<p>This is still a ways off for us, but my daughter is interested in working on a Ph.D., most likely in Geology.</p>
<p>Can a student live off the stipend / TA related earnings associated with a "fully funded" Ph.D?</p>
<p>Post on grad board for current figures about funding. I think around $30,000, and in an expensive city, almost half or 1/3 goes for rent. It is livable. </p>
<p>I supplement with clothes, keeping son on cell phone plan, $ for nice dinner out, plane tickets. Nothing much. </p>
<p>Not all PhDs are fully funded. Some people are accepted but receive only some or no financial aid. As with undergrad, it all goes into the mix to make a decision.</p>
<p>My son is in a Physics PhD program at a state flagship U. He is employed 1/2 time as a TA (this will transition to a graduate assistant in a year or so) and was guaranteed support for 6 years (average length to completion of the PhD is 5.7 years). He has great health insurance (including dental). He is paid around $14,000 for the main school year (sept. to May) and gets another $5,000 for summer research. He is frugal by nature and is in a city with a pretty reasonable cost of living. He has no car. He saves money every month. I think this is a fairly typical salary. There were a few schools that paid more but they were also in much more expensive areas. If your daughter is willing to live simply she will be fine. </p>
<p>While it is true that not all graduate students receive funding it is likely that in a field like geology she will. If you spend a little time digging through school websites you can probably find out what the story is for geology grad students.</p>
<p>I forgot an important thing! He does not pay tuition!! </p>
<p>Thanks for your reassuring replies!</p>
<p>My son is in a fully-funded PhD program (full tuition and health insurance), and he is able to support himself without any problem. Stipend plus assistantship is a little over $21,000. In addition, he receives a summer research allowance of $5,000. My daughter’s PhD program (different school) was less generous. Health insurance was not included, there was no summer grant, and the stipend was so low that it was tough to make ends meet. But she managed, and the lean times paid off, as she ended up where she wanted to be (college professor). </p>
<p>It depends on your school. Granted, I go to a very well funded research U, but all of the PhD students are living just fine. The lowest paid PhD program that I know of here still makes a base of 30k/year + free tuition + health insurance. </p>
<p>I concur that it depends heavily on your school. Very jealous of you, romani, as I get 16.5k plus tuition waiver. I still have to pay for health insurance (though it is cheap, $65 every other week for myself and my husband). I also have to pay student fees to the tune of $1500 per year. This year I’m teaching a summer course so I have another $3.5 for the summer, but typically I don’t have guaranteed summer funding. </p>
<p>Right now it’s challenging because we live in a very economically depressed area and my husband has not been able to find work for over a year now (applying to positions offering less than $10 an hour, even). He was also among those who lost extended unemployment benefits, so needless to say it’s been very challenging. But, it’s doable, especially if you’re on your own and don’t have another person to support. We’re getting by. </p>
<p>“Fully funded” in our flagship means tuition plus stipend (bus pass and health insurance are extra out of pocket - about $200/quarter). Last time I checked, at our state flagship the stipend was about 2K a month (it was half of that when I was there in the early nineties). About 1/3 of that would go towards rent, so after taxes the student would be left with $1K to spend. Not a whole lot in our city, but fully funded students have to slave away in the lab, so there is not much time left for entertainment/parties. </p>
<p>S1 is at a flagship state U in the PhD program in Mathematics. He gets tuition remission + ~$25K/yr stipend, out of which he pays for health insurance (which is pretty cheap). Plus he has gotten summer money 2 years out of 2 so far. He has to TA a bit, but will go on research assistanceship soon (his prof is well funded). He is saving 25% of his after tax income, so yes it is quite livable. He pays all of his expenses but the family cell phone plan.</p>
<p>Daughter’s boyfriend just accepted a tuition funded + $30,000/yr stipend for a PhD program and will be able to live well within the budget.</p>
<p>My son-in-law is in a doctoral program that is fully funded. He gets all tuition paid and a stipend of $25K per school year. He could get health insurance through the university but he decided to go with the health insurance that my D gets through her employer–it was cheaper. Son-in-law is a research assistant for a professor on the department–next year he will be a TA.</p>
<p>DS is a fully funded [ tuition included] PhD candidate in GeoPhysics and lives with 2 other PhD students in a very nice condo in Pasadena. I send him clothes occasionally and he is still on our family cellular phone plan, but otherwise is on his own. </p>
<p>Currently getting 36k stipend and tuition as a Ph.D. Student in computer science. Doesn’t include health insurance, which is available for ~1000 per year.</p>
<p>our recently married D has been living on her own with her fully funded neuroscience PhD program for the past five years. She budgets but does fine…even tithed to her church. Her program does include tuition, good health insurance and a stipend. </p>
<p>I am attending a PhD program (hard sciences) at Harvard next year. The stipend is ~$33,000 although I will be earning an extra $6,000 per year for three years because I was given a special fellowship from the department.</p>
<p>The stipends at the programs I was accepted to ranged from $21,000 at a top ten program at a rural state school to ~$37,000 for Stanford. However at Chicago, I was offered a prestigious fellowship that would have given me ~$44,000 per year for the first three years without any teaching.</p>
<p>So in general, if you get into a top program in an urban or suburban location, you can expect >$30,000. If they really like you then you may get additional money on top of the stipend. You can also get funding from external fellowships which are great to apply for.</p>
<p>Well, it depends on what “fully funded” means at your son’s hypothetical program. Some schools offer actually livable stipends - my first-year stipend here at Columbia was around $31,000, which is very livable in NYC (with roommates in a cheap neighborhood). Tuition and health insurance were included, and I also had a travel fund, as it was an NIH training grant. I was guaranteed support for 3 years - 2 years training grant + 1 year of departmental funding. I took the 2 years of the training grant; then I got an NSF for 3 years, and in my last year I am on a different NIH training grant. Only the last year was not quite livable (at $22,000) but I found outside employment as a grad assistant to supplement. But $22,000 is livable in most cities - just not NYC. Most of the other students on my grant are doing some kind of outside work to supplement - teaching or seeing clients for the social workers. Most also have partners and spouses, including myself, which helps.</p>
<p>But I’ve had friends who were offered $18,000 in very expensive cities (LA and NYC), and that’s not livable.</p>
<p>In my field stipends generally range from $22,000 (which is the current NIH level) to around $33,000 (which is my institution’s current stipend level, but because we’re in NYC). I think additional money on top of the stipend (called “topping up”) is actually pretty uncommon unless you win an external fellowship like the NSF. In my case, since my first grant was a training grant that was only good for 2 years, I didn’t get my NSF topped up.</p>
<p>A friend of ours is in a PhD program in physics. Most schools offered him about 30K/year stipend. He commented that at some universities he was accepted at, he would even be able to buy a house, the cost of living in the area was so low. The school he chose is in the DC area, so he’s in an unfurnished apartment with three others, and furnished the apartment with minimal thrift store furniture. His program should take him five years, but he’ll be in a good place for post grad employment. He went through undergrad in three years on an athletic scholarship, so he hasn’t built up much undergrad debt.</p>