<p>Yeah, dear lord, guys. You'll live.</p>
<p>My husband and I lived together on only my $28,000 stipend last year in Boston. And we put a lot of money in savings, too.</p>
<p>You should've told that bum to start bringing home some bacon.</p>
<p>i did my undergrad at berkeley... you really don't need to spend too much, if anything, on transportation. having a car is a pain to find parking, so most people bike/walk/bus. my only worry is rent, because it isn't cheap. $27000 does sound doable though.
i'm going to ucla this fall on a $26500 stipend, and i'm freaking out!</p>
<p>scatterbrain: I'm going to UCLA in the fall as well. Electrical Engineering here, what about you?</p>
<p>LMAO RacinReaver :)</p>
<p>OP, my offer from Berkeley MCB was even lower - $25k - and that was a sponsored (ARCS) fellowship, too. More than $10k under my highest stipend offer. They're a state school so they can't be blamed for not paying quite as well, but yeah, my first thought was that it was unlivable in CA.</p>
<p>that;s weird, I got 27,000 from berkeley MCB.</p>
<p>Yeah, I thought it was pretty weird too. My letter definitely says $22k for academic year + $3k for summer. Hey, maybe they're offering me $52k! Hahaha - no. I always heard that women are paid less, but now I see it in action :P Weak, Berkeley. Weak.</p>
<p>snowcapk - I think that may be a mix-up, I'm a woman and I'm pretty sure the stipend for us all is 27k!</p>
<p>My friend has been offered 24K for Berkely which is considered above normal and easily lived on. Humanities are less. At Stanford, I don't consider 31K a massive amount compared to 27K. It's very good and the SGF is a coveted fellowship. An NSF is actually less (30K).</p>
<p>i'm a woman too... so its not by gender</p>
<p>My D. was offered $21k by Berkeley, supposedly the max for her humanities field. So, your stipends sound really great by comparison.</p>
<p>Are you guys including summer in these stipends too? If so, then 21k is ridiculously low. All my engineering offers were in the 27k-30k range including summers.</p>
<p>Yes. $27000 with summer</p>
<p>$27,000 seems very high for a stipend. In computer science, I've heard that stipends were in the $15,000-$20,000 range.</p>
<p>it really depends on the school. At Utexas for instance, my first year I would have received about 26k in fellowships but 18k from second year onwards where as my other schools are 26k throughout the duration of my studies.</p>
<p>It depends on the school (cost of living in urban v. rural enviroment, etc.), but MOSTLY on the discipline. As has been mentioned, science stipends are usually MUCH higher than humanities.</p>
<p>And within "the sciences," just as within "the social sciences" and within "the humanities," certain disciplines offer higher stipends than others. Generally, hierarchies of stipends across disciplines reflect hierarchies of faculty salary across disciplines.</p>
<p>And honestly, when science grad students wonder if they can "live" on their stipends, they should be reminded that humanities folks <em>at the same institution</em> will be living on half (or if they are fortunate, two-thirds) of what they are receiving.</p>
<p>ghettonomics: i'm going for biological science.</p>
<p>the california education system is broke anyway, and it's going to get worse.</p>
<p>xnormajeanx: based on this comment would you chose an east coast school such as Duke over Berkeley for CMB?</p>
<p>This thread is slightly ridiculous...prices in Boston are JUST as bad as the Bay Area and Harvard/MIT are only offering $2000 more dollars a year than Berkeley MCB. Do you want to select a school based on a difference of 2 grand a year?</p>
<p>There are plenty of people that get by in the Bay Area on less than 27000 a year! After taxes it will come out to about $1900 a month - no prada shoes, but 700-800 a month for rent, 300 for food, health insurance is included!! So you have a lot left over to save/eat out/explore the bay.</p>
<p>Just be glad you're not trying to live off a humanities stipend ;). Those guys deserve respect!</p>