<p>Has anyone asked their advisor for a salary raise, be it TA or RA? I need one but have no clue how to do it nicely</p>
<p>I’ve never done this because my advisor’s never paid me directly (I’ve had external funding), but I would say rarely do advisors set their research assistants’ salaries themselves. Often they are paying you from grant funding, and the grant determines what your pay is. For example, the NIH has a standard stipend level for all predoctoral students no matter how many years you’ve been the lab or whether you have dependents. (It’s ridiculously low - just a bit over $22,000 for 9 months.)</p>
<p>Why are you asking? I think you’re unlikely to get one just because you have additional dependents, or because of longevity or something, but if you are doing substantial additional work in the lab (like doing the work of a project coordinator/lab manager instead of just an RA) I suppose you can use language akin to that of a corporate salary negotiation.</p>
<p>I’m under NSF and getting around $24,000 annually, even lower than what you called “ridiculously low” :(. Maybe I’ll try consulting the graduate coordinator</p>
<p>It’s all relative. $24,000 would be plenty in Bloomington, IN but wouldn’t get you very far in Manhatten.</p>
<p>How does your salary compare to the university-estimated grad student budget? If you get less money than the university thinks a grad students needs to survive, you might have a case there. If you get more… you’ll have a much harder time making your case.</p>
<p>NSF stipend is 30K, how are you getting less than that?</p>
<p>I don’t know, I have no idea how much they are supposed to pay me nor how much my colleagues get. My school is UCSD in ritzy La Jolla, a root canal treatment cost me $1100 a few months back.</p>
<p>The NSF stipend is taxable, so it’s possible that the 24k figure is after taxes. I would also be really concerned if I wasn’t completely aware of my stipend amount.</p>
<p>No 24k is before taxes I’m sure. I get $1700 a month after taxes. You are right, I should be concerned. I’ll talk to the coordinator.</p>
<p>Guys, are we actually talking about NSF fellowships? The OP could be funded by an NSF grant of his adviser. That has no standard payrate, as far as I’m aware.</p>
<p>Yes I am funded by NSF grant from my advisor. Turns out NSF doesn’t determine the rate by the school does. They have salary steps which increase when you finish qualification exams. It’s at 49.99% and international students such as me are not allowed to work above that. So I’m stuck.</p>
<p>Ok that clears things up. 24K is not a bad stipend compared to most other schools and pretty standard for engineering PhD’s. There are other unfortunate majors that get less than 20K, so be thankful for what you have.</p>