<p>Ignoring undergrad debt, how much debt does someone in grad school usually take on? I know that usually in grad school you are the one being paid to get a phd but is the amount you're paid enough to guarantee that you won't need to take out a loan at all?</p>
<p>Generally, you get a full tuition waiver and a stipend on top of it. So yes, you shouldn’t need to take out a loan. However, not all programs can afford this and not all fields are setup in this way. My friend is applying to anthropology PhD programs and some schools that I thought were very good weren’t guaranteeing funding. It seemed like the student was responsible for obtaining outside grants for funding. </p>
<p>You can just google the programs you are interested in and see what funding they offer.</p>
<p>It also depends on where the school is and how frugal you can be. Stipends don’t vary much across the country withing the same field, ranging from 20k for something like history to 32k for engineering. You might get very similar stipends at GT in Atlanta and at MIT in Boston, but cost of living is vastly different. You can like comfortably on 30k at the former while you have to pinch pennies at the latter. This is assuming you meant a PhD, of course.</p>
<p>I’m just trying to figure out what I going to do in the future. I could possibly have another 2 years of undergrad left, and only enough money to pay for 1 year, which could possibly mean a loan of around $40k to $50k. However, I have a lot of time to try to get that down as much as possible. I have at least two more summers and a full school year. </p>
<p>I know I want to go to grad school, and I have been doing a lot of work with a professor, but if I’m going to need to go deeper into debt to do it. Is it really worth it, or should I consider taking a year off in between? </p>
<p>I applied for a 3-2 program. I will be done with a math major and physics minor by the end of this year, and plan on doing computer engineering if I get accepted. I want to go to grad school for a phd in math.</p>
<p>What’s the objective of getting a 3-2 degree in engineering if your goal is a PhD in math? If you don’t need the engineering degree, there might be cheaper options to get some exposure to engineering.</p>
<p>In short, you may have to borrow some. I had to borrow a bit (about $8,000) since I live in a very high-cost area (NYC) and I needed to cover relocation costs, plus my usually generous salary/stipend was taxed at a higher rate during the summer and I had to cover the shortfall. I was coming straight from undergrad and didn’t have anything saved. It was okay for me because I only had $10,000 of debt from undergrad, so currently I’m weighing in at least than $20K which is great.</p>
<p>But you shouldn’t have to borrow more than a very little amount to perhaps cover relocation, cheaply furnishing an apartment, a small shortfall between your stipend and the COL, that kind of stuff. You have to balance it with your undergraduate degree - borrowing $15,000 to cover that stuff if you only have $20K debt from undergrad might be ok, but not so much if you’re already $50K in debt. But I would NEVER go to a program that wasn’t providing a decent stipend AND a tuition waiver. You have to have funding; a PhD just isn’t worth it otherwise. Healthcare is negotiable because usually the fees are $2000 or less a year to cover, and you might still be covered under your parents’ plan (I’m covered until I’m 26 which means I still have a year and a half left). But to me a tuition waiver or tuition coverage and a stipend that makes sense against the COL is necessary.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think everyone should take time off before a PhD. I say that as someone who went straight from undergrad. You think you KNOW that you want this kind of lifestyle when you are applying, but chances are you’ve gone straight from HS to college and you (general you) have no idea what working is like in the real world. You may decide that you’d rather do something else with your life or that you have no problem working as an engineer. I know it’s more difficult in some fields than others (and I think math is one of those fields in which it’s harder to go back - in public health MOST people take time off, so it’s different). Although I don’t regret coming to the PhD, if I could go back to age 22 and do it all over knowing what I know now, I certainly would’ve worked for at least 3 years and evaluated then whether I still wanted to get the PhD. On the flip side, it’s a lot easier to get the grad degree when you are younger. I have no commitments to anyone - not married (yet), no kids, people expect me to be transient and I am just now getting to the point where I am tired of moving around to go to all these schools. When you are older, you may have a stronger desire to be settled. Don’t get me wrong, I love my program and I am glad that I did it, and I think it will aid in my career - but I also think there’s another path to get to the career I’ve decided I wanted (which is not academia. If you want to be a math professor, there’s only one way there).</p>
<p>In any case, were I in your shoes, I WOULD finish that computer engineering degree (if you can afford it. $40-50K is a lot for one year. But in theory). I don’t really want to leave my program, but sometimes when I do, I feel trapped because my undergrad degree is in psychology. I feel like if I leave, there’s nothing else I can do or I’d have to go get another master’s anyway, you know? I think that having a practical degree that easily translates into a job in this recession is really handy, and if you start to feel like a PhD is not really for you, you have something else to do. Always have a plan B - realize that fully half of people who begin a PhD don’t finish it, and even if you do, chances are good that you won’t get a TT job (although you do have a lot better chances of getting one in math).</p>
<p>Be realistic with yourself - weigh the costs against the benefits and don’t forget to count the years of lost income that will accumulate while you are getting the PhD. I’m definitely not saying don’t do it because it’s an extremely rewarding experience and you learn SO MUCH that is easily translatable to both industry and academia. I’m saying think carefully about it because sometimes it’s more difficult to disentangle yourself than you think.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t plan on going into academia if I do get a phd in math. The engineering degree is just more of a back up plan in case math grad school doesn’t work out. Also, I go to a liberal arts school with no engineering program, so the 3-2 is my only option for studying engineering.</p>
<p>If you only wanted to take some engineering classes, you might be able to spend a semester at another university as a visiting student. But since you are interested in a career in engineering, going for an entire engineering degree makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>There’s something else I want to ask you, but I’ll PM you about that.</p>
<p>NEVER take money out for a graduate degree unless it is a JD or MD. Even paying for a MBA is iffy. Don’t get caught in the never ending debt cycle because you wanted to pursue a potentially vastly overrated and/or underfunded degree. Do not waste your time with any program that is going to charge you tuition or is going to waive tuition, but will give you no stipend.</p>
<p>A few tidbits for you. My daughter is on a TA salary which is pretty low (tuition remission plus healthcare), but she lives in Madison, which is pretty cheap. I don’t think she has taken out any loans in 1-1/2 years, I hope not. She worked over the summer for a prof. If you do industry job you may be able to save up in the summer.</p>
<p>She has a friend in a PhD program in an expensive city who has enough funding to live in the very expensive and nice grad student housing. His rent is about 4x her rent.</p>
<p>I do wonder if she should have done the a 5th year Master’s at her school before committing to PhD. We assumed she’d have to pay too much, but we didn’t explore funding. She might have got something, at the least a job. She was with a really strong research group and she was very productive in it. Now she is finding her way all over again.</p>
<p>Like others said, in your area you should be going into a funded program. How much and how many years are guaranteed is up for question. I don’t see any kind of money like people are talking about here, for people who I know in programs. However I do know top schools not offering funding alwasy now. Such a mystery. But some got funded after committing. I think it is a bit all over the place these days, except for some more secure programs funded by NSF, etc.</p>
<p>What sort of field is your daughter in? Generally humanities grad students have it a bit rougher on the funding scale than people in STEM fields (which is what most of us in the thread are).</p>
<p>She is in computer science. She received an offer $5k higher from UM-College Park, but I think cost of living would equalize the difference. I think her prof said it was the best offer they make. It is possible her field, Theory, gives lesser awards, they get less funding. But maybe that’s not it because she is allowed to switch to any CS area she wants.</p>