PhD Students Face Cash Crisis with Wages That Don't Cover Living Costs (nature.com) 126
Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm shares this surprising report from Nature. "Salaries for PhD students in the biological sciences fall well below the basic cost of living at almost every institution and department in the United States, according to data collected by two PhD students."
The crowdsourced findings, submitted by students, faculty members and administrators and presented on an interactive dashboard, provide fresh ammunition for graduate students in negotiations for higher salaries as economies across the world grapple with rising inflation. As this article went to press, just 2% of the 178 institutions and departments in the data set guaranteed graduate students salaries that exceed the cost of living.
The researchers used the living-wage calculator maintained by the Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a widely used benchmark that estimates basic expenses for a given city, such as the costs of food, health care, housing and transport. Most institutions fall far short of that standard. At the University of Florida in Gainesville, for example, the basic stipend for biology PhD students is around US$18,650 for a 9-month appointment, about $16,000 less than the annual living wage for a single adult in the city with no dependents. At a handful of institutions — including the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion — the guaranteed minimum stipend is less than $15,000 for 9-month appointments.
The researchers used the living-wage calculator maintained by the Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a widely used benchmark that estimates basic expenses for a given city, such as the costs of food, health care, housing and transport. Most institutions fall far short of that standard. At the University of Florida in Gainesville, for example, the basic stipend for biology PhD students is around US$18,650 for a 9-month appointment, about $16,000 less than the annual living wage for a single adult in the city with no dependents. At a handful of institutions — including the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion — the guaranteed minimum stipend is less than $15,000 for 9-month appointments.
Supply and demand (Score:2)
I used to date a biology major. I wasn’t smart enough to be able to date a physics or chemistry major. And I’m entirely unsurprised that biology salaries are lower.
Take from that what you will.
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"I used to date a biology major. I wasn’t smart enough to be able to date a physics or chemistry major. And I’m entirely unsurprised that biology salaries are lower."
Indeed, nowadays there are machines doing the lab-work of 50 biologists and they cost less than 50 grand.
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This is seeping into the medical industry as well. The machines are getting better and better, increasing efficiency. Surgeons are getting a lot more done in less time with better results and higher survival rates.
Law is also affected, as well as banking and financing. You just don't need the same amount of jobs as you use to because of our technology gains.
Why didn't they have the forsight... (Score:2)
Funny that (Score:2)
I think it was an attempt to get around the "Problem of Evil". e.g. if God is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowning (omniscient) and all good (omni-benevolent) then why do we have evil?
The answer is usually "free will" and if you're going to run with that you need to take it all the way back, to before you're even born.
It does raise other issues. Heaven is supposed to be a place with no suffering. i.e. no "evil". And yo
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Mor... mans? Were you thinking of Ethyl Merman? I thought she was fun!
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Ahh, but evil does not exist. It's just your perspective of the situation. So sayeth Saint Augustine.https://open.library.okstate.edu/introphilosophy/chapter/augustines-treatment-of-the-problem-of-evil/
Alternatively, is God really benevolent? Also, if we do go to Heaven, wouldn't that have to be a custom experience for each of us, based on what our own mind would view as heaven, or is it just another place to be agreeable in? For instance, my version of Heaven would include all the people I love, regardless
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I don't believe that there is Free Will in heaven. Angels don't have free will, and the grand experiment of humanity is supposed to be seeing what we do with it after having been seduced into eating from the apple of knowledge and gaining the ability to exercise free will.
Theology teaches that God is everything, the supreme master of the universe. Roll with that concept - God is everything. Our souls are slivers of His consciousness. When we die, we take our collected memories and experiences back to He
It's been well know for decades (Score:2)
that higher science education is more prestigious, but lower technical college and community college have a much higher return on investment.
Scientists have always been poor. As in, very poor. The news here is that they're now too poor to survive. But they weren't far from that before.
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And people thought scientists drove old Volvos and wore jackets with elbow patches on their own free will :-P
Re:It's been well know for decades (Score:4, Funny)
Tha's only the better off scientists. The truly destitute ones drive Fords.
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I mean, that's partly true too. They usually don't care about what others think of them. A working car is a good car.
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Obviously students who were raised in the US may have become accustomed to a standard of living and a standard of entitlement. In that case it is totally appropriate for parents help maintain the style of living. But there are s
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I don't see any moral arguments to exclude PhDs working on research from being paid minimum wage. Of course they don't spend all of their time on it, but the hours they do spend on it should be paid at least at that level.
Of course basic income would be better, but if we're to have minimum wage, then it should apply everywhere.
Re: It's been well know for decades (Score:2)
The news here is that they're now too poor to survive. But they weren't far from that before.
Bullshit.
If they are so smart why did they spend all that money to get an education that can't enable a person to earn enough to pay it back?
How many advanced degree holders get up early every morning to stack books at a book store or take drink orders at a coffee shop? I don't think the issue for those people is that being a Starbucks barista doesn't pay enough to cover your English lit phd... They likely either chose the wrong school, the wrong major, or chose to borrow too much money to cover their schoo
Social sciences too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Social sciences too (Score:3)
I'd looked at how hard PhD's had to work, the sacrifices they made, the tiny number of "good" jobs they were competing for, the precarious working conditions in general & the salaries they typically got, thought about it, & wondered why? Why give up so much of my life, live in poverty, & head for an early grave through overwork?
If only more people would do a similar cost/benefit analysis...
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Don't get a phd then moron (Score:3, Insightful)
PHd's don't mean shit other than you got taken advantage enough by your professors/advisors or the school made enough money off of you that they gave you a bullshit title that has no value to anyone other than yourself and the other idiots who got PHds because you have to justify the fact that you got suckered into the PHd shit anyway.
Doesn't mean you have any common sense or intelligence AT ALL, PHds are ARBITRARLY handed out, its not like there is an actual certification process that all of them conform to so there is consistency, every single one of them is arbitrary.
I unfortunately know several PHds, and they universally think they know everything about everything because they have a PHd when in reality most of them are unable to balance a budget or make generally good decisions - which is why they were stupid and spent several years of their lives being indentured to their advisors so they could come out the backside with less experience than their peers, an arrogance level beyond belief and a general lack of usefulness in society for another 10 years while the real world breaks down the ignorant bullshit that goes with people who spend their entire lives hiding in academia rather than the real world.
If these people were so smart - they wouldn't have been so stupid to spend all the time and effort sucking up to advisors and faculty only to come out of the program deep in debt with no real job prospects available to make up for the debt/poor wages that got them to where they are.
Having a PHd in most (not all) fields is a sign of your ignorance and stupidity, not intelligence and knowledge.
My wife is an actual doctor, you know, medical degree and all that, and there is nothing more insulting to have some jackass who studied religion at some shithole religious school walk into the office and introduce themselves as a doctor. My sister-in-law has a PHd in education and is pretty much fucking helpless at everything in life except getting her PHd, thinks that what she did - coming up with a really stupid theory and then proving herself wrong makes her a the greatest thing since sliced bologna. Can't balance her check book, keep her marriage together, or manage any other aspect of her life - but god damn she's a PHd and you better respect.
We don't need more idiot PHd morons, we need educated intelligent people that were smart enough to skip the commercialized pay-to-play system of education we have now. The good-old-boys club of higher education in America is nothing to be proud off. Pay to graduate is pretty much the norm in America at this point, the entire education system is revolving around keeping students in the system longer and longer, not getting them the tools they need to succeed in the real world.
99% of the worlds PHds would be FAR more valuable taking a welding class and doing something useful other than postulating over whatever ignorant idea they came up with to change the world today.
Yes, I have serious issues with the state/quality of higher education in America - and it starts with the fact that every single college professor I have ever met isn't worth his weight in salt water, let alone anything rare. Out of the hundreds I've seen, attended class with, about 4 were actually good at transferring knowledge to others. The rest were - if lucky - there to collect a paycheck, some are just leeches.
If you think getting a PHd makes you valuable or some how deserving of a big paycheck - you are exactly the kind of person I'm ranting about here. You aren't special because you paid someone to tell you that you are.
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This. Right there. And me without modpoints.
In my field, I don't know a single person with a PhD. A master is already more than plenty in most cases, and even that's a more recent development since HR suddenly started thinking that this means something.
It means jack. But that's not even the point.
The whole system is kinda iffy by now. With some people who hold degrees I wonder what worth that degree has altogether.
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Re: Don't get a phd then moron (Score:2)
I unfortunately know several PHds, and they universally think they know everything about everything because they have a PHd when in reality most of them are unable to balance a budget or make generally good decisions - which is why they were stupid and spent several years of their lives being indentured to their advisors so they could come out the backside with less experience than their peers, an arrogance level beyond belief and a general lack of usefulness in society
Exactly.
Re:Don't get a phd then moron (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, I'm not gonna stick up for everyone with a PhD, but someone with a PhD is a DOCTOR of Philosophy. Your wife is an MD, but a Doctorate is the DEFINITION of a Doctor. It's not insulting for them to introduce themselves as doctors, many of them are legitimately the head of their field.
I've also met plenty of medical doctors who are woefully poorly educated. They're not up on the latest research--or in some cases, any research in the last 20 years. They tell you things that are verifiably wrong, walk in with their own opinions and don't trust the patient to know their own body, their own symptoms, or their own illness.
Lets be real: many people with MDs are just good at memorizing medical textbooks and are terrible doctors that help nobody. The lesson isn't that PhDs are better than MDs or vice versa, it's that no matter how much formal education you have, you may genuinely be bad at your job, terrible with people, and kind of an idiot. You were just good at going to school and playing that game.
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Well you are pretty much ready to submit your thesis for a PhD in having a massive chip on your shoulder.
How are the job prospects after graduation? (Score:2)
Or is it more like medicine, where we have an absurd level of bottlenecking, which blocks people from lucrative careers that we badly need more people to pursue?
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If's a rough financial road to obtaining a financially unrewarding degree, I'd call that good - better to not lead them down the garden path into debt.
Or is it more like medicine, where we have an absurd level of bottlenecking, which blocks people from lucrative careers that we badly need more people to pursue?
That depends on what part of biology you study. If you go into a industrially applicable area (genetic engineering, plant breeding, animal breeding, etc.) you can make a good living. If you go into academia, well, maybe you become famous and rich and maybe you scrape by.
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In medicine, like many professions, the bottlenecks are what makes it a lucrative career.
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Absolutely. Guilds don't take kindly to being told what to do though.
The barriers are mostly artificial, but the quotas are brutal. When you've applied all the reasonable criteria and you still have many times the quota you just start making up stuff that hopefully sounds legit.
Re: How are the job prospects after graduation? (Score:2)
Arguing for lower-qualified doctors is an interesting argument - good luck with that.
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More family doctor would be great and they don't need to know every little thing the specialist does. Of course, the real money is in being "special" and the process to be a mere (nothing mere about it) family doctor is already so grueling, may as well go for the big bucks to pay off this education.
We would definitely benefit as a society having more doctors at the first rung on the doctor ladder.
Is this news? (Score:2)
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I read the summary and was wondering where these places where PhD students were doing so well were.
A PhD is basically the equivalent of musicians being expected to do gigs "for the exposure."
Poverty line in the US is (Score:5, Informative)
Incidentally, I know this because I lived this life for 4 years and I know many others who did also.
1. A room in a rundown group house or grungy university apartment, quite possibly with an actual ROOMMATE. Not just housemates, or apartment mates, you actually SHARE A ROOM
2. Enough money for food. Not fancy steak. Basic food. Most protein comes from eggs and occasional hamburger or chicken. Cooking yourself is REQUIRED. Eat out: once per month.
3. If you're not on your parents insurance, you get basic medical care and minimal insurance provided through the university.
4. A car? Mmaayybe you can afford a junker and minimal insurance. More likely, you live close enough to the university to walk or bike, or take public transport.
5. Amenities and fun? The university offers nearly-free shows and performances, and they probably have a nice rec center with a pool, workout equipment, a track, pool tables, ping pong tables, all free to students. That's your entertainment.
6. Clothes from goodwill (btw you can dress pretty sharp shopping at goodwill while paying
Remember, a grad student on a stipend is getting a TUITION WAIVER. So, that 50k per year that the university normally charges for tuition? The student doesn't have to pay it. The university is eating that cost. Overall, that student's pay+benefits package is costing the university somewhere between 50-100k per year.
It's not a bad deal at all. Most students get at least a few thousand dollars support annually from family to help take the edge off. But if they don't, it's still possible to get through. It's just that you're POOR. Not in poverty, but definitely the poor-student life. It's just that, nowadays, lots of people expect a swank urban apartment, a nearly-new car, nice clothes, and eating out, and travel, and the same sort of lifestyle that the "influencers" pedal. Retch. omg I literally vomited typing that word.
Re:Poverty line in the US is (Score:4, Insightful)
I was a PhD student a long time ago.
1. I shared a studio with another person.
2. I ate out once a month and cooked otherwise.
3. I got my health care from the university.
4. I rode a bike.
5. I used the university pool and went to $5 concerts.
6. I did not get my clothes from Goodwill.
So I did 5 out of 6. But the thing is, I was paid $30,000 a year. Adjusting for inflation, that's about twice the $20,000 stipends mentioned in the article. $20,000/year is setting the PhD student up to fail.
The tuition waver is a lie. There is no incremental cost to teaching PhD students because PhD students are treated as workers, not students. That's like counting the manager's pay as part of the cashier's pay.
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500 for one person? What kind of swanky food you buying? I just made a pot of really good chili for under $20. I'll be dinner for 4 nights. Made a chicken pasta casserole for under $10, using canned chicken. That's at 3 dinners. Spaghetti with no meat is under $5. Add turkey for $4 or beef for $6. Once against, that's multiple meals.
Cooking at home saves a lot of money and one person that doesn't drink does not need $500 in one month. That's crazy.
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Sounds like my PhD in the 1990s in Canada, except for #4: I had no bike, I took the bus everywhere. Salary was around $15,000 Canadian, rent was $300/month split two ways (I had the bed in the living room, friend had the bed in the bedroom). Extra Foods was my my main shopping place, and the first question in any new cafe/bar was "Are the coffee refills free?"
But I had no idiot boss (that came later in industry), got to ask questions of really smart people at seminars, travel to conferences (admittedly on
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Ignoring benefit of education in salary (Score:2, Informative)
Why is the benefit of the education and PhD not included in the 'wages'? These are STUDENTS. These are like apprentices where the largest portion of their benefits are the learning, experience, and degree. Comparing PhD student wages with non-school working wages is ridiculous.
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I mean, it's very capitalist. You impoverish someone while they're getting their education so they have no choice but to get a job as an adjunct professor who has to live out of their car and go to the food bank. There's not actually any guarantee that finishing the PhD means that they'll get a job that will help them dig themselves out of debt.
But more than that, WE benefit from the education that someone like that gets. We need biologists, and doctors, and law professors and all those people for society t
Go figure. (Score:2)
Have Universities ever heard of inflation? (Score:3)
I was paid a ~$17K-$18K stipend in the early Eighties for $DIETY's sake. I was fortunate enough to land a spot within a research organization at the school where I could work summers to augment that stipend. Most grad students didn't have that opportunity.
Academia hasn't paid well since, well, forever. Anyone who is, is most likely an administrator (or a coach in a sport involving a ball). I knew a faculty member in the History Dept. (who I lived next door to off-campus) as an undergrad who was only making $11K.
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University administrators (excluding the occasional investment manager who has no say in university operations) are never paid as much as the top sports coaches and surgeons at large universities.
Grad school (Score:3)
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That should fix itself but it doesn't. (Score:2)
I went to grad school in my mid-30s, payed in full by my employer. This is not a common arrangement, but in the physical sciences at least it is not rare. When I was in college, a grad level class I took had a dude in his 40s who was being paid for by Lockheed to get his PhD in radar physics.
My own observation of people with whom I've worked who got their PhDs straight out of college, making grad student wages, is that on the whole their research topics were more fuzzy, the quality of their work lower, and
Same was true back in the 1990s... (Score:4, Informative)
... when I was a grad student in biological sciences at UC Berkeley. The university raised tuition and housing costs every year but never increased our research & teaching assistant wages. People were making decisions on whether they should buy textbooks or pay rent. That's why we formed a grad student union (with the UAW). We shut down campus. After we unionized, UC raised wages and gave us health insurance. Made a huge difference.
Note that few people come out of PhD programs with any debt. That's why it takes so long to finish a doctorate in the US -- you're working more than half time and essentially going to school or doing your own research when you have free time. Of course, this is not true for "professional" programs, e.g., law, medical, or MBA programs.
Re: Same was true back in the 1990s... (Score:2)
Note that few people come out of PhD programs with any debt.
Yeah, it's kinda funny how the researchers kinda "forgot" to put a value on Graduate School tuition...
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Yeah, it's kinda funny how the researchers kinda "forgot" to put a value on Graduate School tuition...
Not really, because it's kind of valueless. Somehow we manage to get PhDs in other countries without the vast amounts of classroom learning that Americans seem to do. Takes less time too.
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Some Universities insist (or did, anyway) that you carry a full-time load as a student for one year of your program. That makes it really tough to make ends meet on the piddling stipends being offered. Get roommates or a spouse with a job (which, in a college town, will likely also pay very little). For a country that clai
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Who decided you are supposed to be paid a "living wage" while going through the upper stages of an education? You are being educated; you are not engaged in full-time employment. People have chosen to forego full-time employment while pursuing graduate work with the expectation of higher wages and/or status once they acquire their degree. I worked as a teaching assistant while doing my graduate work and never once did I think, "How come no one is paying me a living wage?" I felt lucky that I was able to ear
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Actually, unionizing worked amazingly well. As I said, the university bumped up our salary, gave us health insurance, and had to start listening to graduate students' concerns. After graduating, I ended up getting a very well-paid job in my field. Of course unions can present their own problems, but in this case it was a good solution. Graduate students in the University of California system are still benefiting from our efforts.
Biologe is the low end of science ... (Score:2)
... income wise. My sister in law has a PhD in biology and I earn 10k more than she, as a meager PHP/WordPress dev without any academic credentials. Biology, AFAICT, simply is overbooked with candidates. That a bio PhD can't make a living in some parts of the US isn't all that surprising to me.
Assuming they are paid (Score:2)
Sometimes phd students don’t even get paid the wage they were promised. This puts the research student in a difficult position of needing to find other work to substitute they pay they were meant to get.
The student should fight the situation, but they don’t always know their rights or are too stressed out about focusing on their underpaid research, since they are worrying about future career and reputation.
This actually happened to some who came to work for the tech startup I was part of. End r
Re: Assuming they are paid (Score:2)
They could simply borrow the money for their college, like other students do... Being a Phd student is not a JOB, they are LUCKY to have the opportunity to work for tuition + cash rather than take on more debt.
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They could simply borrow the money for their college, like other students do... Being a Phd student is not a JOB, they are LUCKY to have the opportunity to work for tuition + cash rather than take on more debt.
Phd students are doing research that a university can potentially be licensing out. This not your undergrad degree. Also, if the university wants their researchers to be working full time, then they had better cover basic living expenses, otherwise the quality of the research will likely go down the drain and professors will be frustrated that things are moving forward. A phd student should not be taking a loan out to subsidise research.
I’d argue while being a phd student is not a job in the tradition
Re: Assuming they are paid (Score:2)
Sometimes phd students donâ(TM)t even get paid the wage they were promised.
We have laws to protect them from such abuses, are they too ignorant to understand basic contract law?
We're talking about STUDENT wages (Score:4, Interesting)
At the University of Florida in Gainesville, for example, the basic stipend for biology PhD students is around US$18,650 for a 9-month appointment, about $16,000 less than the annual living wage for a single adult in the city with no dependents.
Question, what stipends are offered to undergraduate students? Nothing. Phd candidates are offered tuition, stipends, and housing in some cases, literally being paid while attending school to earn an advanced degree.
Boo-Hoo.
Add in the non-cash compensation offered to 'working' Phd candidates and then compare them to the 'living wage calculator'.
What they are saying is, if you ignore tuition and other benefits offered (meals? Medical care? Housing?) then they are paid poorly.
As a final note, I point out that working phd students get 3-4months off for summer break, freeing them up to go out and fill the earnings gap their 9 month job offers.
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Undergraduates are supposed to study all the time. PhD students are apprentices who are supposed to do actual work all the time. In developed countries like the US, the majority of actual science is done by PhD students, not professional scientists.
"working phd students get 3-4months off for summer break" No they do not. PhD students are not entitled to a single day off. It's at the discretion of their supervisor.
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Undergraduates are supposed to study all the time. PhD students are apprentices who are supposed to do actual work all the time. In developed countries like the US, the majority of actual science is done by PhD students, not professional scientists.
"working phd students get 3-4months off for summer break" No they do not. PhD students are not entitled to a single day off. It's at the discretion of their supervisor.
I went to graduate school and had to work my way though out of it. I was in 7 days a week. Then I went postgraduate where I was basically worked like a slave 80 hours a week for 4 years. I'm still $200,000 in debt. Fuck you.
Re: We're talking about STUDENT wages (Score:3)
If you are smart enough to earn a phd, you were smart enough to understand you voluntarily took on $200K in student debt, and (hopefully) you were smart enough to choose a field of study that would pay enough to pay off your $200K in student loans.
It's none of my business, but I would love to know your field of study - not to question your chosen field, but to understand which field requires a PhD but doesn't pay enough to justify the investment.
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The way this works in America (explaining because most people don't know this) is you like everybody else go to high school. Then you do 4 years of undergraduate. Then you fight tooth and nail to get into a medical school where the admissions process is a labyrinthian monstrosity where they care more about how much overseas work you did for Habitat for Humanity or your diversity or whatever. So you almost have to relocate. Then you spend 4 years in the medical school where the first two
If you're employer isn't paying for your education (Score:3)
You probably shouldn't be getting the degree.
There isn't a decent sized company in the U.S. that doesn't offer education benefits. If you are doing work for an advisor at a university and paying for the courses and doing the work for whatever next to nothing they offer, you're a sucker.
Nothing new for many (Score:2)
As a not-too-distant graduate (Score:3)
It was amazing going from having to pay that amount per semester in undergrad to receiving that amount in graduate. Like most college students I had roommates and ate cheaply. No complaints. People getting their MD are racking up 50k debt a semester with no offset. Many humanitarian grads aren't getting stipends either.
In the list of actual problems, STEM students getting only moderate compensation + free tuition during their doctoral years is close to bottom of the list. The average PhD grad makes ~$100k/year.
Opportunity Cost (Score:2)
WTF? (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
Rough it for a few years and come out the other end with a degree. Nothing in life is free, everything requires some degree of sacrifice. If you haven't learned that in all the time leading up to tackling a PhD, then your education in life has failed you OR (more likely) you really aren't good at learning. Gird your loins, suck it up and when you're in a position to make things different for the students of the future, then do it.
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I remember a futuristic documentary that had a premise like that.
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It's not really how it works (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of smart people but they're doing evil things. The people who make all the real money are either helping Wall Street do rent seeking behaviors in order to make you work harder for less money or they're trying to figure out how to help Google get advertisements in your brain.
There is a huge problem we're not talking about. Which is that we're not funding basic research. In other words the kind of long-term low profit research it takes anywhere from 30 to 100 years to pay off. Every baby boomer and gen xer benefited extensively from decades and decades of incredibly expensive research paid for by tax dollars from rich people back when we had a 90% upper tax rate and fewer tax shelters. We spent the last 20 years dismantling that system so that Jeff bezos and phony Stark could have bigger yachts and pretend go to the Moon.
Eventually the lack of basic research to continue to increase productivity and drive our civilization forward we'll catch up with us as a species. But by then it's going to be Gen M or maybe even gen Z's problem.
As the saying goes, I got mine fuck you.
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Being too intelligent is an evolutionary disadvantage in many cases, same as being insufficiently intelligent. Many highly intelligent people are limited in terms of communication, often think that their expertise applies to things outside their domain, are often indecisive in pragmatic matters(and in an unfortunate number of cases have the survival instinct of a falling rock). The most technocratic ones think that mundane matters are for others, and thus can't live without a support team.
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Being too intelligent is an evolutionary disadvantage in many cases, same as being insufficiently intelligent. Many highly intelligent people are limited in terms of communication, often think that their expertise applies to things outside their domain, are often indecisive in pragmatic matters(and in an unfortunate number of cases have the survival instinct of a falling rock). The most technocratic ones think that mundane matters are for others, and thus can't live without a support team.
Right - and the really cool part is it makes stupid people the obvious choice to run the show.
That's been working out just great.
with student loans are high as they are why is pay (Score:3)
with student loans are high as they are why is pay so low?
is it all going to admin?
Re: with student loans are high as they are why is (Score:5, Interesting)
What? You just mixed everything together.
Student loans and Tuition are not interchangeable.
People have high levels of student debt because their teachers are bullying them to go to college and their parents didn't put enough money aside to cover their child's tuition room/board, etc. and schools keep raising tuition and room & board because when students pick a college to attend they sadly choose to spend a quarter million dollar to spend four years on a college campus with great amenities, not based on cost or the quality of the education offered.
I support tax-payer funded community college and subsidized state colleges and universities. I would prefer if private colleges and universities needed to arrange student loans for their own students, rather than giving every 18 year-old access to a low six-figure credit line for college.
The issue is to drive down tuition prices, not have student loans increasing as tuition increases.
Why is IQ normally distributed? (Score:2)
If being stupid was a competitive advantage we never would have gained sentience.
I'm not so certain about that.
We now have a very good model of human personality (the "Big 5" model, cf. Wikipedia), and the 5 traits are normally distributed. You can imagine the endpoints of the 5 traits as 10 paradigm aspects, and your score is "nature's guess" as to how important it is to be on one side or the other.
So for instance, high neuroticism is a survival trait in civilizations where there's a lot of intrigue, high conscientiousness is a survival trait in cultures with strong property ownership
You need to get out more (Score:2)
Increased intelligence leads to increased empathy which in turn improves our species ability to work together. We are fundamentally a social species. That said the less intelligent among Us can be fooled and their empathy decreased. This is useful for the psychopaths we often put in charge of our l
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I don't think intelligence equals empathy. At that there are a lot of very intelligent sociopaths destroying things.
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IDK, some athletes really are also very intelligent as well. Quite a few could of very likely of gone on to be other professionals but instead decided to be entertainers because it's likely more fun and pays a crap ton more. More prestigious being an awesome sports athlete also.
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If being stupid was a competitive advantage we never would have gained sentience.
That's a stretch. We gained our intelligence largely accidentally, and it will very likely be what makes us extinct, as our ability and lust for killing each other is amplified by our ability to create ever better ways to kill each other.
The most successful life on the planet isn't us, nor is it terrible intelligent.
There is a huge problem we're not talking about. Which is that we're not funding basic research. In other words the kind of long-term low profit research it takes anywhere from 30 to 100 years to pay off. Every baby boomer and gen xer benefited extensively from decades and decades of incredibly expensive research paid for by tax dollars from rich people back when we had a 90% upper tax rate and fewer tax shelters. We spent the last 20 years dismantling that system so that Jeff bezos and phony Stark could have bigger yachts and pretend go to the Moon.
Well now, I talk about research all the time, and despite claims to the contrary, we do have long term research. A lot of thinngs being brought to life these days were first proposed a lon
Re: It's not really how it works (Score:2)
I am not convinced that this is all a bad thing. It is premised on the possibly false capitalist assumption that the motivation for scientific research is driven by money. It also assumes that instiutions like universities are the only place that such research could actually be conducted. I posit that this is not true.
Look at the number of scientific minds emerging from the Enlightenment forming the basis of scientific thought. All of them performed research and contributed to science out of passion and all
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So unless the US does the research not hing gets done? The PhDs from the EU are useless, the PhDs from China are useless, ditto India, Japan, and Russia? There has to be a few from Africa and South America.
My daughter has a PhD but it is in English and only good teaching, which is what she does. How she paid for it I have no idea, I was broke when she started college.
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You're touching on the basic problem: what is happening is the over production of elites. There are many opportunities to produce people with an education which will make them part of the elite, but there are far fewer elite posts for them to occupy.
The problem is caused by the approach to education, where its seen by the liberal elite as being an unqualified benefit no matter the subject. Since high levels of education and expertise are not possible for everyone - ability is normally distributed after a
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Don't forget the 50+ years they will need to pay off their student debt especially if they have been to an Ivy League place of learning.
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You think paying off that student loan is still possible? You hopeless optimist.
wic, EBT ,ect funds can't be taken for loan pay pa (Score:2)
wic, EBT ,ect funds can't be taken for loan pay back.
Re: Evolutionary lowering IQ of US population (Score:2)
Is it too much to expect that graduating high school seniors do a cost/benefit analysis before borrowing low six-figures to pay for a four-year party?
It is the student's responsibility to ensure the career they are studying for will reward them sufficiently to pay for the education and living expenses after college.
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LOL, but you MUST go to college. This is parroted so often. Trades, only dumb people use their hands to work....
That's basically high school. How else do we keep our universities insanely profitable? Education is big business.
That's the real crux of it all. Business. If you wonder why something about the USA, just remember, it's a government for business and always has been. Which team you are on matters none at all. American business interests are America's only true interests. Period.
Everything else is ju
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Are you going for funny? These are teenagers with immature brains and likely parents that are even more out of touch with reality and your response is that these kids should do a cost/benefit analysis.
Our whole economic system is designed to prevent people from learning how to do a cost/benefit analysis as it is not profitable enough for certain entities.
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"The smartest specimen go for PhD and are too poor to have children quickly."
They are smart, they don't get any at all.
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Re: Evolutionary lowering IQ of US population (Score:2)
No one is "too poor to have children" - countless people without the salaries someone with a PhD commands have children every day.
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"usine à crétin"
A sign of high IQ.
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Why don't these hypocrites put their money where their mouth is and next time they get sick rely on faith healing instead of wasting a hospital bed on their useless hide?