Heed the disclaimer. This article is published under a pseudonym to keep this piece as it is intended -- confined to the realm of opinion -- based on personal experience and a little bit of math. It is solely an opinion piece that may or may not apply to your situation. Regardless, I hope you are able to get something from my experiences. Whether that be advice on what not to do, sympathy, comfort, or just sheer entertainment, with that said . . . 

Congratulations! You’ve approached the point where you can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel that is your undergraduate education. Or, at any rate, you’re at the point where you can visualize the ending enough to start planning for what will come next.

At this point, you probably have one of three plans. You may be thinking of a gap year before you begin anything serious like a career or an advanced degree. You’re probably thinking of going full hippie and surfing your way down the West Coast, or maybe you’re more for the classics and are planning your grand European backpacking trip where you’ll sleep in hostels and work the odd service job. And there is nothing wrong with that! Bring me back a souvenir, please!

Or, you may be seeking more stability – more money – and have already decided to jump straight into a long-term career. More power to you, I say! Reap the benefits of health insurance and a matching 401(k) and never look back.

And it may be the case that neither of these options particularly appeals to you and that you need something in between the laissez-faire lifestyle of couch-surfing and the restrictive structure of a 9 to 5 career. In that case, you may be currently (or contemplating) looking down the barrel of attending graduate school.

If graduate school is on your radar, know that the first hurdle is (truly)  completing the multi-step application process. While every discipline, degree, and school has different steps in the process, the broad strokes consist of 1) determining your list of schools that you’d like to apply to 2) gathering your application materials (curriculum vitae, statement of purpose, writing sample/portfolio, and your letters of recommendation) 3) paying the application fee and submitting the app 4) beginning the weeks  – sometimes months – long waiting process! 

Often there’s the misconception that graduate school is going to be the most grueling, most fraught time of your life academically. In my experience, if you’re lucky enough to be accepted into a program (regardless of discipline), chances are that the program knows exactly the level of knowledge that you’ll be entering with. They’re prepared for the gaps in your knowledge and are ready and willing to teach you. While it won’t always feel this way (imposter syndrome is quite real!), know that you will have been accepted on your own academic merit. The program will have invested money in your education and professional development, and your success will – ultimately – be their financial gain.

The worrying and stressful aspects of this plan come into play when you consider the ‘real world’ repercussions of essentially devoting a minimum of another three years to your education – all the while, things like rent, health insurance, and retirement plans begin to come into play. 

While academic success in graduate school is (relatively) easy to come by, it does require the price of a devoted 25 hours a day and your soul on a silver platter. Because most traditional programs offer their students assistantships to defer (or completely eliminate) tuition costs, they hold the expectation that graduate students should treat their studies and assistantships as full-time jobs.

That may be a realistic expectation if a student has secured a $50,000 / $60,000 stipend that’s funded on a 12-month basis or, at least, a 9-month basis, with the guarantee of summer funding. On the blog, Is Ph.D. for Me, a post made in 2021 refers to these as the top five programs with the highest stipends (relative to the cost of living):

1. University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Computer Science: $62,000

2. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Business Analytics: $57,100

3. University of California  – Riverside, Economics: $60,000

4. Iowa State University, Mechanical Engineering: $50,000

5. University of Wisconsin – Madison, Comparative Biomedical Science: $52,000

While these numbers alone look very nice, the data represents only a small portion of very, very elite programs. In reality, the figures offered by a majority of institutions and programs come in much lower.

On the website Ph.D. Stipends, graduate students are able to anonymously self-report their wages to provide reference points for potential applicants and to aid in collective bargaining efforts. Some more generalized and applicable data from their site includes figures such as:

• Reported for the current 2022 - 2023 academic year, a stipend of $17,300 for a student in the Physics Department of Florida State University located in Tallahassee, FL. From MIT’s online Living Wage Calculator, a living wage for one person in Tallahassee without dependents is $15.70/hr, the minimum wage is $10.00/hr, and the poverty wage is $6.19/hr. Operating under the assumption that this is a 12-month appointment and the stipend will be dispersed in bi-weekly paychecks – the ADP Paycheck Calculator cites take-home pay at $601.21 while SmartAsset (withholding more in taxes) places the figure at $543.00. Let’s split the difference and put the figure at $572.11. Breaking that down into hourly leaves us with roughly $7.15/hr . . . not making minimum wage and barely surpassing the poverty line.

• A first-year student in the Physics program at Colorado State University reported a stipend of $19,355 for 2022-2023. Located in Fort Collins, CO, MIT calculates their living wage (no dependents) at $18.39/hr, minimum wage at $12.56/hr, and poverty wage at $6.19. Operating under the same assumptions as above (12-month appointment and bi-weekly paychecks), take-home pay would be in the range of $580.00 (SmartAsset) - $666.31 (ADP). Again, splitting the difference would leave the figure at $623.16. In terms of hourly, the individual would make $7.80/hr, well below Fort Collins’ living and minimum wages and barely surpassing the poverty line.

Looking at a figure a bit closer to home:

• A third-year student at Louisiana State University – Baton Rouge (LSU) reported a stipend of $21,400 for the 2022-2023 year. The living wage in Baton Rouge is calculated at $17.01/hr, the minimum wage is set at $7.25/hr, and the poverty wage is $6.19/hr. The bi-weekly salary range falls between $652.00 (SmartAsset) and $731.08 (ADP); the median would be $691.54. Hourly: $8.70.

Universities all over the world (pressured by the economic realities affecting higher education) are pricing students out of advanced degrees. As a result, students are being forced to weigh the benefits of the advanced degree in their field versus the (financial, mental, and physical) sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve it. 

A recent article published in The Guardian, “Instant Noodles and Extra Jobs,” explores the situation graduate students in Australia are facing with the ever-rising costs of rent and groceries. 

When Maddy Hoffman started her PhD in Perth in 2019, the stipend was $500 a week. The cheapest place she could find to rent was $300 – more than half her weekly income. 

If it weren’t for her partner, she said her PhD in nuclear radiation simply “wouldn’t have 

happened”.

Like Maddy, some questions a graduate student (or future graduate student) has to ask themselves: Can I afford to live the next five years barely above the poverty line? Do I want to go through the post-degree struggle of searching for a permanent and stable position? If I find that position, will it pay me enough to live and pay off my (inevitable) debt?

The website Grad Resources does a great job of articulating these universal struggles and doubts and providing resources of support. Their post “Financial Pressures for Graduate Students,” written by Dr. Teresa Sullivan and Nick Repak, provides a thorough overview and validation of the hardships faced by students, as well as some concrete suggestions for financial survival.

Despite the, at times, overwhelming stress and anxiety brought about by these real-world considerations, remember that every situation is different for every person. There are some people in disciplines in which an advanced degree is very much a boon worth any potential sacrifices. While there are some people, like myself, who are in situations in which an advanced degree requires significant sacrifice with little reward. To paraphrase the advice of a favorite professor, graduate school is very much “a crapshoot; roll the dice and see if you get lucky!” type of situation. 

I will say this – if you have made it this far and you are still seriously considering applying/attending graduate school, keep looking into it. Do your research! Look into acceptance/rejection rates of your top programs; find the cost of application fees and do the math. Even, perhaps, submit your applications! Just be prepared to keep an open mind and know that – at the end of the day – there will never come a time when you have to have the rest of your life set in stone. And you certainly don’t have to have it all figured out when you cross that Gold Dome stage! Europe and that 9 to 5 with the 401(k) – and even graduate school –  will still be waiting for you when you’re ready. 

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