Personal Finance for PhDs

Live a financially balanced life - no Real Job required

stipend

This Grad Student’s Finances and Mental Health Were Stuck in a Negative Feedback Loop

by 2 Comments

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Haley Sanderson, a postdoc at the University of Saskatchewan. Haley was dramatically underpaid during graduate school and discouraged from working on the side. While many of her peers lived hand to mouth, Haley’s situation was made more dire by her at-the-time undiagnosed and untreated mental health disorder. Haley entered a negative feedback loop in which her finances, mental health, and physical health deteriorated together. Emily and Haley discuss what her program could have done to ameliorate this negative spiral and why it’s vital to sufficiently financially support PhD trainees. Haley concludes with her very practical financial advice for anyone at a career transition point.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

Image for S12E4: This Grad Student's Finances and Mental Health Were Stuck in a Negative Feedback Loop

Teaser

00:00 Haley: My suggestion would be, if somebody’s in my situation, to go get the help you need and get the financial help that you need, even if it means taking out loans. Because it’s much better to have the financial debt than the mental health debt.

Introduction

00:22 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. This is Season 12, Episode 4, and today my guest is Dr. Haley Sanderson, a postdoc at the University of Saskatchewan. Haley was dramatically underpaid during graduate school and discouraged from working on the side. While many of her peers lived hand to mouth, Haley’s situation was made more dire by her at-the-time undiagnosed and untreated mental health disorder. Haley entered a negative feedback loop in which her finances, mental health, and physical health deteriorated together. We discuss what Haley’s program could have done to ameliorate this negative spiral and why it’s vital to sufficiently financially support PhD trainees. Haley concludes with her very practical financial advice for anyone at a career transition point.

01:44 Emily: I have set a super audacious goal for my business and our U.S. PhD community broadly. It’s actually a bit difficult for me to even speak it out loud! My goal is for every graduate student, postdoc, or postbac in the U.S. who is not having income tax withheld from their stipend or salary to be offered training on how to 1) estimate their future income tax liability, 2) determine if they are required to pay quarterly estimated tax, and 3) prepare to pay their tax bill or bills through setting up a system of self-withholding. I am passionate about this topic because surprise tax bills, high tax bills, and fines are an almost completely preventable source of financial strife for my community, and all that’s needed is a bit of education delivered at the right time. I provide just such a training, which is my asynchronous workshop titled Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. Most of you have heard me talk about it before, and some of you have taken it. The perfect time to give PhD trainees access to this workshop is when they start or switch onto non-W-2 income, which often happens near the start of the academic year, i.e., the near future.

03:08 Emily: If you share my passion—or maybe it’s more of a frustration for you—and know that your university is not already providing sufficient training in this area, would you please recommend that your graduate school, postdoc office, graduate student association, or department sponsor my workshop for those interested in taking it? You might want to take it yourself, or perhaps you just want to save the entering cohort the time and energy it took you to figure this all out on your own. To make this recommendation, simply email the potential sponsor with the reason you are recommending the workshop and this link: PFforPhDs.com/sponsorqetax/. If you’re comfortable with it, you can Cc me [email protected], and I can pick up the conversation. Thanks for participating with me in trying to reach this goal! I know it will prevent a lot of people in our community from experiencing tax-related financial emergencies next spring.

You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s12e4/.

Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Haley Sanderson.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

04:33 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Haley Sanderson, who is a postdoc at the University of Saskatchewan, and she is coming on the podcast to talk about a really sensitive topic, which is living on a very low graduate student stipend while dealing with mental illness. So, Haley, I’m really pleased that you volunteered to be on the podcast to talk about this important topic. So, would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the listeners?

04:58 Haley: Hi, I’m Haley. I have a PhD in environmental studies where I specialize in environmental microbiology and biotechnology. I finished my PhD in five years defending and graduating in fall 2018, since then I’ve completed postdocs with the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dalhousie University, and I’m now a postdoc in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. And I’m currently applying for more full-time permanent gigs <laugh>.

05:37 Emily: Well, best of luck with that. Okay. So we’re going to go back to your grad school years, and most of my listeners are going to be in the U.S. So, could you please explain, give some context for how you are funded during your PhD?

Funding During the PhD

05:53 Haley: So, during my PhD, I started as a master’s student, so I actually started on a much lower stipend of about $14K Canadian. So, to get that money, I had to TA for about two semesters every year and then do a research assistantship in the summer. I was a master’s student for a year, and then I bumped up to be a PhD. I ended up getting three provincial scholarships in Ontario that bumped my stipend up to $25K, which is only a little bit higher than the base stipend for a PhD student. So, with that stipend, we actually have to pay tuition out of it. So, not all of it gets to go to living. You also have to pay your tuition out of the money that they give you. So, the actual amount that I lived off of was much smaller than the stipend that I got <laugh>.

07:14 Emily: Yeah. Well, let us know, do you remember the numbers on that? Like after paying the tuition, what amount were you living off of? And then give us some context for, like, how does that compare to the local cost of living?

07:26 Haley: I don’t know the exact numbers, but tuition was about $2,000 a semester, I would say, for about $6,000 a year. So, when I was on my original master’s stipend, I only had maybe $8K <laugh>, which is a little <laugh> insane. I had a lot more to live off of once I was in the PhD program. So, when I was a master’s student, I actually had to work, but there were some problems with the department not wanting me to work and kind of threatening to take away the stipend that was paying like my tuition and my rent.

Challenges to Supplementing the Stipend

08:09 Emily: Yeah. I mean, the numbers that you’re throwing out there sound incredibly low. It’s not surprising at all to me that you would, you know, seek other sources of income. Was that something that your peers were doing as well? Was the department also like threatening other peers who were working, or how were they making ends meet?

08:27 Haley: A lot of the other people in my department had like side gigs that they’d only do every once in a while. A lot of people hid if they had part-time jobs. Unfortunately, I worked close to the university and some of them saw me working, so that didn’t work out too well <laugh>.

08:48 Emily: How was that resolved? Did you have to give up the side job?

08:53 Haley: Some of the admins helped me apply to the provincial scholarships. And once I got the provincial scholarships, I was kind of told to get rid of the part-time job.

09:03 Emily: And would you say that when you had that higher $25K minus, okay, let’s say $19K per year stipend during the latter part of your PhD, was that enough to survive, or did you feel like you would’ve worked more if you were allowed to?

09:18 Haley: I probably would’ve worked more, but I think I would’ve had trouble doing that with the mental illness, because there were a lot of things that that impacted. Like my eating, my sleeping, my social life were also impacted by finances, and moreso by the mental health problems.

Mental Health Impact on Money Mindset

09:41 Emily: Yeah. Let’s talk about that more now. So, you had an undiagnosed slash untreated mental health condition at that time. So, how was that affecting how you handled your finances?

09:54 Haley: So, I have a psychotic disorder that causes me to have delusions and hallucinations that are usually really disparaging and kind of controlling. So, let’s say, for instance, when I got accepted into the master’s program, my mom made a comment that my brothers paid for their second degrees. And that kind of morphed in my mind to my parents won’t help me at all, so don’t ask them. Even when I tried to apply for like student loans, I kind of got it in my head that I would never be able to pay them back. So, it was kind of like a brick wall to actually apply for that. There were other things in my life, like I couldn’t eat certain foods because I thought I’d get really sick and stuff like that. So, it was essentially that I couldn’t really do anything to help my situation because my brain would tell me, like, you can’t actually do this.

10:58 Emily: Wow. Yeah. I had not like, thought about that or realized that was a potential, you know, symptom that some people could be experiencing. So, thank you for sharing that. I do a lot of like, how do we find workarounds on this podcast? Or like breaking through like your money mindset stuff. But like when you’re dealing with a serious mental health condition, that’s simply not an option without higher-level treatment, right? Which you eventually got, and we’ll get to that. And so, how then also did having such a low income during graduate school affect your ability to get diagnosed or treated?

11:33 Haley: I started to have psychotic episodes during my third year of my undergrad. And at that time, I went to go see a doctor and that doctor gave me antidepressants, which there was a co-pay for. And he wrongly sent me home without doing any more assessment and essentially told me, you might be developing schizophrenia, we’ll see <laugh>, which is not the best thing <laugh>. So, I was already on a very small budget when I was in undergrad. My parents paid for like my tuition and my rent. So, I was never in a situation where I would be homeless, but I was still in a situation where I didn’t have that much money. If I were in that situation now where I’m on my antipsychotic and my antidepressant, the antidepressant is maybe a couple dollars a month, but if I didn’t have benefits my antipsychotic would be over $200 a month.

12:43 Haley: So, part of the reasons why I stopped taking the medication at that point was, one, that it caused pretty severe hallucinations, more than I had before I got on the medication, because it was the wrong one. And the other thing was that I didn’t necessarily want to pay for it <laugh> because it was making me feel worse. So, I was kind of in denial that I needed them when I was in grad school, because I could no longer tell if I was feeling well, or if I was sick. Everything just kind of melded together. So, in terms of the impact of having a really low budget in grad school, I couldn’t eat properly. I maybe spent $30 a week on food, and I pretty much ate the same things all the time. Like rice, lentils, beans, and apples.

13:48 Haley: I was so worried about things that I also didn’t sleep. And by that I would mean I would be in the lab for maybe 16 hours a day and I’d go home and sleep for four to six hours. And one of the big things about controlling psychosis is that you need to get enough sleep. So now, I actually need close to eight to 10 hours on average. So, that was a pretty big impact. And it certainly didn’t help the delusions that I couldn’t get financial help <laugh>. It was kind of like a feedback loop.

14:27 Emily: I was just going to say that sounds exactly like a negative spiral, right? Like you are having tight money issues, so you forgo the medicinal and also other forms of self-care that maybe were somewhat available to you. And then your mind is also telling you that you can’t access or don’t deserve those things. And then it loops around again. So yeah, that sounds horrible.

Financial Stress and Sacrifices on a Low Stipend

14:56 Emily: You just mentioned living off of a really small, like food budget, for example. So, were there other things that you didn’t spend on that you forwent spending on to make that really low stipend work?

15:10 Haley: I didn’t go out very often and kind of avoided any social situation where I might have to pay for stuff. Particularly in my first two years. After my first two years, I moved somewhere with a better cost of living. I kind of filled my time only with work because I couldn’t really afford to have hobbies <laugh>. At one point when I decided to move in my second, third year, I had to give up a cat that was kind of my emotional <laugh> animal at that time, because I couldn’t move them across the country to where I was working. I didn’t go home for Christmas, and I barely saw my family because I really couldn’t afford to go on a bus or go on a plane. I didn’t take a vacation throughout my entire PhD. I didn’t date anyone during my entire PhD. And I avoided buying anything other than food. So, I would wear clothes until they like physically fell apart. Same with shoes. I’d wait until I really, really had to. So, I essentially forgo like anything that would be making me kind of happier <laugh>. So, it really wasn’t ideal.

16:39 Emily: Yeah. I realized that I kind of phrased that question as like, “Oh, what are the great strategies you used?” Not that I meant it that way, but this is not at all a laudable list, right? This is all a list of things that caused you to become even more unhealthy. And again, in that spiral that we were just talking about, and to not be able to break out of it. Like having an injection of some extra money, I mean, it would also help if your mind were, you know, allowing you to spend on these things, but having some extra money would’ve helped your general mental health, but also specifically your condition so much. It’s so obvious that that would be the case. I’m just like hearing a picture of you like drowning during graduate school. Financially, mentally. And I’m wondering about the people around you, like your advisor or other people in your department. Like, was there anything that they could have done? I’m asking this in a way of like, what can other people listening to this, take away if they see a peer or someone in their program that is to say, maybe they’re a faculty member or someone else who has a bit of power in the situation too. Like what, what should they have been doing or what could they have done to help you out of this spiral?

What Could Have Helped?

17:59 Haley: In some ways, there wasn’t really much people could do. In terms of what the department did, they tried to help me get scholarships, which did make the situation a lot better. There is an opportunity to do like graduate assistant work that I did for two summers. That was really helpful. Maybe having like emergency funds that are easy to apply to would be very useful too. But a lot of the time, I didn’t think that my, I couldn’t tell that my situation wasn’t normal <laugh> because a lot of my peers had similar problems. Probably not to the same mental extent, but in terms of money, it was pretty common. And maybe just increasing the stipend would make a big difference. I checked the department’s website and it looks like the PhD stipend has increased, but the master’s stipend is still quite low. But that would be what I would think of when I think of what the department could do to help people.

19:09 Emily: Absolutely. I think pay graduate students more. Pay graduate students enough that they don’t experience the things that you mentioned, like not being able to go home and visit your family members, never going out socially if there was, you know, a possibility you might spend money. In addition to just being like the compassionate thing to do for students who are under your charge, as well as, especially if you’re not going to allow them to work or whatever, they’re not developing. You were not developing as a scholar in the way you could have. You could have blossomed even more, had you been sufficiently financially supported. Same goes for your peers too. So, it’s just really, it’s very hard for me <Laugh>, I’m sure for the listeners as well, to hear how much you were struggling and how big of a difference, you know, a few more thousand dollars a year from your department would’ve made, and what exactly is tying their hands to make that not happen? If their goal is to develop scholars and PhDs, they could do that even better by financially supporting them better. That’s how I view it.

20:12 Haley: Yeah.

Commercial

20:15 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. I have set a big goal for my business and our U.S. PhD community broadly. My goal is for every graduate student, postdoc, or postbac in the US who is not having income tax withheld from their stipend or salary to be offered training on how to 1) estimate their future income tax liability, 2) determine if they are required to pay quarterly estimated tax, and 3) prepare to pay their tax bill or bills through setting up a system of self-withholding. I provide just such a training, which is my asynchronous workshop titled Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. Now, some universities, institutes, or funding agencies already offer such a training, and they have no need to work with me. But others won’t allow their employees to touch the topic of taxes with a 10-foot pole, and that’s where working with me can really benefit everyone. Would you please send me an email and tell me which camp your university falls into—or if it’s somewhere in between? You can reach me at [email protected]. Furthermore, let me know if you want to take Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients for free or think that the cohort coming in this fall should, and I’ll reply with how you can help make that happen. I look forward to hearing from you! Now back to our interview.

Ending the Negative Spiral

21:56 Emily: So, how did you ultimately end this spiral that you were in? Did you get on medication? Did you see different doctors? Was it a matter of graduating? Like what happened?

22:06) Haley: Graduating was actually the worst thing that happened <laugh>. So, I had to pay for my ticket to do my defense because I was living in Alberta at the time and I had to come back to Ontario, and that actually completely depleted my bank account. If I hadn’t gotten a job pretty much right away, I would not have had a place to stay and I wouldn’t have been able to go home at all. I ended up going through an even bigger spiral where I entered like acute psychosis. Like the CRA is after me <laugh> kind of psychosis or people are actively following you and you’re hearing complete conversations and more disparaging comments and so on. I essentially kept working for almost six months with acute psychosis. And then I finally hit a point where I couldn’t do it anymore and I realized that there was something incredibly wrong.

23:21 Haley: So, I ended up going to the doctor who tried to put me on an antipsychotic, but I essentially spiraled further when I got onto the antipsychotic because it was essentially too late to be putting me on it in an outpatient location. So, I ended up having to go to the ER twice. The first time there wasn’t a psychiatrist. So, they sent me home. The second time, I was essentially really dehydrated, only weighing 80 pounds and completely out of reality <laugh> essentially. So, the psychiatrist put me into inpatient care and I stayed there for a month where they put me on medication and I essentially slept because I was burnt out from work and the PhD. So, it’s taken probably two and a half years to get on the right medication and recover fully from that.

24:23 Haley: Starting a postdoc that actually pays me enough to live has been pretty helpful <laugh> in that because I’ve been able to start eating more healthy. I’m not as worried. And I have the psychosis under control between medication and therapy. So, I’m sleeping a normal amount. I’m eating a normal amount. I’m exercising because I can afford to go to the gym and like go to spin class and stuff like that. One of the weird things is I actually got out of the grad school with absolutely no debt because I couldn’t actually apply for the loans. Like my head would not let me apply for them. So, I ended up getting out with absolutely no debt, but also absolutely no money <laugh>. So, I was really lucky that I was offered a job right away. After I was hospitalized, I had to take three months off. So, I actually lost the job that I had gotten and I had to find another job, which I had to move across the country for. And then after that job, I had to move across the country again, which has always been kind of a financial burden, but that’s just kind of how my job goes <laugh>. But I’m doing much, much better than I was doing in grad school and have a lot of things more under control.

Paying Off the Mental Health Debt

25:57 Emily: I am so glad to hear that you’re in a much better place right now. Although it does seem to me that it’s taken a long, long time to get there. I mean, you mentioned that you came out of graduate school with no financial debt, but you had a debt to yourself of another kind, right? Of having not taken care of yourself and had been on the medication and doing the sleeping and the eating and all that stuff. So like, you still had to come out of that depth of the, you know, of care that you needed to get back up to the point you’re at now, the stable and healthy point.

26:32 Haley: I would say that I would’ve rathered have the financial debt than the mental debt. So like, my suggestion would be if somebody’s in my situation to go get the help you need and get the financial help that you need, even if it means taking out loans. Because it’s much better to have the financial debt than the mental health debt.

26:57 Emily: I totally agree. And I’m really glad to hear you say that. I don’t want to criticize other people either in their financial situations, but when you’re in a unique time of life, like being a graduate student and it is ideally time-limited and you’ll move on to having a better-paying job later on, it can, in some situations make sense to take out debt and some people feel so debt-averse that they, and I’m not saying you did this because you had this mental health condition, but they put themselves into debts of these other kinds. They’re not eating properly. Maybe they are not living in a safe situation. Again, I don’t want to sound like I’m criticizing them, but they do as a graduate student, at least in the U.S., have the option of taking out debt and alleviating some of that.

27:43 Emily: And so, I just want them to think about that as a legitimate option and not something that’s completely off-limits to them to help this short-term cash crisis that they’re in during graduate school. Again, the responsibility for that as we were talking about earlier falls much more on the programs underpaying people. That’s on them, rather than the people who are being underpaid. But that is a way out of a very difficult short-term situation. And like you said, you would’ve rather had a bit of money to pay off than having these years and years that it’s taken you to recover from the state that you were in by the end of graduate school.

Save Money and Study the Financial Side of Grad School

28:20 Emily: Do you have any other advice for prospective graduate students who are walking into programs like you did your master’s, your PhD program, who are potentially being radically underpaid compared to the local cost of living?

28:37 Haley: I would mostly work for a while and save money before you go to grad school. I wasn’t in a situation where I thought I could do that, but if I could do it again, I probably would’ve started working right away and then decided if I wanted to do grad school after I’ve made a little bit of money <laugh>. Make sure that whatever program that you want to go into does have a fair stipend. I didn’t even think of that when I joined grad school, but that should have been a much bigger consideration than what it was for me because I’m first-generation. I didn’t think that they would give me a stipend that I couldn’t live off of <laugh>.

29:17 Emily: Misplaced trust.

29:19 Haley: Yeah <laugh>. I would maybe do a little more digging on the financial side before starting grad school.

29:27 Emily: Yeah. I think those are great suggestions for someone considering graduate school. Definitely look into the stipends versus the local cost of living. I have a website that helps with that. At least if you’re in the U.S., which is called PhDstipends.com. So you can see what other graduate students actually report as being their income, not what the programs tell you they’re paying. Those might be two different things until you get the offer letter, at least. So you can kind of do some pre-research on the programs that you’re planning on applying to, to see if they’re paying a living wage or not. And like you said, I think a lot more people should be considering working for a decently-paying job for a year or two or three before they start graduate school to build up some kind of financial safety net so that they don’t have to do things like you were just mentioning, the cost of moving multiple times across the country.

30:13 Emily: That’s very significant. And if you end up paying for that, let’s say with like credit cards, because you don’t have the savings or cash to do it, then you’re kind of starting graduate school like already knocked back, already knocked onto your back foot, like financially, because you’re now having to pay down credit card debt in addition to living on this very, very small stipend. So instead, if you can have that savings, so, so helpful to just kind of get out ahead of these issues. So, that’s great advice for prospective graduate students. And thank you for giving that.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

30:43 Emily: I do end my interviews with a standard question that I ask all of my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve talked about in the course of the interview, or it could be something completely new.

30:55 Haley: If you’re a postdoc, I’d start saving and get a retirement fund and maybe a rainy day fund. Because postdocs are fairly short for most people, and you’re probably going to have to move again and things come up. So, it’s good to start saving once you can start saving after grad school. And kind of the same advice for looking at a postdoc. Make sure the salary is enough to live comfortably on before you agree to do it. It’s not a nice thing to accept a salary and then get to the city and realize that you can’t really live there <laugh>. And maybe try to negotiate your salary if you can.

31:45 Emily: All wonderful advice. I’m recalling actually, when my husband got a postdoc offer in Boston, we were living in Durham, North Carolina at the time. So kind of moderate cost of living to high cost of living. And we calculated it after accounting for the cost of living change between those two cities. He was actually being offered effectively less money than he had made as a graduate student with that postdoc position in Boston. And he did try to negotiate and he got them to increase the offer very, very slightly. And ultimately did not take that offer and finances were, you know, a part of that decision. And so, I totally agree with you, especially if you have not yet lived in a city, whether it’s for grad school, for postdoc, anything else. You need to really investigate what the cost of living is because you just don’t know until you actually live there. And by the time you accept an offer and move, it’s too late <laugh>. You need to do as much as you can in advance. So, Haley, thank you so much for being willing to give this interview. I think it was a really important conversation that the listeners are going to benefit so much from. So, so glad to hear you doing well. And thanks again for volunteering!

32:50 Haley: Thanks for having me!

Outtro

32:58 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance…but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

Negotiating Your Grad School Stipend and Benefits: Five Success Stories

by

In this episode, Emily presents five stories from anonymous guests of successful stipend negotiations between prospective or current graduate students and their PhD programs. The episode is primarily for prospective grad students going through admission season right now and secondarily for current graduate students. Emily summarizes her key take-away points from these stories and her conversations with graduate students about this issue over the past few years. The goal of this episode is to convince you that stipend negotiation does happen, at least on occasion, and perhaps even to give it a shot yourself to improve not only your own bottom line but potentially that of your peers as well. Most of all, Emily wants this episode to get PhD students talking about their pay—how much, when, from whom, in exchange for what. To that end, please share this episode and enter your stipend into PhDStipends.com.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

Teaser

00:00 Guest 1: Overall, I would say that there’s definitely no harm in asking and negotiating a graduate school offer. If I didn’t ask the answer would have automatically been no. And at first, I was scared to ask and really only did because my advisor, whom I admire, encouraged me to do so, but now that I did, I am very grateful and definitely realized the benefits of asking nicely for a better graduate package.

Introduction

00:28 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season eight, episode seven, and I’m joined today by several anonymous guests. This is a compilation episode, all about negotiating your grad student stipend. It’s primarily for prospective graduate students going through admission season right now, and secondarily for current graduate students. I have collected five stories of successful stipend negotiations between prospective or current graduate students and their PhD programs. I’ll also share my observations from talking with graduate students about this issue over the past few years. My goal is to convince you that stipend negotiation does happen, at least on occasion, and perhaps even to give it a shot yourself to improve not only your own bottom line, but potentially that of your peers as well. Most of all, I want this episode to get PhD students talking about their pay — how much when, from whom, in exchange for what?

01:33 Emily: There are two specific action steps that I’d like you to take to further the cause of pay transparency and increasing stipends for everyone, whether you are a prospective, current, or former PhD student. One, share this episode. I hope it will serve as a conversation starter. Two, enter your stipend into PhDStipends.com. I recently gave the website and database a facelift, so you’ll find an updated and more detailed survey along with the over 9,000 previously acquired entries. After you enter your stipend, share that site too. I’ve been contacted by numerous graduate students and faculty members who have used the data to advocate for higher graduate student stipends in their departments.

02:16 Emily: This is such a thrilling time of year for prospective PhD students. I know most of us want graduate school to be better for the PhDs that come behind us than it was for us. I hope the negotiation, examples and best practices that you hear in this episode contribute in a small way to that goal.

02:34 Emily: Now it’s time for the book giveaway contest. In February, 2021 I’m giving away one copy of the simple path to wealth by JL Collins, which is the Personal Finance for PhDs Community book club selection for April, 2021. Everyone who enters the contest during February will have a chance to win a copy of this book. If you would like to enter the giveaway contest, please rate and review this podcast on Apple podcasts, take a screenshot of your review and email it to me [email protected]. I’ll choose a winner at the end of February, from all the entries you can find full instructions pfforphds.com/podcast.

03:15 Emily: The podcast received a review this week titled a masterclass in personal finance for grad students. The review reads quote: “I tell everyone I know about this podcast. Every episode is not only packed with value from others, lived experiences, but also actionable info from Dr. Emily Roberts. My favorite eps are always about side hustling and house hacking”

03:36 Emily: Thank you so much to BKT for this incredible review! I’m really glad to know which subjects are the most relevant for listeners. Without further ado, here’s the compilation episode on negotiating your grad student stipend.

03:53 Emily: I have five anonymous stories for you today regarding negotiating a grad student stipend and/or benefits. I solicited these stories from my mailing list and on Twitter, and they all occurred in 2019 or 2020. I wanted to keep the examples of recent, but just know that several more people volunteered their negotiation stories from earlier years.

04:14 Emily: By the way, I don’t get a lot of pushback on Twitter when I talk about financial matters, which I’m happy about, but soliciting these negotiation stories was another matter. Multiple people responded that they believed it was impossible to negotiate a grad student funding package or that it was unethical to do so because it would create pay disparities among a cohort, as if that didn’t already exist. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that the subject seemed to get some people’s hackles up, even though salary and benefit negotiation is an expected step prior to accepting any other type of job. That is just confirmation for me, that this topic warrants even more sunlight.

04:53 Emily: I’ve covered or touched on negotiation and academia, both at the grad student stage and leader in multiple previous podcast episodes, which you can find links to in the show notes. My intentions with publishing this episode are to: one, bring awareness to the fact that negotiation is at least theoretically possible for graduate students, particularly during admission season. This could be considered part of the hidden curriculum. I want to bring it into the open so that all graduate students benefit from this knowledge. Two, share the stories of grad students who have negotiated successfully, wo that prospective graduate students in 2021 in later years can learn from their examples. Three, raise grad student stipends and improve benefits, generally, not just for the occasional individual.

05:41 Emily: One way to do this is by collective action, such as unionization, which I’ve covered in several other podcast episodes. Another is for prospective PhD students to say to the people who hold the purse strings that livable or dare I say comfortable funding packages are important to them as people and vital to their academic and career success in graduate school. Prospective, graduate students have relatively more power than current graduate students to get this message across.

06:11 Emily: Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now and play for you the five stories I received. Four of these negotiations occurred during admission season, before the person formerly committed to the PhD program in question. One of the negotiations occurred after the person was already enrolled in a program. So don’t think that negotiation is out of the question just because you are past the admissions stage.

Guest One

06:37 Guest 1: Hello. I want to thank Emily Roberts for having me on this podcast. I’m going to be talking about how I successfully negotiated my graduate student stipend offer. For some background information on me, I recently graduated from my undergrad and I did a double major in psychology and biology. And this last year I applied to graduate school for a PhD in neuroscience. When I heard back from all of the schools that I interviewed at, I was accepted into a few different programs and I managed to narrow down my decision to two programs that I really, really liked. Since I really liked both of these programs, I was really stuck at that point, and I was kind of struggling on which one to decide where I would attend graduate school.

07:39 Guest 1: However, there were a few differences between these two schools. One of them was offering me an additional scholarship on top of the stipend and the other one wasn’t. I was actually leaning more towards the one that was not offering me the scholarship. So I thought that I could even just get a little more money from them then that would completely solidify my decision to attend that school. I figured if one of the schools was offering me more money than other programs like the other one, I was debating between probably do the same thing. I was lucky enough to know someone else that also interviewed at the school that I was deciding on and they told me that they were offered an additional $2,500 for the first year. So I was like, okay, I know the school could provide me at least $2,500 more. So I talked to one of my advisors and I told her the entire story and she encouraged me to negotiate for more money. She is a very powerful woman in the STEM field and I look up to her tremendously, so I trusted her and wanted to follow her.

08:56 Guest 1: After that, I wrote a very kind email to the program coordinator asking if there was any possible way that the school could provide me additional support as it would aid in my decision to ultimately attend that school. My email to her included that, I told her I was very seriously considering accepting the offer to attend that school because I really enjoyed the program, the campus, the location was incredible, and it perfectly aligned with my criteria in selecting a graduate school. However, I told her that while I’m excited for the opportunity to attend the school, another school who I’m also considering for graduate school is offering me an additional scholarship on top of the stipend to attend their program, so I was wondering if there was any possible way that this program could offer me any additional support to attend. I told her if, so I’m certain I will choose the school to complete my graduate studies. And of course, I thanked her for her time and her consideration. After I sent that kind email, the program corner coordinator replied back and told me that they could offer me the $2,500. Obviously after that, I was very thankful to them and I decided to attend their program.

10:16 Guest 1: I would like to note that this $2,500 still did not match the scholarship that the other school was offering me. They were offering me about $17,000 spread out over three years. So although the offer made to me by the other school was not nearly as much, I figured that if they were willing to at least give me no whatever they had, and that I was leaning more towards that program anyway, that I would do well there and that I was thankful to them for giving me additional support.

11:01 Guest 1: Overall I would say that there’s definitely no harm in asking and negotiating a graduate school offer. If I didn’t ask the answer would have automatically been no. At first I was scared to ask and really only did because my advisor who I admire encouraged me to do so, but now that I did, I am very grateful and definitely realize the benefits of asking nicely for a better graduate package. I hope all of that helps anyone that is trying to negotiate their student offers and know that it is possible. Thank you, Emily again for having me. Bye.

Guest Two

11:41 Guest 2: Thanks for covering this topic of negotiation. And I’m excited to be telling you a bit about my experience with this. This past season, the admission season starting in 2019, I applied to PhD programs mainly in biological and biomedical sciences with a couple of neuroscience programs mixed in there as well, and I ended up getting a decent number of offers. I think I had five acceptances by the end, which was great.

12:10 Guest 2: I was mainly deciding between two schools. So there was one on the East coast and one on the West coast. The East coast school was a very well-respected and highly ranked program. They had a lot of really great research that I was interested in, and they also had a pretty decent stipend. It was about $34,000 for I’d say a moderate cost of living area. It wasn’t low cost of living, but you could certainly live very comfortably with that stipend in that local area. That was also with, you know, health insurance covered and tuition and fees all paid for all that good stuff.

12:46 Guest 2: The thing I didn’t like about the East coast school was the location. I really didn’t like the city all that much. It also wasn’t the best area for having a good job market for my husband. I wasn’t against it, but I was still kind of shopping around and then the other school, which was actually the last program that I interviewed at, was on the West coast and this program basically checked off all my boxes for me. It had great research, it had a pretty strong reputation and I loved the city. I loved the weather. I liked the vibe of it. It really strong job market for my husband’s field. The only downside was the cost of living. This school actually had the exact same stipend as the East coast schools, about $34,000 with the same benefits and tuition coverage and all that, but it was quite a bit more expensive. And so the quality of life you could have on that stipend would just end up being a little bit lower. You would have to budget a little more carefully. And in particular, the main difference was housing. Housing in that area, if we wanted my husband and I to get like a one bedroom apartment, especially one that was fairly close to campus, it would have been at least $2,000 a month, which would be pretty hard to swing on a $34,000 stipend. And I didn’t want to count on my husband’s income just because we hadn’t moved there yet, we didn’t know how long it was going to take him to get a job and all that. That made me a little bit nervous.

14:13 Guest 2: What I did is I went to the West coast school after I was accepted and I basically laid out everything I told you — that I really liked their program. It was exactly what I was looking for in graduate school. The only issue was that the cost of living made it really hard to live there, and I mentioned that I had this other offer that checked off all the other boxes, other than location. As I went in, I knew vaguely that they had some kind of a priority housing system. At the school, the way graduate housing normally exists, they have subsidized graduate student housing, but you can only live in it for up to two years. And I had heard vague rumors without much detail that there was some way that they would allow you to live there for your entire PhD, not just two years. And the subsidized housing is literally about half the cost of what would normally be. You can get a one bedroom for about a thousand dollars a month. So I just asked them directly, can you nominate me for whatever program that is? And if you do, I will commit to the school immediately. I sent this to the admissions coordinator basically. He emailed me back. He said, I have to check with some people and I have to confirm how many spots they have for this program. So I said, sure. And then a week later they emailed me back and said, Hey, we’re nominating you for this program, congratulations, and I accepted right away.

15:31 Guest 2: I’m really happy with how this negotiation turned out. I think it’s going to make our living situation much more comfortable with not having to pay basically twice as much for our housing. And also not having to stress about like moving and trying to find an apartment before I moved to that city because I don’t live in the area currently. I think it all worked out really well and I would definitely encourage other students to try to negotiate their PhD offers as well, and especially be open to not just negotiating the base stipend, but also those other benefits. Hope this is helpful for other people who are in the same situation.

Guest Three

16:05 Guest 3: Hi. I am currently a first year PhD student in neuroscience at an R01 university and when I was trying to decide which program to attend, I did negotiate my offer a little bit. I’m not sure if I would super consider it a negotiation, but basically what I did do was I had several offers, and one of them was financially a lot more attractive than the other, as well as being from a very fancy name school. Not that the school I ended up with wasn’t a great university, but the other one I had an offer from that was financially a little bit better was one of the top three universities for my area of study. What I did was I emailed the program director and said that a few days before the deadline was to decide and basically phrased it as I know this is a bit of an awkward question, but I was wondering if the graduate fellowship package, which was about $31,500 a year for six years, was something that was potentially negotiable.

17:13 Guest 3: I basically told them that I was accepted to another program, mentioned the name of the university and mentioned that it was a special fellowship offer for underrepresented minority applicants, because I did fit into that category and that because it was such a difference, it made it hard to ignore this other factor that because I was more excited about the university I ended up at, that I was wondering if there was anything they could do to make the offer a little bit better, if there was any possibility for getting additional fellowship because I know the university does give out a few, or if there’s any wiggle room, another area of the offer.

17:53 Guest 3: My email was very casual and very sincere. I was a little bit overly apologetic, I think, but considering my request, I thought that was appropriate. I let him know that if there’s any more information I could provide them with that I could definitely do that. I think for me, what was important was like something that I think certain people wouldn’t mention is that I did fit into this underrepresented minority category in case that was something that might increase my eligibility for certain offers. I did get a reply from the professor that was the director of graduates studies for this program saying that all the offers are out and they weren’t able to negotiate an increase in actual stipend, but they would include an additional incentive called some sort of award. I’m not going mention the name, that they discussed with the director of the institute. It would be $1,500 a year for the first three years of graduate study to be used on educational or training expenses, such as like a new laptop, travel, anything like that, that would help me in the early stages of my graduate career. And that would compound for the first three years. So I can use it for pretty much anything that could potentially contribute to my education.

19:15 Guest 3: This was something that they were adding, in addition. I realized that they couldn’t actually add something to my offer, but this was something that was possible to add on top. It obviously isn’t that big of a difference, but it was something that showed me they did care a little bit more and just made my decision a little bit easier. It did end up, well for me. They also mentioned that they were considering offering it to me, before I emailed them, that’s why I mentioned, I’m not sure how much of a negotiation this truly was, but it seemed to me that it’s pretty common for universities to be able to offer additional money that’s not technically considered part of a stipend, like something like educational costs because a stipend seems like a pretty unchangeable type of offer.

20:07 Guest 3: So that was my situation. The process was easy for me. My decision was easy after that. My phrasing was in my email was very sincere and apologetic. I think it was also important that I mentioned that I really did want to accept an offer from the university I ended up at and that the main thing was that with such a financial difference, it was something I had to consider. So if you are planning on sending an email to someone, I would make sure that they know that you do want to accept their offer. That it’s only financial aspects that are making you hesitate. I wouldn’t ask if you aren’t sure about accepting an offer for that university. Thank you.

Commercial

21:00 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. This announcement is for prospective and first year graduate students. My colleague, Dr. Toyin Alli of The Academic Society offers a fantastic course just for you called Grad School Prep. The course teaches you Toyin’s four step Grad Boss method, which is to uncover grad school secrets, transform your mindset, up-level your productivity, and master time management. I contributed a very comprehensive webinar to the course titled “Set yourself up for financial success in graduate school”. It explores the financial norms of grad school and the financial secrets of grad school. I also give you a plan for what to focus on in your finances each season of the year that you apply to and into your first year of grad school. If this all sounds great to you, please register theacademicsociety.com/Emily for Toyin’s free masterclass on what to expect in your first semester of grad school and the three big mistakes that keep grad students stuck in a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm, and procrastination. You’ll also learn more about how to join grad school prep, if you’d like to go a step further again, that’s theacademicsociety.com/Emily for my affiliate link for the course. Now back to our interview.

Guest Four

22:28 Guest 4: I am an international student from a lower middle income country, and I’m studying at a large public flagship university in the US located in a college town that’s within a significant metro area. I’m in a social sciences PhD program and my department is ranked quite highly, I think in the top 10. Here, there are different funding sources, but the most basic and common that’s guaranteed for everyone comes from the department itself. It pays $20,000 over nine months with no annual increase. Starting in 2020 first year, students get $5,000 for the first summer, but otherwise there is no guaranteed summer funding.

23:10 Guest 4: The stipend is service-based, which means students receiving this must work as TAs for every semester for about 12 hours a week. That’s what’s written on our contract, but in reality, it fluctuates quite a bit. This funding package means that the department covers your tuition, all your fees, like printing, student health, recreation, or fitness, et cetera, and also covers your health insurance, including for your dependents. There’s no other deductions except for taxes. Living wage here is $26,000. So that $20,000 we get is below the living wage. And if you can believe it, many other social sciences departments here have even smaller stipends. But the reality is if you’re single and can budget, well, you can survive. You can live quite decently with the $20,000, but it is below the living wage and there’s no way around it.

24:04 Guest 4: As for negotiating, I wasn’t even aware that you could do it, at first. I did my undergrad outside of the US so I had no idea about funding models here. And also, I guess I just didn’t have the cultural capital, so to say, to know about this process, but luckily at the first open house that I went to, another visiting student told me about it and gave me pointers. He told me to say something during the one-on-one meetings with some professors along the lines of an important factor about going to graduate school includes financial considerations for me, making sure I can live decently while studying, without having to worry about being able to pay for emergencies, blah, blah, blah.

24:50 Guest 4: At that point I prepared my spiel before I started my one-on-one meetings. I was really torn between two universities, both paid the same, same living cost as well, so I didn’t really have full leverage, but both paid below living wage, so that was my first argument. My second argument that I prepared was about the extra constraints I had as an international student, financially speaking. And my third argument was that I received a traineeship from a research center in both universities, which was great. It had certain requirements and usually pay extra, but I found out then that I wasn’t eligible for the funding because of my international student status. I brought up this last point towards the end of the meeting as a way to steer the conversation towards the topic of money. I subtly hinted that I was quite surprised by that and then I just shot straight and brought up my other two arguments. I ended up getting a very validating response, but also as you expect diplomatic. It’s like, we’ll see what we can do, we’ll get back to you. Later that day, I heard other visiting students talking to the director of graduate studies about this, about negotiating during social events or downtimes, so I decided to do the same thing, of course.

26:11 Guest 4: A week after the visits, I emailed the director of graduate studies, again, in both places, just echoing the same points and offering to provide any extra information if they need anything. But that email was mostly just a guise to make sure that this was still on their radar. About a week before the deadline, one school told me that they don’t have news yet it’s still pending. But by then, the other school had promised me an extra $6,000 for the first to work as a research assistant paid for by the professor’s research funds and an award that gave me an extra $5,000 from the research center, so I ended up going with this school. That is when I learned that different professors have different pots of money, of different sizes, sometimes very considerably different. And if you talk to upper year students, they’re likely to be very open about this.

27:09 Guest 4: A few other lessons that I learned from this process, if you have concerns about money, you can be transparent and open about it. You can talk to other visiting students or upper year students because it’s likely on their minds too, or it has been in the past and the conversations may yield interesting insights. If you want to do it, do it. And when you’re talking about money, of course, you need to be polite, and if you’re uncomfortable, I learned that saying something explicit about your discomfort can help the conversation go better. Like, “Oh, I don’t love talking about money,” something like that.

27:48 Guest 4: When you’re doing the ask itself, maybe keep it vague because the prof already usually know what you mean and they know how the department stipend compares to similarly ranked programs, so you don’t have to be too pushy or give a concrete number or anything. I personally think that talking about money with them and reason to your professors should not be a turn off, especially because you will have to talk to them again about money once you’re in the program, and again, when you go into the job market and you’re negotiating or learning what the salaries are like. I think this is good training for you and for me, and part of the hidden curriculum of academia that people talk about. Also, I think expecting your profs to be validating of your concerns when you explain it to them is a very important thing, especially when you’re going to work with them for the next four to six years. In a way this negotiation process can be a method for you to gauge whether or not that professor can be that validating kind of support system for you once you’re in the program. And the worst that can happen is that you realize that they’re not that person and that might be a deal breaker, or that might not be.

29:05 Guest 4: I also realized that international students can be somewhat in a double bind. We are more financially vulnerable, but also we’re not always aware of the system here. Again, this is the hidden curriculum and cultural capital problem. We don’t know that the system here in the US is maybe more flexible than in other countries when it comes to giving accommodations for people. And also we might not be culturally comfortable or adept at negotiating in the American way and advocating for ourselves. I think talking with other international students about this is really important as I learned when I was going through the open house visits as well.

29:49 Guest 4: And lastly, I think the negotiation does not and should not end after you’ve accepted your offer. Negotiation is actually not always an equitable solution to what is ultimately not really an individual problem. It might actually lead to more unequal outcomes when one student is able to get more out of their negotiations than others, just because they have that privileged background to know how to negotiate well and all of these things. I think some ways to address this is to ask upper year students about what advocacy efforts are happening in the department to support graduate students in general, or maybe support international students specifically, if that’s your demographic, especially early in their careers, when they’re more vulnerable and have less resources. To give you kind of an example of the power of advocacy, in our department, we managed to get a promise from our department to fund summers for all first year students after, you know, working with the department to make sure that they know that this is a concern that was important for us students.

Guest Five

30:59 Guest 5: Thank you, Dr. Roberts, for having me on this episode of your podcast. I would say you are doing the Lord’s work. Importantly, this work of yours is sure to prepare one or two howto ask for what they already deserve. Here’s my story in fall 2018 I got an offer, actually two offeres from two universities in the US that I applied to, to come study insect science. Both offers were juicy, or so I thought since I was living in a third world country at a time. Interestingly, I went with the least offer, which was about $5,000 less than the next offer. And by offer, I’m talking about the annual stipend which was $17,000 at a time. So money was never the motivation for me.

31:51 Guest 5: One year in, in the PhD program and I was about $2,200 in credit card debts. Besides my health insurance was so basic that it couldn’t cover for my high insurance. I had to live miserly to be able to get my glasses and whatnot. This began to bother me a lot. This is because I live very simply. I do not eat out. I always cook from home and if I cannot eat in the morning, I bring food along with me to the school. I do not use any fancy gadgets. In fact, 80% of the things that I own were donated to me by graduate students or churches, or I brother was kind enough to lend a brother a helping hand.

32:39 Guest 5: Importantly, I was in debt because my annual stipend was below my standards of living. For emphasis sake, my average monthly expenses, my rent was $595. I pay on average $75 on electricity bill per month. The university bill, which is about $1600 every semester. Now keep in mind, this bill covers the health insurance, international students fee, or what have you. So that means to be able to pay for the $1,600 bill, which is every semester I had to save about three $20 from my monthly stipend. My phone bill is $55 and I pay $65 on my car insurance. I spend about $300 on food. Now, if you had add all of these figures together, you get $1,410. And my monthly take home pay was $1,416.67. And this is the figure before tax. In other words, I get just about $6.67 cents above what my monthly bill is. Again, this figure $1416.67 cents is what I get before tax. Now, if you make the federal tax deduction and the state deduction from my fee, you get way less. I know my federal tax is about $200, but I do not know what the state tax is right now. I’ll probably need to check my pay stub to be able to know what the figure is, but the federal tax is about $200.

34:26 Guest 5: Now, given I’m an international student, I was super nervous about asking for a rise. I went to meet other grad students and post docs whose opinion I value very much on how to navigate this murky water. They all said the same thing: I should never ask for a raise as it might come back to haunt me. So I wasn’t just scared, I was terrified to ask for a raise. But on a certain day, I was reading the book “Self-reliance” by Ralph Emerson in which I saw the quote “Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” And I was all pumped.

35:08 Guest 5: The next day I got to school and I approached one of my advisors. I was more comfortable approaching my male advisor because the atmosphere around him is much more relaxing. I explained how I struggled to meet up with my daily needs, given my monthly stipend. As I anticipated, he was so kind and I listened attentively. He reassured me that I had done the right thing and appreciated me for speaking up because he said he would never have known that I was struggling to make a living had I not approach him. What he did after that was even more amazing. He called me on my way out of his office and he said, “we never had this discussion.” So that way, nothing comes back to me. Later I got an email notifying me of an increase in my annual stipend by $2,500. What is even more interesting is that after six months I got another email notify me of another $2,500 increase in my annual stipend, bringing my current stipends to $25,000, as we speak. And that is my story on how I approached and asked for a raise from my advisors. Thank you.

Key Takeaways

36:34 Emily: Thank you very, very much to the five people who contributed these stories and the others who volunteered. Here are my key takeaways from these stories. One, only negotiate with a program if you are seriously considered enrolling in it. I agree with the approach in these stories of narrowing down to a couple final programs and negotiating with just your top choice or two. Don’t waste, everyone’s time by negotiating with a program that you aren’t seriously considering.

37:01 Emily: Two, there are many different levers that programs can pull to improve your financial situation. The examples we heard in these stories are giving a supplemental scholarship for professional development, giving a general supplemental award, guaranteeing a spot in subsidized housing, increasing an annual stipend and increasing a summer stipend. I’m sure that the constellation of options is unique to each program, which is why your request should be rather general.

37:30 Emily: Three, if you already know who your advisor would be, go ask that person for direction. They may be able to negotiate on your behalf or point you to a next step to do on your own. They are the person most invested in having you complete graduate school successfully. If you don’t yet have an advisor assigned, you’ll likely negotiate with the director of graduate studies or similar.

37:53 Emily: Four, during your negotiation conversation, you should be very polite and express gratitude for the offer of admission, acknowledge that you’re bringing up an awkward subject and express the specific reasons that you want to join their program.

38:07 Emily: Five, while I don’t think you must have a specific reason to be asking for more in your funding package, it doesn’t hurt to have one. Leverage can be in the form of a competing offer, a comparison to the local living wage or personal data regarding the cost of living. I’ve spoken with other graduate students who negotiated after winning outside funding.

38:28 Emily: Six, several of the students in these stories mentioned that of course money was a factor in their decision, but it wasn’t the end all be all. A program being willing to negotiate shows that they are supportive of you. Even if your attempt at negotiation is unsuccessful, there is a world of difference between a program that listens to you, acknowledges your concerns, and cast around for additional opportunities on your behalf, and one that dismisses you out of hand.

38:55 Emily: Seven, several of these students said they only knew that negotiation was possible because other students had tipped them off. I encourage you to talk about the subject openly with your peers and older students. You can use this episode or PhDStipends.com as a conversation starter. You may learn of a financial resource that you can tap. However, as in our last story, don’t be discouraged by people who tell you not to negotiate, if they never tried it themselves. The absence of successful negotiation stories in your circle is not proof that successful negotiations cannot occur.

39:31 Emily: Speaking of unsuccessful negotiations, I did not solicit these kinds of stories, but I have heard a few. Don’t take it personally, if your negotiation is unsuccessful. Like I said earlier, programs have different levers they can pull and some might be super limited. However, if you were attempting to negotiate out of financial need, you should really think about whether you can afford to get your PhD from a program that is unable or unwilling to sufficiently support you financially. Financial stress will curtail your ability to perform academically as well as magnify the financial opportunity cost of getting a PhD.

40:10 Emily: Here are your action steps after listening through this episode. For prospective graduate students: consider negotiating one or two of the offers you have received or will receive this spring. This signals to PhD programs that finance has matter, and that it is a field upon which they can compete for students. For current graduate students: don’t count yourself out on the negotiation front. If you want to be paid more approach your advisor, like the person in our last story did. They should be able to brainstorm with you about methods for accomplishing that and even advocate on your behalf. Speak with your peers and prospective grad students openly about your income and even encourage them to negotiate. The worst case scenario is that nothing changes for you. And the best case scenario is that the department realizes the stipend is an issue and raises it for everyone. For everyone: please share this episode with prospective and current graduate students and enter your current or former stipend and stipend offers into PhDStipends.com. If you can’t already tell, I really want to bring more attention to this issue and sharing this episode will go a long way, so thank you in advance for doing so. If you are a prospective grad student who wants a private space, where we can have more of this type of conversation and even access a training video on how to decipher your offer letters, visit PFforPhDs.com/decipher and join the Personal Finance for PhDs Community.

Listener Q&A: Investing Savings Rate

Question

41:37 Emily: Now onto the listener question and answer segment today’s question actually comes from a survey I sent out in advance of one of my university webinars this past fall, so it is anonymous. Here’s the question: “What percent of income should be used for investment?”

Answer

41:54 Emily: If you’ve been consuming personal finance material for a little while, you’ve probably already heard a few different benchmark answers this question, at least with respect to investing for the goal of retirement. One benchmark that I heard a lot, pre-financial crisis was 10%. 10% of your gross income toward your retirement accounts. If you are a Dave Ramsey follower, he tells you 15%. If you are a FIRE Walker and want to retire early 50% is a common benchmark in that community.

42:29 Emily: So you can see these benchmarks are kind of all over the map, although certainly above zero. Now, since this question comes from a graduate student, I want to emphasize that it is not appropriate, or possible, or necessary for all graduate students to be saving for retirement from their grad student stipends. Some graduate students are simply paid way too little for investing for retirement to even be a possibility. For those of you who were closely following that negotiation conversation from earlier in the podcast, this is something that you should take into consideration when you are planning your negotiation:will you be able to save for retirement from your grad student stipend? So if you have more pressing financial needs than investing for retirement, the answer to this question might be 0%.

43:20 Emily: Now, for those of you who are able and inclined to save for retirement, I will refer back to the financial framework that I talked about in the last episode. In my financial framework, which I developed specifically for our grad students and early career PhDs, investing for retirement comes at step four. So assuming you’ve taken care of steps one through three, and you’re on step four, my answer depends on your age. If you are starting to invest for retirement in your twenties, my answer is 10%, for the moment. If you’re starting in your thirties, my answer is 15%. If you are starting in your forties or later, my answer is 20%. This is a percentage of gross income, by the way, pre-tax income.

44:03 Emily: Now, when you first arrive at step four, it’s not a given that you will have that 10 or 15 or 20% of your income available for retirement investing. So step four is your process of increasing your income and, or decreasing your expenses to the point that you can get to that benchmark. After that you move on to steps five through eight while maintaining that retirement savings percentage in step seven of my framework, we come back around to investing and that’s where I encourage everyone who was saving at 10% from step four, to increase to 15% at a minimum. The logic here is just that most people, most of the time, saving 15% of their income will allow you to retire at approximately what your pre-retirement salary was at age 65 or so. It’s perfectly okay if that savings rate seems lofty to you right now. It’s something that you can work up to over time and of course you have a better shot at achieving it post-graduate school.

45:03 Emily: For my own personal choices in this matter, when I started graduate school, my goal was to save 10% of my gross income toward retirement. I gradually increased that over the course of graduate school so by the time I finished, I was saving about 17% of my gross income into retirement accounts. Fairly shortly after that, my husband and I increased that rate to 20% and it has stayed there for approximately the last five years, as we have been saving for a house down payment. I’m really happy with that savings rate for us right now. After the house purchase, the retirement savings rate might have to come down a bit so we can actually make our mortgage payment, but I’m hoping over the long term to increase it above that 20% benchmark as we do pursue early-ish financial independence.

45:52 Emily: So that’s my answer. And there’s a few different stages, a few different nuances to it, but I hope it gives the listener some clarity. It’s okay if you aren’t able to save anything, especially during graduate school. It’s a really financially difficult time of life, but if you can get to that 10%, 15%, 20% figure you’ll be doing really well. And above that, the question is simply how soon do you want to become financially independent? The higher savings rate, the sooner that date arrives. If you would like to submit a question to be answered in a future episode, please go to PFforPhDs.com/podcast and follow the instructions you find there. I love answering questions, so please submit yours!

Outtro

46:35 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPhDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. On that page are links to all the episodes show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast and instructions for entering the book giveaway contest, and submitting a question for the Q&A segment. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. If you leave a review, be sure to send it to me. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email list serve, or as a link from your website. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt, repayment and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at pfforphds.com/subscribe through that list. You’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode! And remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. Music is Stages of Awakening by Poddington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC podcast, editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

 

How Winning Fellowships Forced This Grad Student to Take Out Student Loans

by

In this episode, Emily interviews Dessie Clark, a doctoral candidate in Community Sustainability at Michigan State University. In 2018, Dessie received a few small fellowships for conference travel and a couple months of stipend income. In 2019, the financial aid office told her she had been “over-awarded” and had to pay the travel fellowship money back. Dessie took out student loans to pay that bill and then set up a payment plan with the IRS when she couldn’t pay the additional tax due on the fellowships. Dessie shares the steps she takes now when receiving fellowships so that she does not become over-awarded and how to prepare for tax time as a fellowship recipient.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

over-awarded fellowship grad student

Teaser

00:00 Dessie: Outside of academia, people wouldn’t hesitate to ask questions about their paycheck, right? And so we need to kind of be thinking about it the same way. If something was different on your paycheck, you would ask why or what’s going on and how you need to deal with it. So just not being afraid to try and talk to people about what’s going on with you so you don’t get in a bind.

Introduction

00:22 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five episode one and today my guest is Dessie Clark, a doctoral candidate and community sustainability at Michigan State University. In 2018, Dessie received several thousand dollars in fellowship income for travel awards and a couple months of stipend income. In 2019, she received a bill from the university for the amount of the travel awards. Apparently, she had become overawarded, a term that was totally new to me., Dessie he took out student loans to pay back the university, and to add insult to injury, faced a higher tax bill that season as well. Dessie relays what she had learned on how to avoid becoming over awarded and her advice for all graduate students receiving stipends. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dessie Clark.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:19 Emily: I have joining me on the podcast today Dessie Clark, who is a graduate student and is going to be telling us about being awarded fellowships as a graduate student and some of the unexpected downsides that can come with being awarded fellowships, which is of course a wonderful thing, but in Dessie’s case they caused a few other complications. Dessie, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and will you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

01:45 Dessie: My name is Dessie Clark and I am a doctoral candidate in community sustainability at Michigan State University. I actually got my master’s degree at Vanderbilt University in community development and action. And then I moved to Michigan to finish out my PhD.

02:01 Emily: Great. And how long have you been at Michigan State?

02:04 Dessie: I have been at Michigan State for four years.

02:09 Emily: Okay. So I won’t ask you when you’re finishing, but I’ll just say soon, you’re finishing soon.

02:13 Dessie: Yeah, hopefully this year, maybe next year, maybe, you know, whenever.

Funding During the PhD:

02:16 Emily: Yeah. So can you tell us a bit how your funding has worked since you’ve been doing your PhD?

02:22 Dessie: I’ve mostly been funded as a research assistant, so that provides coverage for tuition and then a stipend to live on. There have been a couple of summers where I’ve taught as an instructor, but for the most part it’s been RAs. And then there have been some brief moments in time where fellowships have also come into play, which is what I wanted to talk about today.

02:43 Emily: Yeah. Please elaborate about that. When did you win fellowships and maybe what amounts were they, those kinds of details?

02:52 Dessie: I think one of the things that’s important is that I didn’t necessarily know that I was getting fellowships. How this came into play for me was I had friends that had gotten fellowships and they had talked about how they were unaware of the tax implications. So I knew when I was going to apply for fellowships or asked for them that there would be tax implications there. But for me, I was actually receiving fellowships in the form of travel awards. So there were multiple times where I applied to go to conferences, and when I was awarded that travel money, I wasn’t aware that they were fellowships. So I’ve won I guess, fellowships of several thousand dollars for travel. Then there was a brief time where, I needed to change labs and so fellowships were used to fund me in my transition.

03:40 Emily: Okay. So definitely for the travel awards, we’re only talking about thousand, few thousand dollars here and there. Seemingly a relatively small amount of money, right? And then when you were switching labs, was it a semester’s worth of funding or how long was that?

03:54 Dessie: It was still relatively small. It was a couple of thousand dollars, but all of these fellowships awards actually happened in the same semester, so by the end it ended up being like $7,000 or $8,000.

04:07 Emily: Oh, okay. When they hit all at once, it really does add up in that case. Okay. So yeah, you didn’t really know that that was what you were receiving. So what happened? You get this money and it’s all good, right?

04:19 Dessie: Right. So I get this money and I’m really excited, I can afford to go to these conferences, I’m able to switch labs. But one of the things that I didn’t know is that they were fellowships, so I was kind of surprised two-fold. The first thing that happened that let me know that something wasn’t going quite right was that — this was in the fall of 2018 — so when I was going to start school in spring 2019, I got a bill from the university that said, “you owe us money, you’ve been over awarded.” I had no idea what that meant, but what I understand now is that every student has a cap on what they’re allowed to receive for education-related expenses. They had decided that this amount of money that I had received for travel had thrown me over that, so I needed to pay back university. That was kind of the first thing I noticed.

Fellowship Cap and Being Over-awarded

05:05 Emily: Let me pause there, because this term over awarded is new to me as well. What are you paying back to the university?

05:16 Dessie: What they were charging me ended up being the sum total of those travel award costs. There’s something that you can do to kind of help with this. Like I said, every student has a cap for how much money they’re allowed to receive, but one of the things that your department can do is they can write a letter saying, “This travel money is necessary for this person’s education. This is advancing their education or contributing in some way and this money is going towards that. It’s nothing extra. It’s not something we can go shopping on. This is money for the students’ education.” I didn’t know that that was something that could be done or needed to be done, so it wasn’t done in my case. I got this bill and it happened to be for the exact amount that I had received for travel awards. I found out through talking to financial aid that basically those things have been passed through as fellowships and because of how they were categorized, I got more money from the university than I was allowed to and so I needed to pay it back.

06:12 Emily: So it sounds like your stipend had been paid by your RA position and this supplemental fellowship, but those were kind of evening out to be what you’re allowed to be paid. And then these travel awards were over and above that and they were like, you’re not allowed to receive this money. This is literally the first time I’ve heard of this. I don’t know if maybe this is unique to your university or your department or maybe in all these cases, other people write these letters, their advisors write these letters that you’re talking about. I’m not sure how that works out, but this is really the first time I’m hearing about this, so it’s definitely raising like some major red flags for me.

06:46 Dessie: Yes. So from my understanding, and this is just what I’ve been told, this kind of cap exists for every student that is at a university, but I don’t know if it’s just how my university chose to handle it, or if this is happening a lot more than people know about, but basically what happened was I was over whatever that cap is. So it became a huge issue because now I’m sitting here before I can start school being told that I was thousands of dollars.

07:15 Emily: Right, exactly. So what did you do?

07:19 Dessie: What I did was what I didn’t want to do, I took out student loans and they subtract it from that.

07:24 Emily: So you took out student loans to pay the university for money that you had won that you used go to conferences. This Is bananas. This situation makes no sense. I’m really glad that you volunteered to come on the podcast to talk about this because the situation I’ve heard in the past for other students is that maybe they have a fellowship coming from the university or maybe they have an RA position or TA, something like that. Then they win a fellowship that’ll pay like their stipend. And a lot of students think, “I am in the money now.” They think getting that fellowship on top of the existing funding for their RA position or whatever it was. That is almost universally not the case. It is possible that you may end up being paid more than you were going to in the first place, but it’s not going to be double what your stipend was to begin with. And so there’s plenty of people who are caught by surprise by “what I just won funding, what do you mean you just take away my other funding?” No, that’s definitely how that works everywhere. There may be some room for negotiation and so forth, but that’s how the standard situation works. But I’m really glad to hear about your situation as well. So you know, now that you have been through the whole thing, what could have been done on your behalf and wasn’t. I don’t know. This is something that I’ve never heard of, of a student having a proactively ask for, so of course you wouldn’t have known, but I guess in the future, anyone listening who receives extra fellowships in some manner, make sure that you’re not going to run into any kind of cap, or whatever exceptions need to be made are going to be made on your behalf. Is that your advice?

Proactive Steps to Avoid Getting Over-awarded

08:54 Dessie: Yes, that is definitely my advice. I think something else too that really ties into this, that I experienced, is I got another fellowship for travel in spring and of course this time I was like, “hi, can you please write this letter and send it to financial aid? “And they were able to do that. But I came upon a situation this summer where there was something the university was going to pay for and they weren’t able to pay for it the way that they want it to. I had gone to my college and I said, I need help figuring out how this thing is going to get paid for, but it can’t be a fellowship because I’m scared I’m going to get over awarded again and I’m going to owe it. My college was really great at hearing that concern and trying to work with me on it, but what ended up happening in the meantime is that the graduate school at my university granted it as a fellowship anyway. One of the things that I think is a kind of a broader issue is that when we’re getting loans or we’re getting grants, we have to accept them and there’s usually some paperwork that we have to go through promising whatever and making sure we fully understand the impacts, but I was awarded a fellowship without my permission basically. I think that the school has figured it out, so that way I won’t be over awarded and this won’t impact me, but I also think that’s why I said at the beginning, it’s really important to know how things are being classified and categorized on your behalf because maybe something is a fix, but then all of a sudden six months down the road you’re being asked to pay it back. I think keeping an eye on that is really important.

10:15 Emily: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you were taking the proactive steps the second time around that you knew to take, and yet, as you just said, they can just push these things through into your student account and there’s no process around it. It’s totally on their end and they have control over it. But I guess, did it just end up being that they just took it back like, “Oh, we gave it to you, now we’re going to take it back and award you the money in some other way?”

10:40 Dessie: They ended up just doing what I was talking about before and doing the right amount of paperwork to explain why this is an educational expense and all of that. I think it was handled because they knew that there were some extra steps that needed to be taken. But I think another thing too is you asked me how I found out about all this. Like so many other students at tax time, it really became a “you owe this money.” I think too, it’s easy for us to just think like, well this was only, you know, $1,000 here or $1,000 there. But it really adds up. And for most graduate students, we’re not in a super comfortable financial place. So even a surprise tax of a couple of hundred dollars can really set you back.

11:20 Emily: Yeah, and sometimes I think it’s easy to forget the academic year and the calendar year don’t line up, right? So you could be receiving fellowships maybe in two different academic years, but if they fall in the same calendar year, then it’s all going to add up at that year-end tax return.

Commercial

11:40 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns. From free articles and videos, to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax that’s P F F O R P H D dot com slash T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now back to the interview.

Tax Consequences of Being Over-awarded

12:44 Emily: Okay, not only did you, you know — Hey, you received award funding. Awesome. Got that. Oh no, you have to pay it back to the school. Ridiculous. You have to take out student loans, do that. So essentially, with some middlemen, you were just taking out student loans to go to conferences, which is probably not a decision, it sounds like, you would have made, had you known that was going to be outcome. On top of that, travel and research is not a qualified education expense for making fellowships tax free. So you end up with this tax bill on top of all the other stuff that’s happening. How did that play out?

13:19 Dessie: I think one of the things that I knew when I was changing labs is that I knew that a portion of that fellowship money, I knew it was untaxed* and I was gonna need it. So I was able to put that aside. What surprised me is when I sat down with my accountant and she put two and two together, that all these other things had been categorized as fellowships, the amount I had set aside to pay taxes on was not nearly the amount of money that I needed. That was obviously a huge strain. I’m lucky enough that I have a partner who works, but we did end up having to go on a payment plan to the IRS because I just couldn’t afford to come out of pocket the amount that I owed.

[* By ‘untaxed,’ Dessie is referring to the fact that income tax was not withheld for her on this portion of her income, not necessarily that it is tax-free.]

13:57 Emily: At the point when you were working with your tax preparer, at what point in tax season was that? Were you getting ready to file and you found out that, “Oh wait, I’m going to owe more than I had set aside?”

14:08 Dessie: It was right at the end. There was no fixing it. I getting ready to file taxes and she’s like, this is not looking good, and it was what it was at that point.

14:18 Emily: Not all the listeners may know, but some people might hear, maybe from their parents or something, about filing extensions. So they get another, I don’t know, six months or something to file your tax return. You do not get an extension on actually the tax that you owe. You only get the extension on the return. So if you’re finding out in March or April that you owe a tax bill and you’re not prepared to pay it, as you said, graduate students typically live without much margin in their lives. If you find that you owe a tax but you’re not prepared to pay it, really probably the best thing to do is what you did, which is to go on a payment plan with the IRS. A lot of people would say, “Oh my gosh, the IRS, I’m so afraid I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to deal with them,” but actually that’s the worst step you can take, is not to talk to them. Did the payment plan work out okay? Did it end up being all right that you could pay a little bit over time?

15:06 Dessie: I’m still on it to this day. I owed a chunk and there’s only so much I could put towards it per month. So yeah, it has worked out. I’m making my payments so I haven’t gotten in trouble with the IRS, but it isn’t a new bill now every month that I have to pay. I think too, just thinking about this calendar year and the implications for next tax season, I think now I’m just very closely watching anything financially that comes through the school just to make sure I don’t get into this situation again. I know now there are ways that your department or your college can help you, and making sure that these expenses are processed the way they should be as true education expenses and not as extra in your life. And just keeping an eye on that. I think especially as I get into the fall, I will definitely be following up with my administrators and saying, “Hey, just want to make sure I see this here. Was there something that went with this to make sure that I’m not getting a bill for being over-awarded again, or I’m not having any more tax implications than I already know I will have.”

Saving Money for Taxes When Your Fellowships Do Not Have Tax Withheld

16:08 Emily: Right. At this point, now that you’re so aware and you’re so proactive about everything, are you filing quarterly estimated tax or does your additional tax due not rise to that level of necessity?

16:22 Dessie: It doesn’t rise to that level, but I am always putting stuff aside. Even when there are things that should be categorized in a way that I won’t have to worry about that, I’m still always just taking a certain percentage and putting it aside, because I think in my situation, the worst case scenario is to have what happened this year and be totally surprised and unprepared, because that’s exactly what happened.

16:42 Emily: Can you tell the listeners a little bit about your system for setting money aside? Because maybe they want to know, mechanically, how you do that.

16:48 Dessie: Yeah. I am not an accountant so I don’t have this down to any kind of science. It’s just kind of what I’ve found has worked for me. So anytime that I get any kind of award through the school, whether it be for travel or whatever else, it could be research money, I always take about 30% of that and I put it in a savings account. And that seems to be kind of a pretty safe estimate of you definitely won’t need to pay more than that, and so I think that’s been my system now. Even when I make requests for money, I always keep that in mind, because I think something that I’ve watched other students go through is they ask for exactly what they need, forgetting about that tax buffer. And so you might end up short or paying back necessary money later.

17:33 Emily: Yeah, good idea. I do think 30% is a very good margin, probably more than you’ll need, but better to be on the safe side than on the sorry side, as you definitely found out. Do you have like a separate savings account that you use for that or something?

17:46 Dessie: Yes, I have a savings account that I just don’t touch. I kind of joke with my partner, that it’s like the savings account that you don’t use as a savings account. There is no level of emergency that could make me touch that money. I pretend it’s not there because for all intents and purposes, it’s not mine. It’s the government’s, and I don’t want to end up in a situation. I mean it’s August, right? And I’m still on a payment plan for this past year’s taxes. I don’t want to have to do that again.

18:12 Emily: Yeah, I do the exact same thing. When I was in graduate school, some years…Well, I guess it wasn’t in graduate school, but it was when I did my postbac, taxes weren’t being withheld. I had to pay quarterly estimated tax at that time. I started doing the exact same thing. I set up a separate savings account, I have it nicknamed tax, put money in there as I get money to come in, withdraw from it as I was paying quarterly estimated tax. But I wanted to say that I do the exact same thing as you, which is that I don’t think about that tax savings account as being my money. Right now, when I’m self employed, I also have the responsibility of paying quarterly estimated tax. And so I actually calculate my, or our family’s net worth every month, on the first of the month, and so I calculate two numbers, which is one my technical net worth, which includes the tax money in it, and then what I label as my true net worth, which subtracts that tax savings account balance out. And I say, “Nope, I don’t even think of it as being mine right now because, as you said, I know I just have to hand it over to the IRS in a few months.” I don’t want to think of it as accessible at all, in the meantime. So yeah, thanks for sharing about that.

Final Words of Advice

19:16 Emily: Is there any other final advice around the situation that you would want to tell someone else so they don’t get into the same kind of problems that you did?

19:24 Dessie: Yeah, just kind of recapping what I said. So I think, of course, the conversation that fellowships are untaxed* is just a broader conversation we need to be having in general because I don’t think a lot of people know that. But again, just monitoring how things are being processed for you and if they’re technically being categorized as a fellowship. Then, I think that for the most part students are pretty safe. I don’t want to create mass panic as far as this cap goes. If you’re just talking about you just have an RA or you know, just the little student loans or you just have a TA. I think where you start to get near this cap is when you’re doing a lot of research awards and travel awards and teaching where it’s on top of what you’re already getting. I think for students that might have multiple things going on, like I clearly had, making sure you’re having a conversation and knowing where that line is so that way you don’t cross it because the way that they balance their books is you’re not going to know until you’re far down the road and the money is already spent. It’s going to be the next semester. So just keeping an eye on that and honestly just reaching out and asking your financial aid office and saying “I know that there’s a certain amount of aid that we’re allowed to get. What is my number?” So you can kind of monitor it yourself because I really think that for most people, you’re better off saying, “No, I’m not going to take that award this semester. No, I’m not going to get this or do this now” and waiting, so you don’t cross that line and end up having the money need to be paid back.

[* By ‘untaxed,’ Dessie is referring to the fact that income tax was not withheld for her on this portion of her income, not necessarily that it is tax-free.]

20:44 Emily: Yeah. Or just be aware, as you were saying earlier, that these letters or whatever can be written so that the money goes on top. So it sounds like, at least your university, your department, it wouldn’t be like, oh, your advisor just wants to pay you more or someone wants to just like give you a fellowship. You’re going to run into problems with that. It has to be something that’s justifiable under their system for raising their cap on an exception basis to allow that award to go through.

21:10 Dessie: Right, and I think too, just noting that the people that work in financial aid may not be as familiar with why research money or why conference money is an educational expense. So things that you might see and go through and you think, “Oh yeah, that’s totally an expense for my education. Anyone would see that?” No, you might have to justify it and they might need, you know, justification from your department on why this is important for your education.

21:32 Emily: Yeah. And I will just add that financial aid professionals and so forth, they’re not going to touch this tax issue with you. They’re going tell you to go away if you try to ask them tax questions. But in the area of how much you’re supposed to be awarded and what the education expenses are, they are the experts in that area. So you can definitely go to them with those kinds of questions. Just don’t ask them, “what’s my tax bill going to be?” They’re not going to answer that. But, yeah, among that subject matter, they are the best people to go to, I think. It sounds like you’ve developed a little bit of a working relationship with those people.

22:04 Emily: Dessie, thank you so much for giving this interview and sharing the story. I think it’s really unfortunate how it worked out and also just that you were saying that you didn’t catch all of this until the following calendar year or the following semester, naturally. That’s how these things work. Of course you wouldn’t, but because it happened so late, it sounds like the proper paperwork couldn’t have been pushed through in the past. I just want to ask the concluding question that I ask of all my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for another graduate student or early career PhD?

22:34 Dessie: I think asking questions. I think that early and often you should ask questions about the money that you’re getting, where it’s coming from, how it’s classified, and just always not being afraid to shoot financial aid and message and say “Hey, this has come through. Is there anything I need to do with this?” Because I think everyone, us included, but also the financial aid folks would rather be proactive about dealing with a problem rather than getting the early spring email, which was “what is happening, I can’t pay you a couple of thousand dollars.” I think just always asking questions and not being scared to ask about how these things impact you. Outside of academia, people wouldn’t hesitate to ask questions about their paycheck, right? And so we need to kind of be thinking about the same way. If something was different on your paycheck, you would ask why or what’s going on and how you need to deal with it. So just not being afraid to try and talk to people about what’s going on with you so you don’t get in a bind.

23:28 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. And like you said earlier, you don’t have to accept a fellowship. It can just be pushed through. And likewise for some other people, they might not even really be aware of how they’re being paid. They’re just kind of receiving a paycheck and they don’t really know is it from an assistantship. I mean they would know if they were teaching your class, right? They know if it says teaching assistantship, but is it a fellowship, is it an RA, I don’t know. The roles, like what you actually do for each of those things, are pretty much the same. So you might not even be aware until you get a W2 at tax time or don’t get a W2 at tax time, what happened in the previous year. Then, if any adjustments need to have made, then it’s too late, right? Then the tax year has already ended. So totally want to underline that advice — know why you’re being paid, know what kind of tax forms you’re going to receive.

24:10 Emily: I just want to add in a final note for the listeners, if there’s anyone listening who is receiving a fellowship, even a small award, like what Dessie’s been talking about during this interview, you should look into whether or not you need to file quarterly estimated tax. I’m going to link in the show notes my massive article on quarterly estimated tax. And I also have a workshop on that that’s linked from that article. So I’ll link to both those things in the show notes. Please note that the deadlines for quarterly estimate tax are in mid April, mid June, mid September and mid January of every year, usually the 15th of the month or the business day following. So keep those deadlines in mind. If you are receiving a fellowship, you might not have to pay quarterly, but at least you need to investigate and figure out whether or not it’s your responsibility, or whether like what Dessie’s doing, you can just set the money aside and leave it until the end of the year and pay it all at once with your annual tax return.

Loading…

25:01 Emily: Thank you again Dessie for coming on and giving this interview and giving this word of warning to all the other graduate students listening.

25:08 Dessie: Thank you for having me.

Outtro

25:10 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPphDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars covered the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

How to Read Your PhD Program Offer Letter

by

Congratulations on receiving an official offer of admission to a PhD program! This is truly an exhilarating period in your academic career. After celebrating your admission and letting the giddiness wear off, whip out your magnifying glass: It’s time to take a close look at your offer letter to figure out what it actually means. Offer letters can be a bit difficult to decipher (sometimes intentionally!), but this is a vital step so that you go into your PhD program with your eyes wide open regarding your financial situation. This article covers how to discern what your program is offering you regarding your stipend/salary, out-of-pocket tuition and fees, the type of pay you receive and whether it comes with a work requirement, health insurance, “guarantees,” and how your funding package evolves as you move through your PhD program.

PhD offer letter

If your offer letter doesn’t answer all the following questions (and you’re seriously considering taking it), turn to the offering department’s administrative assistant (for official answers) and/or current graduate students (for this-is-how-things-actually-work answers).

Gross Stipend/Salary

Right away your eye might be drawn to a phrase like “Your total financial aid package is worth…” and some huge number like $50,000 or $90,000. Don’t be distracted by it! You need to know what your actual pay will be – what is usually referred to as your stipend. The letter should delineate between your stipend and the cost of the tuition and fees paid on your behalf. The important take-away is what’s going into your pocket (before taxes) as this is the money that will pay your living expenses and fund your financial goals.

Tuition and Fees (Your Responsibility)

If your offer letter includes funding, it should say that some aspect of your tuition and/or fees will be paid on your behalf. However, when determining how much money you actually get to keep at the end of the day, you have to know: Are you responsible for paying any (partial) tuition and fees out of your own pocket? For example, perhaps your tuition is being paid on your behalf, but out of your stipend you are expected to pay a relatively small fee. Don’t be impressed by huge numbers in tuition and fees being paid for you! What matters is how much you have to pay out of your own pocket; ideally $0 or close to it!

Source of Stipend

Your offer letter will likely tell you the source(s) of your stipend: an assistantship or fellowship. One of the key differences between these two types of funding is whether there is a work requirement.

Fellowships do not have “work requirements,” and to maintain them you are generally just expected to make satisfactory progress toward your degree with respect to your coursework and dissertation progress.

Assistantships do have a work requirement; you are technically an employee of your university. Research assistantships with your dissertation advisor usually allow you to combine your work requirement with your dissertation research (with some exceptions). Teaching and graduate assistantships require you to teach or perform some other kind of service for your university (most often officially capped at 20 hours/week), after which you are free to work on your coursework and/or dissertation.

It’s vital to know whether you have a work requirement in your first year or really any requirements to maintain your funding (e.g., attending a seminar series, submitting progress reports). If you don’t meet those requirements, your funding could be revoked.
Your stipend offer letter should clearly state what your work requirement is or whether you need to secure one prior to the start of the school year. For example, you might be offered funding from a teaching assistantship, but it could be still up to you to actually arrange with a professor to TA a certain course.

Knowing about a work requirement will help you properly envision how you’ll spend your time during your first year in your PhD program.

Duration of Stipend

Your offer letter should tell you over what period you will be paid your stipend. Ideally, the answer is 12 months, although carefully note if the source of the stipend changes during that time. (For example, I was paid in my first 9 months of graduate school by a training grant and in the next 3 months by a research assistantship, and this was all spelled out in my offer letter.) If the offer letter says the stipend lasts any period shorter than 12 months, you need to follow up: Does that mean you actually won’t be paid (you’ll have to plan financially for that, obviously) or that you are going to have to secure other funding after the initial period?

Who Pays What for Health Insurance?

Health insurance is a huge issue for graduate students, and universities handle it differently. The key answers you need from your offer letter are:

  • Will you have an opportunity to buy student health insurance through the university? (Almost certainly the answer is yes.)
  • What is the yearly premium for the student health insurance?
  • If you sign up for student health insurance, is the premium paid on your behalf (similar to tuition and fees) or do you pay (part of) it out of pocket?
  • Are dental and vision insurance bundled along with health insurance, or would you have to buy them separately?

Even if you plan to stay on your parents’ insurance for some years at the start of your PhD, it’s important to understand what you may be paying for premiums once you switch to insurance through your university.

Is There a Guarantee?

Does the word ‘guarantee’ appear anywhere in your offer letter, e.g., is your funding guaranteed for 2 years, 5 years? A guarantee is nice to have, but it shouldn’t necessarily be a deal-breaker. If you don’t have guaranteed funding throughout your PhD (which might very well go beyond 5 years!), find out from current students whether students all pretty much stay funded or whether funding becomes tight/competitive in later years.

What Happens after the First Year?

Probably of the most important things to know about funding during your PhD is what happens in later years. A PhD is long, after all, and your offer letters might only discuss funding in the first year. Your offer letter might include hints of funding changes in the future, such as by saying you received a first-year fellowship or one-time bonus, or saying that your funding source will change starting in your second year.

You should be particularly wary of your stipend decreasing after your first year due to a one-time/first year-only bolus of money (a promotional offer, so to speak). It would be quite painful to find out at the last minute that your stipend is going down and have to scramble to adjust your living expenses. Better to build your life and budget around your ongoing stipend amount and use the first-year increase for one-time expenses or savings.

If you are seriously considering accepting an offer, you should definitely inquire about what funding looks like in the second and following years. The departmental administrative assistant may not be able to say for sure what will happen in your case, but he/she and current students can tell you the precedent.

  • What will my after-tuition/fees stipend (and its term) be in my second and subsequent years (lower, higher, pretty much the same)?
  • What will the source of my funding be in later years, and am I responsible for securing it? (For example, in your first year you might be funded from a training grant so you can rotate among potential advisors, but starting in your second year you must secure a research assistantship with your dissertation advisor.)
  • Are yearly cost-of-living raises typical?

Don’t be dazzled by a pumped-up first-year offer if the reality behind it is a department where students compete with one another for limited funding and you’re paid the same stipend in your fifth year that you were in your first!

You can see that to properly understand your funding during your PhD you need a lot more information from your stipend offer letter than just the number that will hit your bank account each month! Again, you only need to investigate beyond the offer letter to the degree that you are considering accepting the offer (most likely based on other factors). But even if you don’t care about money at all, I strongly encourage you to find answers to these questions for the program that you ultimately accept before you commit to a lease or move.

Do I Owe Income Tax on My Fellowship?

by

Postbac, graduate student, and postdoc fellows frequently ask whether their fellowships are considered taxable income. PhD-type fellowships that are not reported on a W-2 are non-compensatory income. They might be reported on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, or on a courtesy letter or not reported at all, which accounts for the widespread confusion. Publication 970 answers the question of when a fellowship can be considered tax-free. Fellowships are considered part of the recipient’s taxable income unless they go toward paying qualified education expenses (students only).

Links Mentioned in the Episode

income tax fellowship

Transcript

Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast – a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Emily Roberts.

I’m doing something a little bit different in this special bonus episode for Season 2.

I’m using it to answer a frequently asked question that I receive about taxes. The question is: Do I owe income tax on my fellowship?

In this episode, I’m speaking to citizens and residents in the United States. And I’m also talking about PhD-type fellowships whether at the postbac level, the graduate student level, or the postdoc level.

What’s going on with these fellowships that makes the recipient question whether or not they are taxable is that they are not reported on a W-2. They might not be reported at all, or they may be reported on a 1098-T in Box 5, on a 1099-MISC in Box 3, or on a courtesy letter, which is not an official tax form but rather just a letter that states what the amount of the fellowship was in that calendar year.

Fellowship income is considered part of your taxable income. Now, you may not actually end up paying tax on your fellowship income depending on the rest of your return, like the deductions and credits you’re going to be able to take, but it is considered part of that taxable income.

Now, I know you’re not inclined to just believe me right off the bat. I mean, there’s a strong incentive for you to believe that your fellowship income is not taxable, so I’m going to give you a bit of evidence here.

IRS Publication 970 is the definitive publication on the taxability of fellowship and scholarship income. I’ll read you a few excerpts from Chapter 1 of Publication 970.

First, some definitions:

A scholarship is generally an amount paid or allowed to, or for the benefit of, a student (whether an undergraduate or a graduate) at an educational institution to aid in the pursuit of his or her studies.

A fellowship grant is generally an amount paid for the benefit of an individual to aid in the pursuit of study or research.

So you can see that fellowship grants are much more broad; they can be issued to non-students, whereas scholarships only go to students.

Chapter 1 of Publication 970 approaches fellowships and scholarships from the perspective of trying to make them tax-free.

So let’s see how that can happen:

A scholarship or fellowship grant is tax free (excludable from gross income) only if you are a candidate for a degree at an eligible educational institution.

So right off the bat we know that anybody who is receiving a fellowship who is not a student cannot make their fellowship tax-free, i.e., it is part of their taxable income.

Additionally:

A scholarship or fellowship grant is tax free only to the extent: It doesn’t exceed your qualified education expenses…

So now we’re just dealing with the graduate student population that has the potential to make a scholarship or fellowship grant tax-free.

The way that we use the terms ‘scholarship’ and ‘fellowship’ in academia, a ‘fellowship’ generally refers to the money that you take home for your living expenses, whereas ‘scholarship’ is the money that goes towards paying your tuition and fees, the qualified education expenses.

Very roughly speaking, your qualified education expenses can make your scholarships tax-free if you’re a fully funded graduate student, but there’s no more qualified education expenses to start making your fellowship income tax-free. Therefore, again, roughly, your fellowship income is included in your taxable income.

So to summarize, fellowship and scholarship income that goes towards paying our qualified education expenses like tuition and fees can be made tax-free, but fellowship and scholarship income that goes towards paying other kinds of expenses like your living expenses can’t be made tax-free.

Now, I’m glossing over some very important details on how you actually calculate your taxable income, so if you want more information about that, please see the tax center on my website, pfforphds.com/tax.

But, there you go, roughly speaking, fellowship income does need to be included in your taxable income, whether you are a postbac, a graduate student, or a postdoc.

Thanks for joining me in this short bonus episode!

Please share this episode on social media and with your peers because this is a message that they need to hear. It’s not a message that they want to hear, but it’s a message that they need to hear to stay on the right side of the IRS.

Show notes for this episode can be found at pfforphds.com/s2be1.

Thanks for joining me today, and I’ll see you in the next episode!

Further reading/viewing:

Negotiating PhD Funding Offers: This Grad Student Did It Successfully

by

In this episode, Emily interviews John Vsetecka, a second-year PhD student in History at Michigan State University. When John was a prospective PhD student, he attempted to negotiate the stipend and benefits of the three admissions offers he was seriously considering. John shares exactly how he initiated the negotiation process and the outcomes at each of the universities. His negotiation method is well-researched and well-considered and is applicable to many if not most other prospective graduate students. John and Emily also discuss how prospective PhD students should combat imposter syndrome during the admissions process.

Links mentioned in episode

negotiating PhD offer

0:00 Introduction

1:05 Please Introduce Yourself

John Vsetecka is a second-year PhD student in the Department of History at Michigan State University. He studies modern Ukrainian history, with a focus on the 1932-1933 famine. Before beginning his PhD program, he worked as a GEAR UP advisor. This is a federal grant agency that works with low income students, called Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. He worked in Colorado to help middle school and high school, low income students prepare for college. Before this job, he got a Master of Arts in History in 2014 at the University of Northern Colorado.

2:55 What PhD offers and interview requests did you receive from universities?

When John applied to PhD programs, he applied to eight schools and faced some rejections. He considered four offers, then narrowed his list to three. The first offer he eliminated would have required that he start with MA and work into PhD. Since he already had an MA, he felt he was ready to move on. He seriously considered three offers. He accepted the offer from Michigan State University, where he is now. He visited “University 2” in person for an interview. He had a virtual interview with “University 3.”

4:21 What did you think about the offers from these three universities?

John wasn’t sure what a fair offer was for a PhD position in History. Generally, PhD students are shy about sharing their financial experiences. So he did research and his mentor from the University of Northern Colorado guided him in this process. He talked to other PhD students, who would say they had enough to live on or that they were struggling. He used the websites GradCafe and PhD Stipends. He got a sense of what people were being paid, including their health insurance and fees. From all of this information, he decided two offers were fair and worth considering.

Emily shares an important piece of advice for prospective PhD students is to do your research. Anonymous databases, like PhD Stipends, provide more transparency around these offers. But you should talk to current graduate students, because it’s one thing to look at the numbers, and another thing to get a feel for how it is to live on that amount.

Further Reading: How to Read Your PhD Program Offer Letter

7:54 How did you initiate the negotiation process for your PhD stipend offers?

John negotiated his stipend offers during his interviews. He went to visit two universities in person for interviews, and had a virtual interview a University 3. His first interview was at University 2. During the visit, they have an itinerary and fully scheduled day. The experience is like a whirlwind. He prepared a set of questions for faculty members and set of questions for Graduate Director. With the Graduate Director, he talked about the PhD program as a whole to get their insight. Then he directly asked the Graduate Director if there is any other money available, such as other fellowships, and explained that he has other offers with higher financial value. The Graduate Director is the one that can control the money. The faculty can only put in good word on a student’s behalf. So as a prospective PhD student, you should know who you can talk to and know who you can negotiate with. You don’t need to be afraid to ask tough questions about financial aid.

The PhD program interview was a good time to negotiate PhD stipend offers. John waited until he received all offers to see where he stood across the field, and this gave him some leverage. Negotiating like this is is what people do with any other job. John told the Graduate Director that he had other offers, but he didn’t show them the letters themselves. Negotiating before receiving all other offers and before the interview can seem desperate. But if he negotiated after the visit, it might seem like that offer wasn’t his first choice and he was only negotiating after losing another offer. John also believes that talking in person is the best type of communication. Negotiating in person puts them on the spot.

During his interview visit for University 2, John asked the Graduate Director about the potential for a better financial package. The Graduate Director told John that they would get back to him a couple hours. Later that day, John received an email with a offer for a fellowship package. This showed John that they were willing to work on his behalf. He was surprised by this because he had expected them to negotiate and push back. During the interview visit, the department is most focused on recruitment, so they quickly considered his request and acted on it.

John went into the meeting with a set plan for negotiation. He had a notebook and visibly took notes during the conversation, which indicates that he took the negotiation seriously. Treating graduate school interviews like a professional scenario sets you up for success.

14:35 What new offer did you receive after negotiating?

Because he negotiated with the Graduate Director, John received an offer of a university fellowship instead of a teaching assistantship. The new offer was university-based funding, not department-based funding like his original offer. The university fellowship had different teaching requirements than the department teaching assistantship. It was more money in total, as well as better health care coverage. This showed what kind of control the department and university has over financial awards for PhD students. Even if the university can’t raise stipends, they can cover more fees or provide better benefits.

16:22 What outcomes did you get from negotiating with the other two universities?

John learned that not everyone would negotiate. At Michigan State, he had a generous offer that he was already happy with. Even so, he asked the Director of Graduate Studies at Michigan State about his financial award. The director kindly told him that his original financial award was what the department was willing to offer. John later learned that his department offers different financial packages based on a tiered system, and he was happy with the offer he received.

At University 3, John had a virtual meeting with the department. John brought up that he had offers with much more value than what they had offered him. John says that honestly, he was displeased with University 3’s financial offer. He learned that due to financial constraints at University 3, the department couldn’t offer more money. The department suggested term-to-term options. John didn’t want to be on his toes every semester wondering if he’d get paid. Though University 3 offered paid tuition, the money offered for teaching/research was not enough to even consider.

It’s important for prospective PhD students to recognize that some offers only tell you about the first year, while others present a five-year plan for funding.

19:35 Based on what you experienced, what would you do to negotiate differently?

John says he wouldn’t change much. While he knew negotiation was possible, he personally didn’t know anyone in his cohort group that negotiated their stipend offer. John heard from his advisors and mentors that it’s ok to ask, but you have to know to ask. John says this is one of those hidden things in academia. If prospective graduate students receive multiple offers, this is a chance to use offers against each other.
even if you get one offer, be happy, but if you get more offers you can use them

Emily brings up that often, applicants don’t feel a lot of confidence. They often think, “Who am I to be receiving these offers?” This imposter syndrome deters prospective PhD students from negotiating their stipends and ensuring that they receive the best offer.

22:27 How did you know negotiating your PhD offer would be possible and welcome?

John’s MA program advisor told him how to negotiate PhD stipend offers. First, you have to apply to multiple universities and know their programs well. Second, you need to know who you want to work with. Third, you need to talk with current graduate students. This is the most important advice. If you find their email on department websites, you can email them directly. Fourth, online communities like GradCafe help you connect with people who can help you.

John says that graduate school applicants should treat a PhD position like any other job. John says this profession should not be excluded from the process of negotiation. John’s experience at GEAR UP, where he helped low income students fight for undergraduate school money, showed him that there is a lot of money out there. He says it’s unfortunate so many undergraduates go into a lot of debt, when there are all types of money out there for different skills and talents. John wonders why graduate students can’t have that money too? There are different organizations, based in different fields, but money is out there. He suggests prospective students apply to everything they’re qualified for, but they also ask universities and departments what they can give.

Emily adds that prospective PhD students need to consider cost of living. If you have school A versus school B with higher stipend and in lower cost of living, you can ask the school A’s department what they can do to make the offer comparable.

26:44 Has your negotiation had any lasting impact on your graduate career?

John says the negotiation process doesn’t stop when you receive your final offer. Negotiation is a longer standing issue to think about in the future. At Michigan State, John and his peers negotiate for conference money, travel money, research money for the summer. Some graduate students can’t find money beyond teaching assistantships. Because he considered these benefits in his financial offer, he accepted a position that allows him the time and money to not worry. He has summer funding and he can teach online. For instance, he taught a seven week class online while being in Ukraine for research. He chose a school with an institutional investment. The department is doing well and it is investing in its students. He saw that the department was willing to invest continually in their students. He thinks the investment will continue after he graduates.

29:33 Final Comments

John says prospective graduate students should feel free to reach out to him. He likes to help in any way he can. When you get your offers, the first thing you should do is celebrate, and get a round of applause. After celebrating, look over your financial offer, and look beyond stipend to health insurance and benefits. If you get multiple offers, compare them. Be confident about your acceptance into a program and don’t be afraid to negotiate. Know that you have power in these situations. Even though graduate students often don’t have much power, this is the situation where you do. You have all the power and you should use it while you can.John treated PhD offers like job offers because it’s also a job, in literal and figurative sense.

31:27 Conclusion