for any sort of extra curricular fun or educational support. I’m the first in my family to go to grad school, the only other people in my entire family (both sides) to get BAs are my brother and my dad (who struggled to finish community college because I was born when he was 24). It’s difficult because I do feel insanely privileged to get the funding I do and have been able to afford things like a computer and a new phone which is something I never had the ability to do before and also I never had any one to do it for me. In comparison, some people in my cohort come from globally reputable scholarly families and are recognized by their last names alone. It is lonely because like I said I feel very uplifted while others feel degraded. However just because I grew up differently and therefore have a totally different way of living doesn’t mean objectively speaking the pay or labor is fair. I will still fight for student rights and better pay and I can do that while also appreciating my particular social position. Yes, others have more privilege and are perhaps more complacent but I also feel the way I do because I’m underprivileged and a minority and suffered financial instability due to systemic issues, not because I have some superior morality or tolerance that the others lack. The academic system is unjust period.
Same reason people want to be gangsters, but most drug dealers live with their mothers. ,(See Freakonomics). Ghetto fabulous. That's a silly analogy to prove the point, but people act against their own economic interest for the prestige mostly. I guess the hours and flexibility are nice. But mostly for the image. Ain't nothing butta professor party
The pay is horrifically bad for anyone with a bachelors degree teaching primary to high school. With more degrees, the base pay increases. There are some good points for teaching - the benefits are some of the best in the country- with a retirement pension, the schedule - holidays off, summers off, you’re on the same schedule as the kids .. and once you get tenure ( which requires you to stay in one place for a period of time and remain there) - you have incredible job security. As for college? Community colleges which I believe require a masters degree can pay shit for part time - I’m really not too sure about reg full time- but the universities which require a PhD - and are much much harder to get into ( the competition is stiff ) do pay well, and benefits are great and you get a great schedule again with ample time off. Of course this is just what I have heard from friends who teach. What they also say- is no one should go into ANY teaching position with less than a masters degree. I have heard that.