[tasty_freeze]

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD?

Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers to peer review ... hand it off to the grad studends. Have a talk to give? Give the grad students the task for writing up first drafts, collecting data, generating graphs etc. My friend said that nothing in the first five years of his PhD work contributed to his dissertation.

I'm amazed that behavior like that of the advisor is allowed.

[jasonhong]

Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science...

Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic.

A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of specialization, your ability to write and do presentations, and your taste in research problems. These are all things take a lot of time to mature.

The problem with graduating fast is that (a) you wouldn't be able to do internships, (b) you would severely limit your ability to grow your social network (via workshops, conferences, internships, department service, etc), (c) you would limit your ability to deepen and broaden your portfolio of research, and (d) you limit the time your ideas have to percolate out into the rest of the research community and industry.

While I can't speak directly about your friend's experiences, learning how to do peer review and learning how to write first drafts are really important skills that can indirectly help with coming up and executing on a dissertation idea.

[nomadygnt]

Taking a longer time to graduate to become the “world expert” in their field is fine if grad students weren’t paid next to nothing for the 60+ hours a week that they are expected to work. As it is now it’s better to finish as quickly as possible so they can have a real life.

[jrk]

To make "next to nothing" concrete: MIT EECS PhD students are currently paid about $4700/mo. This is substantially less than they'd make in industry, but it's around the US median personal income across all working-age adults, and well above the average 24 year-old. They frequently make a substantial extra at summer internships, putting them well above US median in the years when they do.

Also: it is school, not just a job. They are developing deep expertise and specialized skills. As a result, among other things, their earning potential tends to be significantly higher coming out of the PhD than out of undergrad.

[fredophile]

You're looking at students at a top tier university in a field that pays extremely well. The numbers are going to be at the high end for what a grad student can make. A quick search for PhD salaries suggests that $20-35k/year is more common.

The median wage number you cited is also for the total population. According to this graph the median wage for college graduates is around $7k/mo. I'm fortunate to make very good money but I'd still notice a $2k/mo pay cut.

[huimang]

That's MIT. At a state university my friends were making in the ballpark of ~30k.

And yes, that is "next to nothing" compared to the salaries they make now after quitting and just finding work. And their outlooks are in significantly better shape, whereas one friend was highly depressed before.

People can also develop "deep expertise and specialized skills" through their work, and network via conferences, generally paid by their employer. Well, if they can find a job as a junior nowadays.

[tayo42]

It's 56k a year for 6 years?

I don't think the entire US matters for this point your trying to make. What are college educated people making in a city like Boston.

[throwaway2037]

    > What are college educated people making in a city like Boston?

Google tells me the median is 80K USD per year.

[chongli]

Is that $4700/mo net pay? Or do they have to pay tuition fees out of that?

[matternous]

If you're paying tuition for your PhD, you're getting scammed.

[throwaway2037]

Is this true for arts and letters as well (non-STEM)?

[darkwizard42]

Generally speaking PhD students do not pay tuition, they are given a stipend and so there are no tuition fees.

[nickpsecurity]

What's the cost of living in that area?

[throwaway2037]

High inside Boston city limits, but not as crazy as Manhattan (NYC).

[mrlongroots]

As someone who graduated with a 7.5 year long PhD last month,

I feel like PhD stipends are not a major problem. Like I got $40K in a low CoL area, but accounting for tuition and overheads I cost my advisor closer to $150K/year.

Now why are tuition and overheads that high is a reasonable question and it ties into inefficiencies in broader American administrative processes, but I cost society and taxpayers $150K/year, and that I'm doing it for societal benefit is honestly only partly true. The first 6 years was just me building real skills and letting myself be frustrated, and maybe in the last 1.5 years I did things that justify the $1M bill and more.

Even if I did eventually do things that justified the $1M bill, I think most students don't. The larger value IMO lies in a workforce trained in the failures and frustrations of grad school. While I could rattle of plenty of limitations of academia/grad school, I'm not entirely convinced that me being shortchanged/underpaid was one of those things.

[wyldberry]

It's great that you recognize that the last 1.5 years were the period you feel like you did things to justify that bill. However, much like juniors everywhere, you justify all of your pay because we are not paying you for your skill at that moment, but for who you will become.

Even more so for PHD work because the expectation is that after the training you will produce many things that make the cost of training you essentially negligible.

[cvwright]

I worked a ton in grad school, and it definitely sucked at the time.

But it’s crazy to complain about getting paid to go to school. A grad stipend is there to minimally support you so you don’t have to get another job and can focus on your research. It’s not supposed to be a career!

[braingravy]

It’s not crazy… the wages are below food prep. What would be crazy is paying to help someone else’s career. That’s why a well known rule of thumb for graduate program evaluation is whether or not they pay their grad students.

If they pay their grad students, then at least the time the grad students spend creates enough value to offset the cost of paying them.

If not, stay far away from the program.

Also, regarding the career comment: If graduate school is not at least the first step in a given career (it should the second, undergrad being the first), how/why do you expect gifted intellectuals to spend their prime wage earning years doing it?

Most people do not have access to enough wealth to spend prime wage earning years toiling to help someone else’s career with no return on investment.

[petsfed]

I was working retail in Eugene, Oregon during the 2014 University of Oregon grad student strike. I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder because I was working retail with a master's degree in physics (because I did not have the endurance to complete a PhD, but had not yet accepted that fact).

My then-partner was part of the strike. One of the strike demands was higher wages as teaching assistants. And while I worked 40 hours a week, for $11/hr, I made considerably more and worked fewer hours than her. She put in probably 30 hours a week just on her teaching load, plus an additional 30 hours split between explicit course work and dissertation work.

It's crazy that a job that requires excellent marks while completing a 4-year degree pays worse, has worse working conditions, and is considerably more competitive to get into than a job selling office supplies.

One of the other things the grad students were demanding (which they only sort of got) was paid parental leave, because they did not fail to notice that most of their professors were in their late 30s or early 40s before they could afford to stop work long enough to start a family. It was very rare for two academics to have children together, because of the heinous, career ending financial cost to having children when you were young enough that their high school graduation date was before your expected mortality.

[maleldil]

It would be crazy if the university were getting nothing out of it, but your work as a PhD student benefits not only you but the university as a whole. I think it would be reasonable to give students a living wage. I don't think anyone is expecting to make 100k.

[shnock]

I think the key difference is that: "going to school", sure you need a living stipend, but the actual research phase has serious WLB and working condition issues

[smith7018]

Most applicants know that that outcome is antithetical to pursuing a PhD. It's common knowledge that a PhD involves 5-7 years of academic work (read: low pay) in pursuit of becoming an expert in a specialized topic. You don't enter a PhD program expecting to immediately make money or to graduate as soon as possible. It's not a coding bootcamp.

[nomadygnt]

I agree with you. It is definitely what the PhD student signed up for. But like I said in a sibling reply I think if we are worried about having fewer grad students (not saying that we should be), then we may need to change the incentive structure surrounding the PhD programs to make it more worthwhile for people to invest the time and energy. Because how it is currently going it seems to me like fewer and fewer people are going to consider it worth the investment just for the credential alone.

[cvwright]

re: incentives, my proposal was always to let schools pay their football and basketball players, but require that grad research assistants are paid the same.

[bluGill]

Football and other sports are marketing and their wages should be paid for by that department. Along with proof the marketing return on investment is there.

Grad students should be paid for their work as well.

[garciasn]

Isn’t this sort of how all terminal degrees work? MDs, JDs, etc are all putting the candidates through the wringer, for relatively low wages, until they’re “experienced”. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s common knowledge it’s the way things work if you want to have those magic letters of a terminal degree next to your name in your email signature.

Don’t want to deal with the machinations required? Opt for the masters track or just get an Undergraduate degree and spend 20y working your way up.

[jwagenet]

In the US, phds and professional degrees are more or less geared toward students who are comfortable enough financially to stomach the opportunity cost of 6-10+ years of additional education, unpaid or underpaid residencies and internships, and long apprenticeship hours (which prevent backfilling financial gaps) before making “real” income.

[MikeTheGreat]

Can I ask why this is getting downvoted?

Most of the other comments are basically saying this ("the pay is too low for too long for not enough reward").

Anecdotally: I'm teaching a course in "How To Be Successful In College" (not it's real name) at the US community college where I teach Computer Science. I've got more than 1 student who are going to get a credential for nursing because there's just no way they can spend 8-10 years in school to become a doctor.

Would they be good doctors? The question is moot because it's never gonna happen.

[underlipton]

I don't know that people even care, at that. The way most are forced to interact with the healthcare system, a doctor is just a nurse in a white coat who's also a bit of an asshole (aloof and/or smarmy). Especially when they misdiagnose or miss a diagnoses.

[xhevahir]

JD isn't a terminal degree. There's two higher degrees I think.

MDs and JDs are professional professional qualifications, which makes their situation a bit different from purely academic degrees. For example the ABA acts kind of like a cartel.

I don't think I disagree with you, by the way. I'm just more unhappy about it. All of these sclerotic, even corrupt, institutions acting like aging vats for talented youth, all to exclude newcomers and to maintain hierarchies...they're not ideal.

[garciasn]

A JD is most definitely a terminal degree.

If you need a source; here is one: https://fulbrightscholars.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/US...

[Retric]

That’s arguable.

“LL.M. programs are usually only open to those students who have first obtained a degree in law, typically an LL.B. or J.D.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Laws

It’s generally for people who want to hyper focus on one area of law or switch countries.

[ohyoutravel]

Masters in Law so you can…pontificate about the law?

[nomadygnt]

Yes, but I think as time goes on, fewer and fewer people are going to consider those letters next to their name worth it for the years that they need to invest. So, I am just saying that if MIT or whoever else is worried about having fewer grad students (not saying that they/we should be), then maybe it's time to change how it works.

[jhancock]

everything points to money

[bragr]

>but it's not really good for your career

Can you define that with more specificity? I find that academics have a major blind spot where good career means "the path I took" to the exclusion of all other paths.

>Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science

And your CV says another 6 dropped out. What was good for their careers?

[caminante]

He appears to be tunnel-visioning on academia.

The vast majority (>75%) of Computer Science PhDs leave academia. [0] Becoming a "world expert in a specific topic" is overfitting skills for a sub-niche of a specific career. There certainly aren't enough jobs in academia.

[0] https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/213640/what-rat...

[CrazyStat]

The goal of a PhD is to become a world expert in a specific topic, whether or not you’re planning on staying in academia.

This may or may not be in alignment with the student’s goals, and many students don’t really understand it going in.

[caminante]

Yes, they don't realize it or lie to themselves because ~50% dropout.

Given the attrition, I really question if PhD programs are honest with incoming prospects. Law schools and business schools are similarly "guilty" of pimping outcomes.

ITT: it's people complaining about being overworked and mislead in their PhD programs.

[mrlongroots]

> Yes, they don't realize it or lie to themselves because ~50% dropout.

I think there's some misinterpretation here. Not staying on in academia after PhD (common/modal) is not the same as not getting to complete a PhD (rare).

In CS/tech, those who exit academia after PhDs get paid $300K-$500K in the industry. I don't think there's any misleading going on.

[cvwright]

You’re arguing that we have too many PhD students in CS, not too few.

I agree with you fwiw.

[foobarian]

A research professor typically graduates dozens of PhD students. Perhaps there was a post-war bootstrapping period where every one of those students got a tenured position somewhere, and in turn also trained dozens of PhD students; but it's pretty obvious it's not realistic to expect this to continue indefinitely. We're way past saturation right now. Certainly very few are going to get their own tenured positions, and as for the rest, it depends on the winds of funding availability in industry.

[BeetleB]

A very US-centric perspective. Whereas the folks in Europe do it in 3-4 years, come to the US and do a 2-3 year postdoc (with higher pay than a PhD student), and are ahead of their American peers.

Also, depending on where you do it in Europe, the pay as a PhD student is higher. At the extreme end, I knew students getting paid $60K/year in one country, while I was getting $24K/year in the US.

[adev_]

> A very US-centric perspective. Whereas the folks in Europe do it in 3-4 years

Yes it is.

In most European universities, you will graduate in 3-4y.

And there is simple reasons for that: The funding associated with a Phd in many European country is 3-4y. So if you do not graduate, you actually become a burden for your lab.

[EvgeniyZh]

With 2 years master's before for the same total?

[lowbloodsugar]

A US thing again? My friends all did 3 year bachelors, 3 year PhD. Some dragged out the PhD to 4. Those who do a masters do it in one year, and typically don't do a PhD. Some undergrad courses are 4 year and you get a masters at the end. And my UK bachelors was recognized as equivalent to a US masters degree for visa purposes.

[EvgeniyZh]

Maybe this is CS-specific? Finishing physics PhD from high school in 6 years sounds just not enough time. Even exceptional people I know in my field needed at least 7-8 (3+4 or 3+2+3). 3 years into theoretical physics grad school is around the time people start doing decent research

[lordnacho]

It's common, most of the people I know from the UK system did their PhD in 3-4 years.

In Europe you just study what it says as well. You happy to do a bachelor's in physics, your classes are all physics. You don't read shakespeare and learn french.

You can also do this in high school, so you can from age 16 be studying just physics and math.

[lowbloodsugar]

I have three friends with Physics PhDs from Imperial and Cambridge and they did it in three years. That is/was the norm.

[a_f]

In the UK I started a (3 year) PhD program without a Masters. It was not untypical.

[BeetleB]

Varies from place to place.

In some countries, the PhD program is fixed at 3 years. You either graduate by then, or you're out (in reality, they give some option for you to pay to continue, but almost no one can afford it). I suspect in those places, people have done a 2 year MS.

[genxy]

I agree with all those things, but we should be starting that training in middle school. Deconstructing arguments, making reports, giving presentations, solving open ended questions. Many of these things involve a modest amount of critical thinking, prediction and self-reflection.

[drapado]

Are those PhDs being paid with a decent salary? If not, I can’t agree with your statement. PS. I did my PhD in an EU country where it’s treated as another researcher job with salary and benefits

[dekhn]

PhD candidates in the US usually get somewhere between $25K and $50K stipend, also some level of benefits (typically health care). Sometimes there is a tuition waiver (student does not need to pay grad program tuition).

In my case I was making $32K/year with a tuition waiver and health benefits around ~2000, in SF, which was barely enough to rent a shared apartment and eat food. The only way I could rationalize it is that I was maximizing my future freedom (job choice).

[lovich]

Wait, some PhD candidates are being paid near minimum wage and are still paying their university to do work for their university?

That just sounds like indentured servitude with extra steps.

[dekhn]

Yes, I suppose you could try to justify it as "this is the price you pay for having the freedom to build your own research plan in the future" ("maximizing your future freedom") but in reality, this just sets you up for more of the same- getting a faculty position (pre-tenure) with a low salary, and immense pressure to bring in funds via research grants/publish papers.

I eventually tired of the process and moved to industry because the struggle wasn't worth it.

[canjobear]

PhD students paying tuition would be highly unusual.

[CrazyStat]

In STEM fields, yes. In humanities it’s not uncommon.

[zipy124]

No it's typical. It's just that your stipend is usually just x amount of Dollars + whatever tuition is so you never have to care what it is and you don't pay it directly per se, it's just included in your stipend. Someone pays for it at the end of the day though.

[knappe]

Yeah, I distinctionly remember a postdoc I knew who was irrationally excited to move to a role where they were going to get paid $35k, in 2010s money, and they were damn excited about it. And they were moving to a high cost of living area (from a high cost of living area). I was utterly flabbergasted because they were very smart, very technical and should have been earning 5-10x that. I feel like they didn't know what they were worth and academia had utterly failed to teach them that.

I don't know how they paid any of their accumulated (I assume) student debt, let alone had an even decent standard of living.

[bouh]

In France STEM PhD are expected to last 3 year and the funding is sized like that. It is also considered as a job. It is only done if salary is funded in most cases.

Often it spill over a bit and I guess France travail (French job agency managing insurance for people losing their job) should often be cited /thanked in Phd student thesis for funding the final steps of their manuscript.

There are limited internship culture during the phd itself Afaik.

However phd is never started at Bachelor level, only after Msc that last two years and requires an internship or research projet.

I heard a person saying a bit like you that it is not enough to grow a Real expert though compared to US phd. But Oftentimes postdoc always follow for Longer and longer

[mxkopy]

It’s also a set of credentials, which might be immediately useful for one reason or other. All those other things you can do outside of a program, especially if you’ve already got the network or career trajectory to support it.

[sourcinnamon]

I agree that completing a PhD under the time originally agreed may not be good, as you lose some of the learning opportunities that come with the apprenticeship (yes, it is) program.

However, taking more time than the standard length, whatever it is depending on the university or country where you are pursuing the title, is also something universities and specially PIs should be actively avoiding.

Maybe I have this view because I got mine in NL, where a PhD is a job with a defined length (4 years) and if you go over it, you don't get paid. So yes, it is an apprenticeship, but you should not be doing work for free in any case. Becoming an expert and the (relative) independence on how to do your research are of course selling points of the PhD, but a job is a job.

[hgoel]

>The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic.

In my opinion and from my experience, this is an odd expectation considering that a PhD is the absolute beginner career stage in research. It's the equivalent of being trusted to not mess up the morning coffee run.

A PhD is only indicative of having demonstrated the ability to complete research to a level that satisfies other researchers. Many of the things you describe are things one is expected to learn in their postdoc and as a junior researcher.

I finished mine (computer engineering) in ~5 years, practically 7 since I transferred near the end of a 2 year masters program. I was/am blessed with a good supervisor though.

[setopt]

All of the things you mention can also be done as a PostDoc. Which might be even better for social networking, broadening your research portfolio, etc. than staying in a single PhD position for the duration of a PhD + PostDoc.

[mathisfun123]

> Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career.

this is such a "trust me bro it's good for you" con.

i graduated in 3.5 years and went directly to FAANG where i make 2x the highest paid TT at the T10 school i graduated from. do you really have the gall to tell me that it wasn't good for my career to accelerate my PhD and thereby minimize its cost (i.e., opportunity cost).

> A PhD is more like an apprenticeship

the vast majority of advisors have no skills other than how to hack the pub game. they literally have zero clue about the research. the remainder are the "exceptions that prove the rule".

[twbarr]

As much as I would have loved to get out in sooner than six years, I tend to agree. In hindsight, if I'd treated it like a job and just done the coding and writing necessary to get the projects I published out the door, I could have done it in three, maybe two. But that would have missed the whole point.

[etempleton]

This seems to be how many PhD programs go. Almost all want to quit in the last couple years despite the time invested already. Few want to stay in academia, because they have been abused and used and realize that the same would happened if they try to earn tenure.

[throwaway-away]

I am one of those guys. I left for a big tech job even though doing research to push the boundaries of human knowledge was my dream. I know, a cliche, but I was a 20 something year old at the time.

The straw that broke the camel back was being treated like shit by my avisor for the nth time. I still remember it. He was like let's meet tomorrow at 8.30. I woke up at 6.30 to be there in time. He shows up at 10.37. Mind you, this happened like a 10s times over the 2 years I was doing my doctorate. And that was just one of the things he would do to undermine you and have the feeling he hold you by the balls. And he sort of did. Not being able to do anything because of potential repercussions was dreadful.

Anyway, after that day I decided it was enough. I slashed his car tires in the evening, still showed up for a couple of weeks to avoid suspicions, and only then formally quit.

[dhosek]

R. F. Kuang’s Katabasis was a fun look at the hell that is graduate school told through a fantasy lens. That paired with the McSweeney’s snake fight article should be essential reading for all would-be grad students.

[throwaway2037]

This one? https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/faq-the-snake-fight-port...

[dekhn]

Those are typically skills a starting scientist needs to learn. At the same time, sometimes it does feel abusive especially if the student doesn't get some sort of credit for doing the peer review and talk prep.

In my program the main reasons people took a long time to graduate was: by year 6 you are usually very well-trained and highly productive (making you very useful to your advisor), and advisors often require you to publish an important paper in a major journal (Science, Nature, Cell) before they sign your dissertation.

[19skitsch]

yeah I do feel like the PhD system is not uniform in terms of students’ experiences. some get out quite quickly if their advisor is chill while others are stuck being stack ranked in their labs or doing grunt work. your fate is basically in the hands of your advisor..

[genxy]

Which is why you should shop for the advisor and then tailor yourself to the labs you want to apply to. Interview current and former students. Go to conferences where that lab is presenting papers, etc. Have some solid blue collar academic skills like cleaning data, doing instrumentation, hell even making bad ass slide decks will get you noticed. Getting a PhD is similar to landing the job you want. Also showing up with a problem you want to solve that aligns with the lab AND the skills to pull it off, boom!

During undergrad a bunch of us got good enough at electronics and the machine shop that we had grad students asking US for help. We didn't realize it at the time, but just the instrumentation work could have landed us many a phd program, we were just having fun.

[lowbloodsugar]

there are two types of people in post-grad academia. those who are interested in advancing knowledge, and those who are interested in advancing their career. i've worked with many phds who were completely useless - they understood how to work for a career minded advisor because they were career minded themselves. those were their skills: doing what they were told, kowtowing, reading other people's work and talking about it as if they understand it. generating and iterating ideas at the pace required for business? non-existent to the point of appearing mentally incompetent. i'd go so far as to say that the office politics involved in academia is antithetical to knowledge creation. i've also worked with phds who were absolute creating geniuses, but I've worked with even more who didn't do a phd or who quit their phd to focus on commericalizing an idea.

[crypto420]

My PhD advisor found out that my English writing skills are quite good and the rest of their lab were Chinese internationals, so they started making me write all of their research grants. 30 pages every 2 months, pre-ChatGPT days.

[YesBox]

Just sharing another story:

A molecular biochemist PhD I know was forced to redo her advisor's experiment over and over again because it wasn't getting the results he wanted. She knew she was beating a dead horse over the several years she was directed to work on the experiment, and had no other choice but to continue marching forward.

[light_hue_1]

I've graduated many PhD students at a top tier university. That advisor was correct. What they were doing is teaching their PhD student.

You must learn to write good reviews. That doesn't happen without writing quite a few.

Of course grad students should generate the first draft of talks, collect data, and generate graphics. That's exactly the point of grad school. You need to learn how to organize and present knowledge. How to tell a story.

>My friend said that nothing in the first five years of his PhD work contributed to his dissertation.

The point of the PhD is to learn to think about hard problems that are vague, to find your way around them, and learn how to do something new. It's not to stuff as much as possible into a dissertation or anything else.

And 6 years for a PhD? That's about right. You need to go from 0 to being the go-to expert everywhere on a totally new problem.

[MrDarcy]

This is insanity. Then let them learn by advancing their own goals, not the goals of their exploiter. I won’t even call it advising because it clearly is not as you yourself admit.

[mohamedkoubaa]

I decided not to get a PhD against the wishes of my professors and family members because I felt the opportunity cost was too high. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

[QuantumFunnel]

Being amazed at how that's allowed displays a naiveté only one could have if they've never been in the process. What you describe is exactly what being in academia is all about for the last couple generations. Being a grad student sounds prestigious to an outsider, but the system is literally built to exploit their labor.

[tty456]

Sad to think of the kind of impact someone like that could have in private sector had they not pursued the phd.

[convolvatron]

that's a very weird comment to make. the scope for doing novel work and contributing to the canon is almost always zero. its extremely difficult to maneuver yourself into a position where you're permitted to scribble outside the box at all. and those situations where you are often require having a phd and a track record in doing research.

[matthewdgreen]

Reviewing papers, writing papers, these are all part of what grad students do and what they should be doing to learn. They should be getting academic credit for it, however. Your friend sounds like he had an extremely unusual and bad experience, or there's a bit more to the story.

[pcurve]

your friend should make a blog post about that. People like that should be exposed.

[BeetleB]

Not much to expose. Go to any top department in the US, and there will be a handful of them. It's not exactly a secret.

[buellerbueller]

People like what? Bosses whose methods you disagree with?