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by nunoonun 2018 days ago
225 GBP wasn't 75% of the 700-800GBP minimum wage at that time. And ignoring completely inflation to help your point.

Students are broke, but parents can help, and if your "room" costs half of one your parents wage, that help is less likely to happen. Or make the poorer even poorer.

That situation is totally different if your room costs a quarter of one of your parents wage.
1 comments
logifail 2018 days ago
> 225 GBP wasn't 75% of the 700-800GBP minimum wage at that time

Q: Do "minimum wage" rules apply 1) in theory, 2) in practice to postgraduate students?

Yet more [ancient] data: UK science research council funding for PhD students in the late 1990s was nothing to get excited about; I have an old bank statement here, BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter not for a month.

> Students are broke, but parents can help

Q: Do we really think postgraduate students should expect their parents to still be funding them?

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nunoonun 2018 days ago
> Q: Do "minimum wage" rules apply 1) in theory, 2) in practice to postgraduate students?

If you have to find a part-time to pay some of your expenses yes. In that case a part-time in Lisbon will pay you slightly more than half of your room and in "your case" it would pay the whole room. It's a BIG difference if you have to go down that road.

> Yet more [ancient] data: UK science research council funding for PhD students in the late 1990s was nothing to get excited about; I have an old bank statement here, BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter not for a month.

I do agree that post-grads are very badly paid. But that's another issue.

> Q: Do we really think postgraduate students should expect their parents to still be funding them?

Not really, but if there's an emergency I think parents will not let their kids starve.

And this hackernews rhetoric of 'if I suffered everyone has to suffer as well' needs to end. That's not how you move forward.

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robotresearcher 2018 days ago
> but if there's an emergency I think parents will not let their kids starve.

Subject to ability to do so. I knew many grad students who took part time jobs to send money in the other direction. Their earning power was greater than their family's.

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Aeolun 2018 days ago
> BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter

> £225 per month

Apparently, yes. We do expect parents to still be funding postgraduate students if they don’t want them to starve. £702 pounds per quarter seems kind of hard to live on. That’s like £8 a day to pay for everything except rent.

Actually, that seems kind of doable.

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