Personal Finance for PhDs

Live a financially balanced life - no Real Job required

Income

Bargaining for BU’s First Grad Student Union Contract as a DMA Student

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Sophie Lewis, who recently completed her DMA in Music Education at Boston University. Sophie served on the bargaining committee for the BU grad student union through their first contract negotiation, which included a nearly 7-month-long strike. She shares the incredible accomplishments of the union over that period as well as what didn’t make it into the contract and how the strike finally ended. Sophie’s own pay rate and personal finances radically changed for the better through that same period, both because of the union’s efforts and her personal actions.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Bargaining for BU's First Grad Student Union Contract as a DMA Student

Teaser

Sophie (00:00): Our argument the entire time we were in bargaining was that you should be able to afford to attend the institution that you’re working for based on only the job that you do for the institution that you attend. Um, and I think we’ve gotten a lot closer to that. Obviously, Boston is an expensive city, but it’s nice to know that we played a part in making it a little bit more affordable for people at BU.

Introduction

Emily (00:31): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:00): This is Season 25, Episode 5, and today my guest is Dr. Sophie Lewis, who recently completed her DMA in Music Education at Boston University. Sophie served on the bargaining committee for the BU grad student union through their first contract negotiation, which included a nearly 7-month-long strike. She shares the incredible accomplishments of the union over that period as well as what didn’t make it into the contract and how the strike finally ended. Sophie’s own pay rate and personal finances radically changed for the better through that same period, both because of the union’s efforts and her personal actions.

Emily (01:41): I’m looking for interviewees for Season 26 of this podcast! This is your official invitation to volunteer to be interviewed. I love that on this podcast I get to feature PhDs and PhDs-to-be who are almost exclusively regular people and learn and share their real-life stories and strategies. If it’s been in the back of your mind to volunteer, please go to PFforPhDs.com/podcastvolunteer/ and fill out the quick form, and I’ll be in touch over email. I look forward to interviewing you this fall! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Sophie Lewis.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:38): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Sophie Lewis. She recently completed her doctorate in music education at Boston University, and we actually met a few months ago. We’re recording this in September 2026. We met over the summer at the Graduate Career Consortium annual meeting, and I was just so taken with Sophie and the way she spoke about finances and specifically her experience with the union, the Grad Student Union and unionization movement at BU. And so I invited her on the podcast to tell us much, much more about that. So, Sophie, thank you so much for agreeing to come on, and would you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Sophie (03:16): Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so nice to be back. My name’s Sophie. I just graduated in August with my doctorate in music education, technically a DMA. I’m one of those, uh, professional doctorates, as they like to call us in higher ed. Um, and I researched, uh, career preparation for music students in higher education and how, uh, post-secondary policy shapes the way that students feel prepared for careers after they graduate, and how they understand the value of the work that they do. Uh, unionization was a really big part of how I came to understand the value of what I do, and so it was really cool to bring those two things together. I also worked as a graduate assistant for the graduate and postdoctoral success department at Boston University, which is how we met at GCC. Uh, and my role was to help to administer the professional development micro-credential series online that Boston University runs. Um, happy to be graduated and, uh, speaking about my experiences at BU as someone who’s no longer at BU.

A $5,100 Annual Stipend as an International Student at BU

Emily (04:28): Absolutely. And so we’re kinda in this interview gonna go through your journey in graduate school and kind of parallel that with how the union changed or what shifted and what you learned and so forth over the course of that time. So let’s start with your arrival at BU. What was going on with, you know, your own employment and what was going on with the union when you first arrived?

Sophie (04:50): Yeah. So I came to BU in September of 2022, and I remember vividly right across… I played the cello, and I had a instrument locker in the basement of the music department. And across the hall from where my cello locker was, there was this poster about BU Grad Workers Union, and I was so excited, uh, because I’m from the UK where unionization is super common, and I was entering BU as a graduate research assistant in the College of Fine Arts on a salary of about $5,100 for the year for a 10-hour position. So I was like, any opportunity to get involved with a union that might help me to advocate for better pay was really, really welcome. You know, you’re used to low pay in the arts, but, uh, I was paying rent with loans for my first year of my doctoral studies. It was, it was a fun time.

Emily (05:57): Pause on that for a moment because… So were you an international student that’s – Like were you on an F1 visa?

Sophie (06:03): I sure was.

Emily (06:05): So to come to the US as an international student, my understanding is that you have to show that you can provide for yourself financially. Um, so did this… Did you arrange the student loans beforehand or like how did your funding in particular work with respect to being an international student?

Sophie (06:22): Yeah. Uh, I had organized the loans in advance of coming to BU. Uh, I’m really lucky to have an aunt and uncle who are US citizens, uh, who were able to co-sign loans for me for that first year. Um, and a lot of, like, what proves that you have the money is just that you have access to it. It doesn’t need to be liquid. Uh, so my family were able to show that we had access to that money, but they weren’t willing to pay my rent, uh, because I’m 27 and was paying my own rent. Uh, so <laugh> that was kind of how that balanced out, was we were able to use a combination of loans and family money to get my visa. Um, and I just ended up paying my rent with loans once I got to BU.

Emily (07:15): So you just told me a shockingly low number for your stipend. And tell me, was that just, like, strict, like, hourly pay for that 10-hour week position? Did it come with any benefits like tuition waiver or, like, how did that part of it work?

Sophie (07:28): Uh, it did not come with any other benefits. So part of being a professional doctoral student at Boston University means that you are not eligible for the five-year funding package like a regular PhD student is. Um, and this was really one of the main reasons why I wanted to get involved in unionization, was that we were doing the same jobs as our peers and PhD programs, uh, and those students were receiving tuition waivers and health insurance benefits and vastly higher pay than we were receiving in the music department. Uh, this was common for all of my colleagues in the music education doctoral program. Uh, so I actually was also paying for my health insurance and paying tuition, uh, for my doctoral program, um, which is uncommon and, uh, not something I would do again. <laugh>

Emily (08:26): Well, what was, like, the plan? Like, coming into this, you didn’t know about the union yet, right? Or what changes might be coming. So was your plan like, “Yep, I’m gonna keep this assistantship position 10 hours per week, this is my pay, and everything else is on loans?” Like you were comfortable with that for the duration of your program?

Sophie (08:42): I wasn’t super comfortable about it for the duration of my program. My plan was always to be applying for more scholarships and fellowships and see what I could do to kind of increase my funding package. I was planning to appeal my financial aid. That’s something that I’d done, uh, in my master’s program, which I did at the University of Denver. And I’d managed to increase my funding package to cover my tuition for that. So I kind of knew that that was an option to negotiate with the university for my funding. So I’d kind of gone in with a plan to, to take on a second job, uh, and to do some negotiation alongside applying for fellowships and scholarships and other sources of financial aid.

Emily (09:26): Okay. You just mentioned a second job, but how does that work with the visa situation?

Sophie (09:30): As long as you’re under 20 hours a week, you can have on-campus –

Emily (09:33): So it’s like an on-campus job.

Sophie (09:34): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Formation of the Boston University Graduate Workers Union

Emily (09:36): Gotcha. So that’s so interesting that you came in with a plan of obviously finding another job to get up to 20 hours a week, and then also an individual negotiation plan. But this obviously morphed into… Or maybe you did, still did that, but it obviously also became a collective negotiation, uh, plan. So we understand what your status was when you started. <laugh> What was the status of the union? When did it form? What contract were you in?

Sophie (09:59): So we, uh, had not yet voted to be recognized as an official union yet when I arrived. Um, the union students had been organizing things for a long time before I arrived at BU, and I kind of arrived just at the right time as we were getting ready in the spring of 2023 to vote on whether we wanted to start bargaining for a contract. So I connected with some members of the union in advance and asked how I could become involved, what it would look like in my department. Um, and through that, I participated in the vote to, uh, recognize the union officially. Uh, and then I was elected to represent the College of Fine Arts on the bargaining team. So I got very heavily involved pretty quickly in, uh, writing the contract and organizing my department and speaking on behalf of my department at the bargaining table, uh, which kind of started in the summer of 2023 and went through to 25, might have been the end of 2024, 25.

Emily (11:18): What kind of mandate was the vote? Like, at what percentage did it pass? And, like, what were the key issues that were motivating graduate students to take that step?

Sophie (11:26): Yeah. Uh, I, I’m pretty sure we were a really high percentage that voted to form the union. Like, I think it was, um… I’m sure I could find this information somewhere on Instagram, but, uh, as far as I remember, we voted in the high 80%s to form the union. And then, um, most of the issues we were organizing around was a cost of living adjustment and tying wages to the cost of rent in Boston. Um, so our, our main priority was to alleviate all graduate workers from rent burden, which is around, you should be spending less than a third of your income on rent, I think, was the number. Um, and so that was the main things we were organizing around, because I think at that time, the lowest paid PhD student was getting around $23,000 a year, um, which in Boston is not, not really enough to, to pay rent in Boston. Um –

Emily (12:35): Yeah, you, you could pay rent.

Sophie (12:37): And nothing else.

Emily (12:37): And nothing, nothing else. <laugh>

Sophie (12:39): Um, so I think it was primarily the, the movement was centered around that cost of living adjustment, and we were also campaigning for better childcare provisions for, uh, working parents, uh, and just other supports for international students and students with disabilities as well. That was a big part of the movement.

Emily (13:03): All right. So you’re on the bargaining committee. <laugh> Tell us about a view that not many people get to have directly, right? So, like, just tell us about that experience.

Sophie (13:13): Yeah. Uh, so I worked really closely with a lot of the non-PhD students, so people like master students who held hourly jobs on campus, people in other professional doctoral programs like I was in, that includes, like, the doctor of physical therapy and ed students, um, a lot of the programs that make up a lot of the student body but aren’t covered by a five-year funding program. Um, and we did a lot of research into how much would the hourly wage have to be in order for us to be non-rent burdened in Boston University dorms, because that’s, that’s where I was living at the time. I was, like, living in a campus dorm. Um, and so we did the math on how much money we’d have to make in order to afford a BU dorm, and we ended up with an hourly wage of around $45 an hour. So that was kind of where we entered into our negotiations, was everybody on an hourly job needs, uh, this much an hour.

Emily (14:24): Our – But sorry, going back to the, the rest of your funding package. Was that considering how much would be paid towards tuition, et cetera?

Sophie (14:31): No, that was purely looking at how much would it cost to live in Boston and attend the institute, like, to, to live in the city where you go to school. Um, we had a separate group working on tuition remission, uh, which was the biggest, uh, from my perspective, the biggest sticking point, uh, when we went into negotiations with the institution, um, mostly because we thought that if you were working for the institution, you should receive the same benefits as anyone else, uh, but the institution argued back that it would be too difficult to track master’s students who, like, came in and out, um, and that that tuition remission was too high of a benefit. So that was one of the things that we kept putting back into the, the contract, and the university kept asking us to take it out, um, and it ended up not making it to the, to the final contract, um, which is still one of my, like, my bugbears if I was on the, if I was on the union again, I’d go back and really fight even harder for that tuition remission, especially for professional doctorates who are doing, you know, research the same as any other PhD student. Um, it’s kind of tough to, to be paying to write your dissertation. Um –

Emily (15:58): Something that I hear often and, and, and say from time to time is, like, the university, you know, they view these student workers… It’s a, it’s a dual thing, right? When it’s convenient to the university the student worker is a student, and when it’s convenient to the university, the student worker is a worker, and they kinda get to dictate how the relationship is viewed. Um, so it sounds like they were really trying to keep, um, those of you outside the PhD programs still students um, as more of a worker and… But a part-time worker. Not like a full-time worker who gets full-time type benefits, which would include things like tuition reductions. But rather this, like, part-time worker, but really just a worker kind of status, and really viewing you in a different category from the PhD students. That is what I’m hearing.

Sophie (16:47): Yeah. And I, I would say that that’s how it felt as well. Like, I gradually, throughout my time at BU, transitioned away from working as a research assistant at CFA to being employed, uh, full-time per international student regulations at the GPS office. Um, and those two worlds were completely separate for me. Like, my job at GPS had absolutely nothing to do on paper with my, my status as a student at the CFA, um, the College of Fine Arts. And a lot of the time, those two things never crossed paths. Um, so what I was doing in the provost office was completely separate from what I was doing as a student in the music education department. Um, and certainly, like, I, I left and went to GPS because there was more opportunity for better pay and better opportunities for progression in that position than working as a research assistant. Um, but it, it really did feel like I was doing a second job on top of writing my dissertation because there was no overlap. It wasn’t like I was, you know, doing research for my dissertation that got paid. I was doing a dissertation and working 20 hours a week for a different position.

Emily (18:14): I think that’s a really important thing, especially for prospective graduate students to understand about how money <laugh> works in graduate school. It’s like having a research assistant type of position when, as you just said, your research goes into your dissertation, it’s very holistic. You get to spend your 40 hours a week or whatever, you know, however much you’re trying to do, um, on all things that are furthering your own professional development and progression towards, you know, graduation. Whereas if you have… Like what I would say, like, I would put a umbrella term over your position as like a graduate assistantship, like it’s more administrative type work, um, and also to some extent teaching assistantships. Those are things that you have to spend time on that don’t directly contribute to your research. Now, maybe if you’re lucky with the teaching especially, there could be some degree of overlap, but for those kinds of positions, you really have to be more like looking that you’ve found something that is furthering your own professional development so that it’s helping you in that next stage of your career, even if it’s not directly helping you write your dissertation.That’s the way that I think about it. Is that also similar to how you think about it?

Sophie (19:18): Yeah. I think I developed a completely different set of skills working for GPS. Like, I, I got to speak at conferences about graduate student professional development. I helped to initiate completely new systems at the university that are now being, you know, used after I’m gone. And I got to see how administrative positions work in higher education, which was worth way more than anything I was doing in a research assistant capacity, um, because I got to be in the room where those conversations were taking place. Um, so that… Like I don’t regret having that job, but it… There’s nothing I did there that I could then take into my dissertation. Um, and it’s, it’s a different set of skills that I can put on my resume and my CV now, and I’m looking for jobs in administrative positions. Um, but it also isn’t like I can show a university a teaching role and say I taught undergrads this position. Like, I’ve definitely got to work harder to communicate how those skills transfer into what traditional faculty positions are looking for.

Emily (20:33): Well, let’s go back to the, the bargaining, um, table, the bargaining experience. So you shared what didn’t make it into the final contract that was most relevant for you and your peers. Um, can you share with us some things that did change, um, through that bargaining process, and also maybe some other things that ended up not making it in that you were attempting?

Sophie (20:52): Yeah. Uh, so I think our biggest win overall, something that I’m so proud of and have got to see really make a difference to a lot of my colleagues’ lives was that we raised the minimum PhD stipend from, as I said earlier, like $23,000 for the lowest paid to the mid – 40s. I think it’s around $45,000 now. So we’ve effectively doubled the lowest paid PhDs salary, um, which made a huge difference. I have friends who were like, “Oh, I can breathe now and I don’t have to work an additional job outside of my PhD. And like, I can afford to maybe go home and see my family every now and then.” Um, and that was, that’s made a huge difference, uh, across our student body, I would say. And I think that’s something I’m really proud of, is that we managed to get that, that quality of life improvement for so many students.

Commercial

Emily (21:55): Emily here for a brief interlude! I’m hard at work behind the scenes updating my suite of tax return preparation workshops for tax year 2026. These educational workshops guide you in identifying, calculating, and reporting your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2026 tax season starting in January 2027, I’m offering live and asynchronous workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

Unionizing and Striking for Higher Stipends

Emily (23:16): I happened to interview, um, a PhD student at Boston University a few months ago. It came out in season 24, episode 3. Richard Coca’s my guest. And I believe he was in like a neuroscience type field. And he shared that, um, his stipend didn’t change too much. It went up, I think, a little bit, um, but his program was already paying close to that, um, what became the new minimum. Um, so I just wanted to point out, like, it wasn’t like everybody across the whole university was being paid at that 23. There was a huge disparity um, in the stipends. And I think that, you know, absent a unionization push, like, I don’t really see universities, you know, equalizing their stipends or, or setting a higher minimum, like, across the board. Um, I, I’ve seen it happen very successfully under the unionization conditions or the, or the threat of unionization, um, but not without it. So yeah, what, what’s your insight about that? Like, was there any motivation for those programs to raise their stipends, like, absent y’all’s efforts?

Sophie (24:17): I don’t think so. And it, it actually became a little bit of a sticking point within the university was that, like, people whose departments were already paying above that minimum, uh, were not as incentivized to keep going for the students and workers who were below that minimum. Uh, so one of the areas of pushback we got when continuing to hold the strike on was that, you know, a lot of students were not, were happy with the concessions that had already been made, and so they didn’t wanna be on strike anymore, whereas we had some people in lower paid programs who were like, “No, this, this is still a big difference in my quality of life if we keep the… If we don’t push to get the minimum raised.” Um, so it’s certainly, like, it’s not all sunshine on the union side of things either where, like, the membership was in such a diverse space where you’re trying to convince people who already have a relatively good salary to hold out until the people who are far- farther behind can catch up to them. Um –

Emily (25:28): But it did happen. So tell us more about, um, the strike and how you all motivated the students to, you know, see it through.

Sophie (25:36): Uh, it was tough. That was a really long strike. And I, I think we might still be the longest grad worker strike in US labor history, which is, uh, something to be both proud of and a little bit, like, sad about, uh, because it was tough. I think everyone missed their jobs. Like, a lot of our people were teaching and they loved to teach. Um, and it was kinda sad, but we actually got a lot of good buy-in from the undergrads. Like, when, uh, when undergrads told their parents that, like, we were on strike and this is what the university was doing to try and, like… There was a, there was a moment where they tried to replace us with AI. The university encouraged, uh, professors to use AI to lead discussion groups instead of the grad students. Uh, and when that got out to parents, there was a lot of backlash. Um –

Emily (26:35): Boy, I can imagine. <laugh>

Sophie (26:37): It was, like, that was maybe not the best move that the university made. It was a really special moment for me to see people from all over the institution and our alumni network come together to support us and recognize that a rising tide lifts all boats. Like, the, the lecturer’s union was there to support us. We had local politicians and, uh, Ayanna Pressley, our member of Congress, came out as a BU alum to support the strike. Um, we had a, um, like a GoFundMe situation that we were using to, uh, support s – workers who were losing wages, uh, and that raised a lot of money. A lot of people in our alumni network, and, again, parents of current BU undergrads were really supportive, and other graduate workers’ unions from across the country donated to our strike fund to help to support students who needed to pay rent, even while they were on strike. Um, and SEIU were great as well with that. They had a strike fund as well, so as long as you came to the picket, um, or participated in other strike-related activities, like phone banking or, um, other kind of online… We had online opportunities as well, you were eligible for strike pay, um, which was another great way to just support people while they were engaging in the strike. So, um, it was long, it was tense. Uh, I think a lot of people, um, felt a little bit betrayed by the university just with all of the tactics that went on to try and figure out who was on strike and how they, they could dock wages for being on strike. Um, but I think it was effective, and we really… I felt really heartened to see how people came together to support one another, and all of the big community cooking sessions, and, um, being together through a really cold March. It was really, really cold, uh, every day to pick it outside on the campus. It was just, uh, a really unique experience.

Emily (28:58): So tell me a little bit more details about the strike. I don’t think I’ve interviewed anyone who’s participated in one as a graduate student. Um, h- how long did it go on for overall?

Sophie (29:07): Uh, nine months, I think.

Emily (29:09): Nine months. Yeah. That’s what I was… I was thinking it was, like, most of an academic year or something around that. So were people then, some graduate students, not being paid during that period of time? So, you know, you’re just mentioning other sources of funding. And how does that work for people who are… Do they still get to progress in their programs? Or, like, how, how does it functionally work maybe for, you know, you mentioned TAs, that’s, like, obvious thing of not participating in your TA activities. How would that work for, like, a research assistant?

Sophie (29:38): Uh, it was kinda complicated because we definitely encouraged people to keep working if they were… If it would s – if it would affect their progress to a degree. Uh, so a lot of the people that were on strike were people in TA positions, uh, administrative positions. Um, there was a distinction between what was considered like service and non-service, um, which I can’t honestly remember the exact detailing of, but it was, that was kind of how the distinction was drawn both in the contract and within the union. So if your job was considered, uh, service, then you would strike. And if you were non-service, uh, which like my position within graduate and postdoctoral affairs, as we used to be known, uh, was non-service because it wasn’t related to my degree. Um, so I was on strike as a research assistant at CFA, but not from my position within GPS, um, because those two were considered different types of positions. It was really weird and complicated. And, uh, it was complicated as someone in the union that kind of played into a lot of people’s favor because the university also couldn’t tell between who was service and who was non-service. And so a lot of people didn’t have their wages withheld because they couldn’t tell who was service and non-service and it just, uh, it became quite messy. Uh, yeah.

Emily (31:22): That is so interesting. And did you also, was there also support coming from the faculty, either like overtly or subtly?

Sophie (31:31): Um, sometimes it depended a lot on the department. Um, so like in my department, none of the faculty are tenured either. So there was, uh, covert support, but not anything as vocal as some of the other departments who had like tenure behind them, who had unionization behind them. Um, and certainly a lot of what we were doing was working with supportive faculty to kind of understand how administration were communicating, what was happening to them, um, how we could communicate what we wanted more accurately to faculty too was really important because a lot of, uh, what was happening in the news was that our, our demands were being taken out of context. Um, and so we tried to keep an open line of communication with faculty too to, to help understand that like if we get better working conditions, you get better working conditions too, because we can better support you. Um, and hopefully that will encourage better treat-, like better pay for faculty members in future as well. Um –

Emily (32:48): Good point. As you said, rising tide lifts all boats, not just across the grad student population, but you can’t have faculty who are making only 10% more than, you know, the graduate students or whatever it might be. Um, okay, so you in the bargaining committee as the strike is going on, are there still conversations happening? Are there breakdowns and, and going back and forth? And what seemed to be, I guess, from your point of view, the university’s reaction to all of this and kind of how it came to a conclusion?

Sophie (33:18): Um, it, it kind of got to a point where we were both at a bit of a stalemate where it was like the university were like, “This is our best and final offer.” We were still, uh, unhappy with a lot of that, especially in terms of like hourly pay. I think we ended up with a minimum pay of $20 an hour where we really wanted 25. I think what eventually ended the strike was that enough of our members saw a significant enough increase to their quality of life that the majority then voted to end the strike. So every time we came back with a new, uh, offer from the university, it was presented to our union members to vote on whether we wanted to accept the offer or not. Um, and it just, I think after nine months being on strike, everyone kind of just wanted to, to get on with life again. Um, and I think there was a lot of really great stuff in the contract. There’s certainly room for growth as they’re currently negotiating the new contract. This was a three-year contract. So they should be negotiating in the next year for the next contract cycle. I haven’t been involved with the union very much since we kind of got that contract through. I was like, “Okay, I have to write my dissertation <laugh> now.” Um, and so I kind of took a step back from union life. I told everybody I’m Weingarten right trained, uh, so I was still very involved within my department as like a union member and if you need anyone to come and help you in any disputes, you know, I’m, I’m around and happy to help out. I’ll be excited to see what the new contract looks like. Like there’s a lot of connections with other schools in the area. I know Boston College, uh, they got a pay raise because of what we were doing at BU. I have a friend who is doing their PhD over at Boston College, and he was like, “Hey, when you guys went on strike and we threatened to unionize, they bumped our pay too, so thanks.” Like it’s nice to know that kind of there’s that, uh, knock-on effect of what’s happening in the community around us.

Emily (35:33): Not just that community. Like it, it ripples out nationally too. I mean, it’s more salient when you can do a comparable, you know, cost of living comparison. Having seen so many graduate student unions formed over the last five, six year, eight years, it’s bolstered everybody’s case that comes after that. And the comparisons with peer institutions doesn’t just have to be local, right? It’s national as well.

Sophie (35:54): Yeah, absolutely. It was huge for us to get those wins, and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done in terms of making life better for students at BU. I think our argument the entire time we were in bargaining was that you should be able to afford to attend the institution that you’re working for based on only the job that you do for the institution that you attend. Um, and I think we’ve gotten a lot closer to that. Obviously, Boston is an expensive city, but it’s nice to know that we played a part in making it a little bit more affordable for people at BU.

How Dr. Lewis’s Personal Finances Were Impacted by Unionization

Emily (36:37): Let’s… We, we started the interview talking about your funding situation, how, how you were affording your program. So post, you know, contract goes into place, you’ve already shared you had switched positions, you were working 20 hours a week. Like how were your personal finances impacted or your loan amounts or whatever it is?

Sophie (36:55): Uh, so I was able to negotiate myself into a salaried position at GPS, um, as the contract went on. It… I mean, I, I have a very unique case where, like, a lot of my advisors and supervisors at the GPS office were also people who were on the bargaining team on the university side of the table. And so they kind of saw both sides and, and we learned to, you know, keep unionization at the table and keep my work at work. Um, but they were really gracious in, uh, helping to set up a more sustainable work environment for me at BU. And so, uh, at the end of the summer of 2024, which I think as the contract resolved, uh, I became a salaried worker. So I didn’t have benefits or anything else, but I was making an equivalent salary to a PhD student on the contract, um, which meant that I was, uh, no longer paying tuition because I was down to just paying for continuing education credits to, as I wrote my dissertation. I’d also gotten into, uh, subsidized housing through the university, which was like a competitive scholarship situation, but my rent went down to, like, $500 a month, <laugh> which was insane. <laugh> Um, and my pay doubled, basically. Um, so that change kind of meant I didn’t need to take out any more loans. I was able to save, which has made huge difference, uh, to my financial wellbeing. Um, and I got to keep a job that I really enjoyed doing, um, without needing to, like, find something else to do at BU. So I’m lucky I was able to advocate for myself and have supportive supervisors who were willing to push that through, so.

Emily (39:09): I like presenting that, um, sort of story of hope for other graduate students who come in with a funding package that they’re not… <laugh> It’s like, “Well, I guess I could do this for the duration of the program, but I’m not thrilled about it.” Um, that, you know, once you make those connections at the university and you demonstrate your value, that you can move into different positions and it it can have a better outlook over time. Yeah. Um, so I’m, I’m really heartened to hear that. Sophie, this has been such a lovely interview, and thank you so much for, you know, sharing your experience with this. Um, is there anything you wanna add more about the unionization process?

Sophie (39:43): Talk to your colleagues. That’s, like, the best piece of advice I could have to people, and especially as unionization picks up around the country. Like, talk to your colleagues, understand what’s happening in your department, and know how your pay compares to your colleagues, uh, because knowing that difference makes life a lot easier when you are able to point to someone else and say, “Well, they’re making this. Why am I not making this for the same work?”

Emily (40:12): Totally agree. Salary transparency is one of my, um, big, uh, areas of, of work and promotion within my business. Um, to that end, my website, PhDStipends, is where you can go to anonymously share your stipend information, but it is more powerful if you can do it with the person down the hall or in the next office, um, because like you said, then you can take that as your case to your higher ups.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (40:37): Well, Sophie, as we come to the end of our interview here, I’ll ask you the question that I ask of all my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for an early career doctoral, um, recipient? And it can be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it can be something completely new.

Sophie (40:53): I would recommend that everyone know when to expect your pay and who to contact if and when that pay does not come. Uh, one of the things that gets really messy with unionization is just, like, knowing who’s gonna get paid what and when they’re supposed to get paid, and just knowing when to expect it to hit your bank account means that you can fix problems a lot more quickly if and when they come up. And just knowing who to talk to about that stuff is really helpful in a very messy university system.

Emily (41:25): Yeah, it’s actually good advice more broadly for everyone of just, like, know who to go to if you had a certain type of emergency come up, like, “My pay didn’t arrive on time or was the wrong amount or, um, that tuition waiver didn’t post and my bill is due.” You know, just when it’s an urgent situation, already having done the research of knowing who to reach out to, super, super helpful um, if and when that moment arrives. Okay, Sophie, thank you so much again for giving this interview. It was wonderful to see you again.

Sophie (41:55): It was so lovely to see you too, and thanks for having me.

Outro

Emily (41:57): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

How You and Your Higher-Earning Partner Manage Your Money Affects Relationship Satisfaction

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Emily Garbinsky, an associate professor of marketing at Cornell who studies how couples behave with their money. Emily first reviews the common models for structuring money within couples and the surprising effect the choice has on relationship satisfaction. Emily and Emily then discuss income disparities, such as those between a PhD trainee and a higher-earning partner, and how power dynamics can affect how couples choose to split expenses. Finally, Emily shares her thoughts about how to adapt when an income disparity shrinks or even flips and the unique career challenge facing academics and their partners.

Links mentioned in the Episode

How You and Your Higher-Earning Partner Manage Your Money Affects Relationship Satisfaction

Teaser

Emily G (00:00): Based on the science that’s out there, I don’t think we can make a claim that joint finances lead to objectively better financial decisions, but we do know that it helps to get couples on the same page, so it at least helps with more transparency and can help them achieve their goals.

Introduction

Emily (00:18): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:50): This is Season 25, Episode 3, and today my guest is Dr. Emily Garbinsky, an associate professor of marketing at Cornell who studies how couples behave with their money. Emily first reviews the common models for structuring money within couples and the surprising effect the choice has on relationship satisfaction. Emily and I then discuss income disparities, such as those between a PhD trainee and a higher-earning partner, and how power dynamics can affect how couples choose to split expenses. Finally, Emily shares her thoughts about how to adapt when an income disparity shrinks or even flips and the unique career challenge facing academics and their partners.

Emily (01:34): This fall, I’m presenting four virtual seminars on personal finance topics for prospective and current funded graduate students in the US. The first two are practice rounds for presentations I’m giving at ABRCMS in November, titled The Grad Student Financial Checkup and Will the Stipend Be Enough?. The second two are chapter topics from my book, titled Increase Your Income Inside or Outside of Academia and The Most Effective Frugal Strategies for Grad Students. I invite you to participate in these seminars for free in exchange for your feedback on the material. The seminars will be on four consecutive Fridays between October 23rd and November 13, 2026. I’m unlikely to ever offer this content again in this format, so grab your spot now! Go to PFforPhDs.com/FreeSeminars/ to register. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e3/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Emily Garbinsky.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily R (02:47): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today Dr. Emily Garbinski, who is an associate professor of marketing at Cornell in the SC Johnson College of Business. I actually heard Emily on an episode of So Money, which is one of my favorite podcasts. It was published back in February of 2026, if you wanna go back and listen to that episode. Farnoosh Torabi is the host of that podcast. It’s an excellent episode and it just got me thinking about how we could leverage Emily’s expertise for the topics that I and you care about as funded graduate students and postdocs and early career PhDs. And specifically, we’re gonna be talking about couples and money and how couples handle finances. And specifically, we’re gonna get down to when there are income disparities, as you might be experiencing in your own relationship if you’re in one, and even what happens when those income disparities flip polarity. So we’ll get to that by the end of the interview. Emily, I’m so excited that you agreed to join me on the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the listeners?

Emily G (03:45): Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be on the show. So as mentioned, my name’s Emily Garbinski. I’m an associate professor of marketing at Cornell. Just some background on me. So I did my undergraduate education, Carnegie Mellon University, and I got a bachelor’s in decision science. From there, I moved to west coast best coast and spent five years getting my PhD in marketing from Stanford. My first academic job was at the University of Notre Dame. I spent six years on the faculty there, and then I moved to Cornell, and I’ve been here for five years.

From Decision Science to How Couples Manage Their Finances

Emily R (04:22): Excellent. Thank you so much for elaborating there. Just based on what you’ve mentioned so far, decision science and marketing, I’m not hearing personal finance, I’m not hearing relationships in that yet. Like how did you specifically come to this research topic? And what exactly is your research topic?

Emily G (04:37): Yes. So when I was working on my PhD, at that time I was really interested in consumer financial decision making. And so I was really focusing on questions like how can we help people save more money for the future and how can we make sure that people are prepared for retirement? And to my surprise, a lot of work in the space focused on individual decision making, right? So how can we help individuals make better choices with their own money? But as we all know, our relationship partners play a really big role in the extent to which we decide to spend versus save our money. And I kind of noticed that there was this, this gap in the literature. There wasn’t a ton of people doing research in this space. And so I started working on one project, looking at how couples manage finances and just realized that it was my favorite project that I was working on and then another project followed and another. And now I would say it’s my primary focus and where I feel like my biggest contributions have been in personal finance literature.

Three Models for Structuring Your Financial Accounts as a Couple

Emily R (05:45): Very exciting and one of the reasons I’m so excited to have you on the show today. So when I was first becoming interested in personal finance, and this might have been back around 2010, something like that, I remember reading a few papers on how couples structured their money and the papers were probably even older than that. And I remember there being like three basic models, and you can tell me if there’s any updates to this, of fully joint finances, we pool everything together, fully separate, nothing is pooled whatsoever, and a hybrid model, a yours, mine and ours model where there’s some joint, some pooling, and some separation. And at the time that I was reading about that, again, probably 15 plus years ago, it was very much the most common model to have a complete pooling. And so I’m wondering what are the updates on this? Are those the models that are still being used? And specifically for my audience, which is likely Gen Z or younger millennials, how are young couples today structuring their finances on a population level?

Emily G (06:45): Sure. I’ll answer this sort of in two parts. With your first part about sort of account structure, you’re absolutely right that this is a three-part model, pool everything, have a partial pooling approach, keep everything separate. And so this is also where I started when I began investigating how couples manage finances. So the first question I had is like, how should we be pooling our finances, if at all? And perhaps most importantly, are there consequences to how you pool your finances with your partner? And so I’ve looked at this from, I would say two different angles. And so the first angle or the first question that I wanted to tackle is how does the decision to pool or not affect how you decide to spend your money or the types of things that you’re spending your money on? As you can imagine, since I’m in marketing, I was very interested in consumption related consequences. And so what my co-author and I found is that when you spend money from a joint bank account, you experience a much higher need to be able to justify how you spend that money to your partner. And because we experience a higher need to justify, we’re more likely to buy products that we consider to be responsible or utilitarian, and we’re much less likely to buy products that are associated with sort of happiness or what we call hedonic products. And so we see this very consistently over and over again, that people are purchasing or leaning towards purchasing different types of things depending on the account from which they’re spending from. And so that sort of led me to this question of how does account pooling affect how satisfied you are with your relationship overall? And so something that both I found and another wonderful co-author, Jenny Olson, has an amazing paper where she actually randomly assigns newlywed couples to either merge their finances or keep all of their finances completely separate. And she followed them over a two-year period and found that over the course of the two years, couples that had their finances completely pooled experienced much higher satisfaction in their relationship than couples that kept everything completely separate.

Emily R (09:10): That is fascinating. And how rarely do you get to do an experiment like that where you actually get to assign people randomly to groups? Amazing. I’m curious, were there any follow-on questions about not only relationship satisfaction, but maybe life satisfaction overall or perhaps net worth growth? Like how did it actually not just affect their feelings, but their, yeah, their wealth?

Emily G (09:33): So it’s very difficult actually to look at objective net worth differences just because there’s so many different factors that would affect that over time. But if you think about something like life satisfaction, we know, for example, that relationship satisfaction is a really big part of. And so I would imagine we would see increases in life satisfaction through one satisfaction with their relationship. But I think based on the science that’s out there, I don’t think we can make a claim that joint finances lead to objectively better financial decisions, but we do know that it helps to get couples on the same page, so it at least helps with more transparency and can help them achieve their goals.

Emily R (10:18): I guess I just had that question because when you were phrasing it of buying more utilitarian type products from a joint account and not so much the hedonic products or services, I was just thinking that like some people need that accountability to meet their financial goals, for example, and so that actually might result in more savings or higher net worth. But maybe by buying fewer of those hedonic products, they might not have as much life satisfaction. Maybe they do it, but they’re not happy about it, even if they’re happy in their relationship. But I understand it’s very difficult to study those kinds of things and you answered the questions that you’re able to.

Emily G (10:54): My intuition is actually the same as yours. I thought we were gonna find opposite. <laugh> So I though people that are buying these products associated with happiness and using separate accounts might actually be happier and even more satisfied in their relationship because they feel like they’re purchasing whatever they want. But it actually seems that overall, a greater input into our relationship satisfaction is just feeling like we’re a team, right? So these hedonic products can increase short-term happiness, but if we think more about long-term happiness and life satisfaction is very much a proxy for long-term happiness, it seems that we see the flip such that joint accounts lead to greater relationship satisfaction and potentially life satisfaction.

Emily R (11:38): Yeah. And I just wanted to note, I think you said for that particular study, this was married couples, newly married couples. So they had already made that decision. They’d come to that point of that legal commitment, right? And so we’re not necessarily talking. We don’t know if we would see the same results for a, a couple at a different stage in their relationship.

Emily G (11:55): Yes. The study that was done looked specifically at newlyweds.

To Pool or Not to Pool? How Life Events Influence Shared Finances

Emily R (11:59): Yes. And then I guess to take it back to, that was a study done relatively recently, presumably on newlyweds. Do we know overall statistics about how younger couples are choosing to pool or not pool?

Emily G (12:11): Yes. So younger couples are actually much more likely to keep their money separate and they decide to merge when there’s some sort of big life event that necessitates. And so when I say big life event, this could of course be getting married as, as was done in the study, but it could also be something like just deciding to move in together and thinking about how you’re going to pay for your joint rent in your new apartment or your new place together. And so when that happens, what we see is that these couples tend to engage in this partial pooling practice where they’ll open, for example, a joint account where they can put money for their rent, for their groceries, for any shared expenses that they have together.

Emily R (12:56): And you just said that younger couples are much more likely to keep their money separate. Are you saying that’s relative to older generations or absolutely they are keeping things separate, perhaps with some exceptions of these life events? And then if those life events occur, what’s kind of the balance between people who stay fully separate and who do partial pooling or full pooling?

Emily G (13:17): Yeah. So this is relative to older couples that tend to be more likely to be married. And so once you marry, this is when people start to just merge more of their finances over time. But we are starting to see some shifts because couples are putting marriage off later and later, and so people are coming into a marriage with more assets than they had before compared to couples that were getting married young where it kind of made sense just to pool everything together when you had less.

Emily R (13:47): And I wonder, is the arrival of children one of those big life events that pushes couples more towards pooling?

Emily G (13:54): Absolutely.

Commercial

Emily (13:57): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, budgeting, or designing your financial life, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer live workshops, asynchronous online courses, and cohort-based programs on these topics, and I’m now booking for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Advice for Couples With Significant Income Disparities

Emily R (15:26): Now I wanna think specifically about a situation that a lot of PhD trainees may be in, which is that they are in a relationship, but there is a significant income disparity. Maybe a grad student partnered with someone who has a full-time permanent job, same thing for postdocs. What does the research show or what advice would you have for a person, the lower earning person in that situation? Are there any best practices that you’ve uncovered?

Emily G (15:52): Yeah, so I can tell you first what I see in the data, and then I can talk a little bit about just some insights or some advice that I have from it. So with one of my PhD students, she’s specifically interested in heterosexual couples with an income disparity. And so one of the things that we’re looking at together is how do couples that have an income disparity choose to split shared expenses? And so as you can imagine, there are two common ways in which couples can split shared expenses. So they can either pay for something proportionally to income, which means that the higher earner would pay more because they make more, or they can split something equally, right? Split it right down the middle, fifty fifty split. And so one of the things that we find over and over again in our data is that the way in which couples choose to split shared expenses seems to be driven by the gender of the higher earner. And so what we find is that when the higher earner is the man, couples are much more likely to split proportionally the income. But when the higher earner is the woman, couples are much more likely to split equally. And so the question, of course, that we’re asking ourselves is, okay, why? Why do we see this over and over again? And it seems to come down to the idea of power and financial decision-making power. And so what seems to be happening is in relationships with income discrepancies, the higher earner sort of by default has more financial decision-making power, right? They are earning more of the money, and so they kind of feel like if there’s a shared expense, they should have more say because they’re bringing in more money to the relationship. And so what we see is that because men on average just tend to be more agentic, they really struggle with this idea of having their power be reduced. And so they’re trying to reclaim some of their decision-making power by offering to pay their fair share, which some would argue would be the fifty fifty split.

Emily G (18:06): But women, on the other hand, because women are much more communal, they don’t really mind as much if they have less decision-making power. And so they’re perfectly happy to just let the man pay for more and go with the proportional split if the man earns more. What does this mean for couples with income discrepancies? What, what advice would I give? I think what I would say is that just to be cognizant of the fact that if you are splitting a shared expense in which the higher earner does tend to have more weight, I think it’s important to realize that the shared expense is gonna be used by both of you. And so I think even if you are the lower earning PhD student, you should feel free to speak up and voice your preference, right? It’s your apartment too. It’s your car too. It’s your vacation too. And there’s no real reason why you shouldn’t have as much of a say in something that you are in fact contributing your own money to help, right?

Emily R (19:02): So I like that extension of your observation about this because you’re not really coming down on, “Oh, it’s better to do fifty fifty. It’s better to do proportional split.” You’re just saying, “These are the tendencies that people have. Let’s take a step back from that and understand the motivations.” And if you just use your voice as the lower earning person, you could be in either situation and you’re still trying to be heard equitably in your relationship. So that’s an amazing observation. Thank you.

Emily G (19:29): Yes. We don’t have, from the data, a clear finding of, “Oh, couples should split this way or they should split this way.” But what we do know is that people are upset if they feel like they don’t have a voice and they feel like they’re not being heard. And so this is a case where, I guess it’s different from what we found with the joint account data where it’s very clear pooling finances increases relationship satisfaction. Here, it’s just we see these descriptive differences between couples and we’re trying to wonder or ask ourselves why this is happening. And what we do know from decades of research at this point on power is that when people feel powerless, that’s a really aversive state. And so making sure that people feel power in their relationship is gonna be really important. And oftentimes we link power to money, and that doesn’t always necessarily have to be the way it’s done or handled in the relationship.

Emily R (20:23): And I guess I’ll also note for listeners wondering about this, the, the practice of pooling, like if you’re listening and saying, “Oh, I want greater relationship satisfaction, maybe I’ll bring up pooling with my partner.” The pooling can be fifty fifty. It can be proportional income. You can do it either way. That’s. Or somewhere in between. It’s not prescriptive in that way you can still pool in either one of those scenarios.

Emily G (20:43): Yes. And I think another thing that’s important for me to communicate is the fact that what does pooling do? It essentially increases transparency and it forces couples to get on the same page and have conversations about where they are with their finances. And this is something that you can do even without pooling, right? Pooling is just one way to facilitate that, but there’s a lot of apps and a lot of tools out there like Monarch, for example, or Honey Do is another app that’s specifically made for couples that can increase financial transparency and help you get on the same page. So if you’re someone that’s not fully comfortable with the idea of merging accounts or opening a joint bank account with your partner, you can still achieve higher financial transparency or financial intimacy just by being open about your financial status.

The Complexities of Academic Life: Major Income Changes and Relocation

Emily R (21:38): Yeah. Thank you for adding that. That’s another great observation. Um, okay. Let’s think about a further evolution of the scenario we just talked about, which is we have a couple with income disparity, one person is in PhD training, maybe one person’s in that full permanent job, and then things switch. The PhD comes out of training, they receive a massive income increase. Woo-hoo, everybody’s so excited about that. But then what changes in their relationship and the power dynamics that you were just talking about? Has this been studied at all? And again, are there best practices around this?

Emily G (22:10): Yes. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn’t been studied specifically in the literature, but I am happy to talk about what I think would happen and also just give some anecdotal observations. And what we know is that change is hard, and it’s also really difficult to prioritize two careers equally. And so I think what happens in a lot of couples is that people just naturally tend to prioritize the career of the person who makes more. And so if there is some sort of flip in the relationship, it’s gonna be quite difficult for the person who was once the breadwinner and no longer is to maybe take a back seat. And I think PhDs in particular, and especially PhDs that go into academia, have a really difficult time because not only might the breadwinner within the relationship flip, but oftentimes we don’t have a lot of say in where we have a job or where we have to move. And I think it’s really hard for the partner that has to suddenly pick up and relocate and move potentially to a location where they don’t wanna move, but it might be the only academic job that their partner got. And so this is really, really complicated relationship dynamics.

Emily G (23:28): And so I’ve seen this go both ways. I’ve seen examples where couples thrive and they have a partner that says, “You go out and you get the best academic job you can get and I’ll make it work.” I’ve also seen couples where they’ve fallen apart because the partner doesn’t wanna move where the spouse got a job. And so now they’re doing long distance because the other spouse just didn’t wanna make it work or couldn’t, or to some extent couldn’t make it work. Maybe it wasn’t their fault. And so one thing that I think is really important for PhDs in particular is just to be super open with your partner about your career trajectory, your career plans. If your partner’s not able to accommodate a move to anywhere in the country, I think targeted job searches are really important. One thing that drives me crazy in both jobs I’ve had in Ithaca at Cornell and in South Bend at the University of Notre Dame is you interview people and you get excited and you make them an offer and then they say, “Oh, my spouse can’t move here.” When it’s like, I feel like you should have had that conversation before you applied to the job about would it even be realistic for them to pick up and move here? And so I think sort of the general theme of all of this is just that conversations around your job and your career plans are also financial conversations. I don’t know if we always think of them that way, but salary and salary transparency in your career goals and your hopes for the future are all things that you should be talking about. And yeah, so I think just being open and honest about the fact that you might not have a say in where you move and it’s just a very different career and lifestyle, I think is something that is really important for your partner to be aware of.

Emily R (25:19): Yes, I totally agree. And I’m thinking now even about specifically because you mentioned an academic, a PhD who’s continuing on in academia, that may not result in being the higher earning partner. The person who was earning more before may still be the breadwinner in that relationship, and then you really have more power dynamics to deal with if it, we have to move for this job, but it’s not gonna even increase my salary as much as yours is. That is really tough. And obviously within academia, we- There’s a lot of ink spilled about the two-body problem and so forth. And so we have ways of handling that if it’s two academic partners, but not so much if it’s one person in academia and one person not, and certainly not if it’s two people outside of the academic system who are trying to navigate this. So I totally agree. Really?

Emily G (26:02): Yeah. The two-body problem is real. And there, once again, there’s no right answer, right? You can’t say, “Oh, you should clearly do this or you should clearly do that.” Each couple has to have the conversation and figure it out for themselves. And I think the conversation also needs to be ongoing, because I also know instances where maybe a spouse agreed to one thing, and then they move and they start their respective jobs, and then they realize that it’s just not working for them. And I think, once again, just being open and honest about these things is really important.

Emily R (26:31): Yeah. I’m so glad you brought up the particular difficulties of having a career in academia, or we might say overall, just a very specialized career where there might be very limited number of places that you could live in the US or around the world to do your particular unique niche thing that you do. Absolutely.

Emily G (26:48): And I’ve mentioned this a few times, but really excited to be on this podcast for PhDs because it always blows my mind to how people outside of academia don’t really realize, for example, that if you are denied tenure, you have to move. And just having gone through the tenure process recently and telling people like, “Oh, I hope I get it. I hope I get to stay.” And they’re like, “What do you mean?” <laugh> And yeah, these are things that I think are very idiosyncratic to our careers.

Emily R (27:16): And I know I was just mentioning geographical limitations, but academics are spread out, let’s say, across the US. You might land in a town that doesn’t have an industry that’s compatible with your partner’s career track. And thankfully, there is so much more opportunity for remote work now. My husband and I both work remotely and are very happy about that, but not every job is- lends itself to that kind of arrangement. Emily, this has been so insightful. Thank you so much for coming on sharing your research and what you’ve learned from the literature and the studies that you’ve done about couples and money and this income disparity. So fascinating.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily R (27:50): I want to wrap up with the final question that I ask of all my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for an early career PhD? And this can be something we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it can be something completely new.

Emily G (28:02): Okay, great. So I think my best advice is if I think back to my early career as a PhD, and we’re talking about sort of these, these income disparities and these changes in income, I just remember thinking basically overnight, you go from getting used to making a relatively small amount of money for five to six years, and then you wake up the next day and you’re doing much better, right? You get your first job out of the PhD and you’re making a lot more money. And I, I remember feeling like I could just buy whatever I wanted. Like I had so much money now, and it was so much more than, than I had been used to. What we know from the literature is that when income goes up, spending also tends to go up as well. And this is a finding that’s referred to as lifestyle creep.

Emily G (28:53): And so I think my best advice would be to think about maybe some ways to avoid lifestyle creep, and your spending doesn’t have to go up in everything. And so one of the things that I like to do is think about what types of things bring me the most joy, and then I increase my spending on those things. But then other things, I held my spending constant, and I still spend similarly to when I was a PhD student. And so if you think about, for example, other books that are out there, like Cassie Mogilner’s book on Happier Hour teaches us to think about what things help you find the most joy, or Ramit Sethi’s book on Money for Couples and finding your rich life, right? What is your rich life? And so I think that when you get these big boosts to your income, I guess my advice would be to increase spending on things that bring you the most joy, but it’s okay not to splurge on other things.

Emily R (29:54): Absolutely. The way that I phrase that when I teach on this topic, and it’ such an important one for being mindful in those career transition points is that, yeah, we should avoid lifestyle creep or lifestyle inflation, but you absolutely should indulge in intentional lifestyle increases in those areas that matter most to you, as you were saying. And as a follow-on, let’s be real careful about those fixed expenses, okay? Let’s be careful about the housing that we commit to, the car that we commit to, because those are a little harder to change once you’ve made that initial decision and you might have been riding high and not realizing, “Oh, there’s a lot of taxes I have to pay, and oh, there’s a lot of other increases.” So love that advice, very relevant for this audience. Thank you so much. Emily, again, this is a wonderful interview. Thank you very much for coming on.

Emily G (30:39): Thank you so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.

Outro

Emily (30:44): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Financial Chaos Exacerbates a Low Graduate Student Stipend

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Dillon Pruett, an assistant professor in the School of Communication Science and Disorders at Florida State University. This is the first part of a two-part interview in which we discuss Dillon’s financial journey through his PhD and postdoc at Vanderbilt University. Dillon tried to keep his eyes on his own financial paper, but the pay disparity between himself and other graduate students and postdocs was repeatedly brought to his attention. Still, he managed to make it through without accumulating debt and even building modest assets, despite financial setbacks. Dillon’s candor during this conversation is laudable, and his experiences are likely to be both relatable and a cautionary tale for prospective and early graduate students.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Financial Chaos Exacerbates a Low Graduate Student Stipend

Teaser

Dillon (00:00): So literally to this day, every single payday I log in the morning of to see that it hits because I am just scarred from this, from not getting paid. And my wife thinks I’m crazy because she’s like, why are you so obsessed with this payday thing? I’m like, you don’t understand how crazy that was to to deal with.

Introduction

Emily (00:30): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:59): This is Season 23, Episode 7, and today my guest is Dr. Dillon Pruett, an assistant professor in the School of Communication Science and Disorders at Florida State University. This is the first part of a two-part interview in which we discuss Dillon’s financial journey through his PhD and postdoc at Vanderbilt University. Dillon tried to keep his eyes on his own financial paper, but the pay disparity between himself and other graduate students and postdocs was repeatedly brought to his attention. Still, he managed to make it through without accumulating debt and even building modest assets, despite financial setbacks. Dillon’s candor during this conversation is laudable, and his experiences are likely to be both relatable and a cautionary tale for prospective and early graduate students.

Emily (01:49): The tax year 2025 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s23e7/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Dillon Pruett. 

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:03): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Dillon Pruett, who is an assistant professor at Florida State University. And today we are getting a financial journey, starting at undergrad, going through grad school, through postdoc into this first faculty position. And Dillon’s gonna tell us about his experiences and um, maybe some things that didn’t match with his expectations in each one of those stages. So, Dillon, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Will you please introduce yourself further for the audience and give a little bit of your academic background?

Dillon (03:34): Sure. I am Dillon Pruett and I’m an assistant professor in the School of Communication Science and Disorders at Flori- at Florida State. Um, I study stuttering and I also stu stutter. Um, my main area of research is the genetics of, of stuttering. Um, so yeah, I’m happy to kinda just walk through my experiences in undergrad, graduate school, postdoc through my tenure track job now.

How College Costs Shaped Dr. Pruett’s Undergrad Choices

Emily (04:06): Great. And we’re gonna leave this pretty open-ended kind of at each one of these stages I wanted to talk about what was your income like, what was your, what were your assets and liabilities like at each stage? Um, how, how was your lifestyle? What was your money mindset? Um, did you have any goals or did you have any financial habits at each stage? So really we’re gonna leave it kind of open ’cause I would imagine there’s gonna be an evolution across these different stages. But take us back to undergrad and tell us about your finances at that stage.

Dillon (04:33): Yeah. Um, I attended the University of Washington in Seattle. Um, and finances really were a dri a driving factor in that choice. Um, both of my parents grew up in, uh, blue collar house holds. Um, they both attended a regional state school, uh, at a time when you could work a part-time job and mostly pay your tuition, um, with not a lot of loans. Um, and so growing up my parents, you know, uh, repeatedly said that they would do what ef- effort they could to support me, um, in going to my dream school. And, um, that was really awesome that that was their orientation. Uh, but they didn’t really have a lot of understanding of the costs of college. Um, and so I was accepted to UCLA and Cal Berkeley, uh, soon after the financial crisis of 2008, uh, when a lot of those large state schools were increasing their out-of-state enrollment, uh, but not offering a lot of merit or need-based, uh, scholarships for out of state students. Um, and so my parents were, uh, pretty appro, appropriately shocked by the cost and essentially forbade me from taking out, uh, these massive loans to go to school. Um, and that was really disappointing at the time. Uh, but the University of Washington was, uh, affordable and my parents were really pushed for that. Uh, and so looking back, I can really see the logic of the decision. Um, but at at that age in time I was, I was kind of bummed.

Emily (06:14): And were you living in Washington? Is that where you’re from?

Dillon (06:17): I was, yeah. So, um, I’m from Puyallup, which is maybe, uh, 45 miles south. Um, so it felt like I wasn’t really truly getting away from home. Um, a lot of students that I went to high school with were going there as well. Um, so honestly I wasn’t in like the best, you know, mindset going into undergrad just because of the disappointments that kinda led up to that stage. Um, but again, like in hindsight, I really have come to appreciate, um, how things have unfolded and the fact that I didn’t take out massive loans at at at that time.

Emily (06:57): I have to say, I had a very similar experience growing up. My parents both went to like, you know, public universities, um, and they told me, go wherever <laugh> we’ll help you. And they weren’t prepared for that, you know, for actually what the sticker price was for my generation. Right. Um, and I’m doing something different with my children. I live in California, and so I’m really talking up the uc system, like, whoa, it would be amazing to go to one of these schools. So like, I’m setting their expectations in that direction.

Dr. Pruett’s Career and Research Interests During Undergrad

Dillon (07:28): Yeah. Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s interesting just the difference that a generation made and the costs. And you know, like I said, my parents had a great experience. They didn’t take out these massive loans. They really, um, did what, what what they could to, um, put themselves through school. Um, I don’t know. There was a whole lot that I could do personally to replicate that, um, in this day and age. Um, but so I started college around the time that the movie, the King’s Speech came out, which if you’re not familiar, um, the movie is a historical drama that details, uh, great Britain’s King George, the six and his struggle with stuttering during the time of World, world War II. And, uh, that movie really marked the first time that I confronted Stu Stu stuttering and came to the terms, uh, there was something I was gonna have to deal with for the rest of my life and not something that I could just ignore.

Dillon (08:25): Uh, and I had also started, um, working in a research lab at the university that was looking at genetics. Um, and so I was kind of interested in like, the idea of applying gen gen, gen gen genetics to s to stuttering. One of the known facts was a risk factor for stuttering is if you have family me members who also stu stutter. So that kind of hints at the idea that there might be specific genetic factors in, in involved. Um, so I reached out to a professor at the university who specialized in stuttering and said, Hey, you know, this, uh, is kinda a new area for the field, um, but there’s not a lot of people that are specializing in, in in it. And so that kind of sparked my interest that this could be a way for me to pursue a career and contribute to the field and try to answer, you know, some of these ques questions that I had growing up as a kid.

Dillon (09:28): Um, and so that kind of set my path from about my, uh, sophomore year on and, um, I would meet with my college advisors to make sure that I was taking coursework in both hearing and speech sciences and in biology to kind of get a comprehensive grounding in what I was hoping to pursue. And for the most part, my advisors were very complimentary and, you know, thought it was great that I had, um, such a specific interest and a drive to do it. And, um, they always said, oh, well, there’s really no, no wrong way to pursue this. And I was kinda like, uh, you know, maybe there’s no right way to do it, but there’s probably some, some wrong ways to go about it. Um, but moving forward to the end of my undergrad, I was making a decision whether I wanted to get a master’s in speech language pathology, which is a more clinical degree, versus going, uh, right into a PhD, which of course is more research oriented.

Dillon (10:37): And, um, after kinda weighing the options and talking to, to some people, I opt, I opted to go into the PhD route. Um, and then I had this debate about whether it was gonna be something that I was focused specifically on, uh, stuttering kind of more in a niche communication sciences and disorders field, or if I was gonna be, I’m a little bit more broad and do something genetic specific. And, um, again, after talking to some people in, in the field, um, I felt that like if I could be in a position and I could sort of do both at the same time, that would be really, really, really great. So, um, I applied to three different pro programs for my PhD. Uh, Vanderbilt was my top choice, and they did a really awesome job of making me feel like I could pursue this research even though it wasn’t necessarily my mentor’s area of expertise. Um, and their program was part of a, like biomedical sciences umbrella where there were a lot of resources that were shared that were available to students that really made me feel like this was a doable path to pursue. Um, and so that was kind of my path that led me into my Ph, PhD.

Finances During Undergrad and Grad School

Emily (11:59): Okay. I wanna talk about this transition point into the PhD, but I wanna catch us up on what was going on financially during undergrad. We talked about the decision to go to an in-state public university. That makes sense. Did you end up taking on student loan debt, for example? Or like what was the mix of funding that you ended up with for your undergraduate degree?

Dillon (12:16): Yeah, I had a lot of private scholarships, um, totaling probably nearly $20,000. That went quite a long way in, um, paying for my tuition. Um, my parents were able to help with the rest. Um, I also worked throughout undergrad, so I had a couple different jobs. Uh, one was in the research lab where I was paid, um, hourly for, uh, a variety of of jobs. Um, I also worked in a medical clin clinic. Um, I also worked as a tutor. Um, so I was always kind of looking for ways to make money, but that was really just to provide for spending money. So I wasn’t, I wasn’t saving, I wasn’t investing. Um, it was really like, Hey, can I go out on a Friday night and have fun with my friends? Awesome. Um, and so yeah, I, I didn’t have a lot of discretionary money, but uh, it didn’t feel I was in a, a peer group where that was pretty common. You know, we’re all, we’re all college kids. We all don’t have a whole lot. So, um, it wasn’t necessarily, um, an issue at that point.

Emily (13:35): So it sounds like you were cash flowing, right? You weren’t taking out debt, you weren’t building up savings or other types of assets, but between the scholarships and your parents’ support and your jobs, you were just making it semester to semester, is that right?

Dillon (13:48): Yeah, yeah, that’s what I would would say.

Emily (13:51): Yeah. That makes total sense. Tons of college students live that way. And then in that transition to graduate school, were you thinking about the finances? Were you thinking about the stipend that you were offered? Obviously you just, you know, said why you picked Vanderbilt because of, you know, the research considerations, but were, were there any financial considerations at that stage?

Dillon (14:09): Yes. Um, the program at Vanderbilt offered a stipend that was the highest. And so that combined with the program really made it seem like that was far and away the best choice. Um, the stipend was for roughly $23,000 a year. Um, and that was from university funds. Um, and there was nothing written that said that it was restricted for any number of years. There was some language that said that as long as you’re making progress and doing well in the program, you will be supportive. And we have a track record of supporting our students through gradu- through through graduation. So that, um, was really great to, to see and to hear, because that’s not always the case, even in funded PhD programs, sometimes only for four years, sometimes only for five years. Um, and so that, that felt like, oh, all right, like this is gonna be something that I can depend on.

Dillon (15:20): Um, but I will say that, um, it became apparent pretty quickly that there was some discrepancies in the stipends that were offered. Um, so as I mentioned before, the hearing and speech sciences program at Vanderbilt is part of the larger biomedical sciences umbrella. And so at the beginning of the PhD, um, they have essentially like these onboarding workshops where they’re introducing you to how to be a PhD student. And one of the presentations was on personal finance. And they essentially took, um, a month, a month, a month, a monthly stip stipend and broke it down into all of the amount that you could be expected to pay for housing, food, insurance, all of that. And they kind of like zeroed it out and they’re like, all right, like, see, it looks like you can live within your means if you’re following this. Well, the stipend amount that they had on this giant screen in front of the auditorium was like five grand more than what our program was being paid.

Dillon (16:33): And so it was sort of like, oh, okay, yeah, great. I guess if I’m in these other programs, I can make it do, but we’re just supposed to go into debt if we’re getting less money. Um, and so that I understand the different programs had different compensation, there’s a variety of reasons why, but that was, it felt a little bit like it was getting thrown in in our face in that moment that we were, we, we were less than. Um, so wasn’t great. Um, but that being said, I was still in a very privileged situation where I did have more support than I would’ve had at other places. So I’m grateful for it. Um, but there were also just all kinds of other sort of financial issues that popped up in the first few years.

Emily (17:24): That’s a good lesson for me as a financial educator to take away. I do normally ask or look up what the stipends are before I give example numbers or speak somewhere. But, um, yeah, that’s interesting. I’ve, I’ve never done that approach of like, here’s your budget. Um, I’m more like, ask the audience like, what are you spending in these areas? Or like, what do you think is reasonable or what have you, but I can totally see how that would not have been helpful or encouraging for you at that stage. Um, but I wanna know for one more second about, um, this 23K that you were starting with your first year stipend. Remind us what year that was.

Dillon (18:01): So that was 2015.

Emily (18:02): Okay. Um, so you’re starting at 23K and you said it came from university funds. Um, does that mean that you had an assistantship of some type? Does that mean you were on like fellowship? Were there work requirements tied to this? Or like what was the nature of the funding?

Dillon (18:16): Yeah, so I think it was technically called a research traineeship. And I don’t know if that’s a common term that’s shared across different programs or that’s sort of unique. Um, it didn’t seem to come with many strings attached as far as certain number of hours. I had to meet I think 20 hours a week, um, of work within my research lab. But that was sort of like something you talked about with your PI, and it was really just kind of set as the bare minimum number of hours that as a PhD student you should be putting in. Um, and it was flexible in a way that’s like, if you’re studying for finals, you’re not gonna be putting in those same amount of hours. Or if you have, um, and especially busy week with research participants, you might just have to do that. You know, you’re not gonna nec necessarily say, oh, I’m at my 20, I can’t come in.

Dillon (19:13): Um, so I had other peers that had a lot more strings attached to their funding. And some of that was because it wasn’t university funding, it was, um, from particular grants that, um, like for instance, if they, they were getting paid and they needed to go into some kind of, um, public interest type field or else they would have to forfeit some of their, um, stip like stipend back in the future. I, I wasn’t privy to all of the different funding streams and all of the different, um, I don’t know, stipulations. Um, but I just know that that mine was pretty unrestricted and flexible.

Emily (20:05): And was that a 12 month stipend, the 23k, or was it meant to be like just the academic year or anything like that?

Dillon (20:12): Yeah, so that is another, uh, aspect that I didn’t appreciate at the time, but I certainly do now is that was 12 months and so it was just divided into 12 paychecks. And um, that’s, that’s how you paid rent. That’s how you paid for groceries. There was not supposed to be any interruptions. Um, but as I’ll explain, we did have several occurrences of times when things kind of went awry and we had some things to work through.

Emily (20:45): I wanna get there, but one more question. You’re sitting in that orientation and you’re looking at this example with 5K more in stipend than what you’re actually receiving. Did you make a plan? Like, was your plan, okay, I need 5K in student loans, or was your plan, okay, I need a side hustle for 5K? Or was your plan I need to live on less than what they’re saying up there? Like how did, how did it strike you as like, how were you gonna move forward?

Dillon (21:08): Yeah, I think immediately I went too, like I need a side hustle. And then second to that it was, okay, I’m gonna have to live on less than what they say I can. So that means spending less on groceries than they say that means less on, um, miscellaneous expenses and they say it means I might have to work harder to find a place that’s acceptable, that is less rent. Um, so all of those things.

Emily (21:36): I wanna ask about the rent for a second. ’cause one of the, I guess I’ll say issues I have with this kind of presentation in orientation, and I’ve done these kind of presents during presentations, during orientations, is that you’ve already made some decisions, <laugh>, you’ve already made your housing decision at least probably for a year lease. You’ve probably made your transportation decision if you own or whatever, you know, with your car. So like what’s immediately changeable is already like restricted, you know what I mean? So when you were looking at that like pie chart or whatever they showed you, was your rent already less than what they were accounting for? Like, how were you even doing at that? Like, you’re off the starting block already.

Dillon (22:12): So thankfully, yes, my rent already was less. Um, I was fortunate to find, find a house that was less expensive, but that came with some trade offs. So it was not a nice place. Um, I was in like a little Harry Potter room with a shared bathroom. Um, at various points in time. We had mice infestations, we had cricket in infestations. Um, but it, it was enough. And as a a young grad student, I wasn’t particularly bothered by it. It was in a very nice neighborhood. Um, it was close to campus. Our house was just kinda like the black sheep of the block. Um, but we, we made it work and at that point in time, I think I was probably paying about 550 a month in rent. And, um, I mean there’s, it’s really hard to find a place in Nashville for less than a thousand now. So, um, that was a, a, a huge help in that first year with feeling like, okay, um, you know, I’m not paying for one of the nicer places with a pool and other amenities. I’m, but it also wasn’t, um, a place that you would, you know, have your parents stay for very long or, uh, want to be in for extended periods of time.

Emily (23:41): Okay, I get the picture.

Commercial

Emily (23:45): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

PhD Funding Issues at Vanderbilt University

Emily (24:33): Well go on and tell us about these, these issues that you’ve alluded to that kind of cropped over up over the next few years.

Dillon (24:43): Yeah, so, um, I wanna say it was probably 2016, um, where Vanderbilt University decided to legally separate from the medical center and ba basically create two distinct legal entities, even though there’s a lot of overlap between them, um, and being in the biomedical sciences program, um, there’s really not like a fine line that divides them. It, it’s, it’s, it’s messy. You have professors that are appointed through the medical program, but then the graduate students are through the university. And then so it was, it was, it was just messy. Um, but the end result that really impacted students was that, uh, stipends were not dispensed when they should have been. So we’re all waiting, uh, you know, the first of the month for this paycheck to hit and it didn’t. And so, you know, that means that people can’t pay rent, they can’t pay for groceries.

Dillon (25:51): And that was a really big deal and there didn’t seem to be an appropriate outcry from the university to be like, oh my God, we need to solve this. There were students who were literally sitting in the office of the dean and they were not gonna move until they got paid. And so in that period of of time, um, you know, I was on my stipend each month, there’s no savings and so I had to take out, you know, loans for my parents just to pay, pay the rent. Um, and it was sorted out after a couple of weeks, but that’s still a really long time for students to wait when they’re expecting it and relying on it. Um, and in the process of me trying to like personally figure it out, um, I was talking to some people in ad in administration that were in the larger biomedical science sciences umbrella, and when they saw my stipend, they were like, oh, like you, you should be getting paid more than that because that’s below like our floor.

Dillon (26:53): And I was thinking like, mm, no, I don’t think so. I mean, sure, if you wanna pay me more, go ahead, but like that money comes from somewhere. And so, um, lo and behold, when I did get paid, I had a few hundred dollars that were added to what I was supposed to get. And so I was like, oh, okay, awesome. Um, and I used that extra money to pay down some of my credit cards and thought, well, great, some, something about this, you know, bifurcation has leveled things out. Well, I got a notice like a week or two later saying that I was actually overpaid and that I owed that money back to the university and I needed to write them a check to pay them back. And so I was like, are you kidding me? Not only is my stipend late, but you told me I was gonna get paid more.

Dillon (27:50): I didn’t believe you, then you paid me more and then I spent it, and then you’re telling me that was a mistake. So it was absolute chaos and I’m just grateful that I had a family that I could rely on for help in this time, but that is in no way the way that grad school should work. That you should have to have your students be taking out money from family in order to get their living expenses met. Um, and so literally to this day, every single payday I log in the morning of to see that it hits because I am just scarred from this, from not getting paid. And my wife thinks I’m crazy because she’s like, why are you so obsessed with this payday thing? I’m like, you don’t understand how crazy that was to, to deal with. And so it was probably, you know, four to five weeks before it was all sorted out. But, um, I don’t know. I feel like in, maybe in, if that had happened maybe five or 10 years later, I think like Twitter would’ve just like lit on fire with the, with the problems.

Emily (29:00): That is, um, one of the more egregious stories I’ve ever heard on the podcast that is saying something, uh, because universities are often disorganized. Um, but it, it seems to go a little bit even beyond the disorganization, like yeah, planning for that legal split, but not planning for the continuity with your, now I don’t know if I wanna say that, were you actually an employee? ‘Cause it’s even more egregious if you were actually an employee. Were you on W2 income or was it like non W2?

Dillon (29:32): That was another transition. Is that prior to that split? Um, I did not have any taxes withheld. I did not have a W2 and we were kind of told, yeah, this is like, we can’t give you advice on it, but it’s a legal gray area. Um, my mom’s an accountant and she had some people look into it and we’re like, okay, yeah, I think we’re fine ’cause it’s an educational disbursement, blah, blah, blah. Not gonna get into all of that. But following the switch, it did start, I, I did start receiving a W-2 with tax withholdings and that I think was actually helpful because it made it not this like gray area obscure, do I, do I not kind of thing. And it would’ve looked really weird if I didn’t file like a real return for years and years. Um, so, but that meant that like my kind of take home pay once you take away taxes decreased from what I was used to.

Emily (30:37): Okay, we’ll leave that there. Longtime listeners know how I feel about this. Um, but yeah, I, I guess I can understand the disorganization a little bit more because there was not actually a legal obligation to pay y’all on time if you were not on W2 yet. Not that that should have happened at all, but it’s just something I’ve heard of at other places of like, you have more protections if you’re like a legal employee, like W2 type employee. Obviously if there’s a union involved, there’s more protection. So like, just something to keep in mind, <laugh>, when you’re figuring out where your stipend is coming from that like sometimes problems do arise with fellowship income that wouldn’t ari- or what I call fellowship income, which wouldn’t arise if you were on like W2 income either way, terribly sorry that that happened to you <laugh>. And like, and like you were saying, because you were on such a low stipend in the first place, it, you didn’t have the ability to build up the financial security for yourself to prepare for, you know, adverse events, whatever they are. But for the adverse event to come from your funder, uh, it’s terrible. Okay, so the end result of this is that you’re on W2 income, your income has stayed the same, but you’ve started paying income tax, so your take home pay is less, is that right?

Dillon (31:48): Exactly, yes.

Emily (31:50): Ugh. After the chaos of those few, uh, those handful of weeks, I don’t blame you for having residual trauma over this. I would do the exact same thing. <laugh>.

Dillon (31:57): Yeah, well that was actually another, um, disparity between the different departments in the larger umbrella program because they actually received, uh, cost of living increases each year, and they also received, um, boosts when the incoming classes would get boosted up. So, um, a lot of my peers in the other department, you know, they were gradually making more and more money each year. Not that that actually, you know, as the cost of living went up, it’s not like they’re making a whole lot more, but it was enough to offset it just a bit. Um, whereas our department did not do that. And we had what whatever was in your contract that you signed when you started was what you would make all the way through.

Emily (32:45): Oh, so incoming classes were making more, but you stayed the same.

Dillon (32:50): Exactly. There were people heard that were entering after I started in my department that eventually were making more because the university made a conscious eff effort to boost PhD stipends. And so as all of this chatter is going on, I’m like, oh, we wanna get to 30K for all students. I was like, well that’s, that’s not impacting me. Like that’s, that’s great that the new students get that. Um, so another sort of instance where I felt like we were not, um, compensated in the ways that other students were. Um, and sort of just one more example of that, um, the sort of field of communication sciences and disorders, um, depending on what you study can be very interdisciplinary. So, um, there was a research lab that was focused on autism and you could enter that research lab either through sort of the more clinical hearing and speech sciences route, or you could enter through neuroscience and go that route.

Dillon (34:01): So you’re working the same research lab doing very similar work, but depending which route you took to enter the lab, you could get paid five or 10 grand different per year. And that is something that students learned and something that the PI learned. And so it was sort of like, oh, well, if you want to do this research, maybe you should enter through neuroscience and we’ll accept you through that way. Um, and I don’t know the details of it and how I think it was a point of contention within the department. I’m not privy to all of the details, but, um, I know that for students that was something that, that mattered. Um, and I don’t know what the, I don’t know what the current state of that is, but it was sort of like, well, I, I get it because individually it helps you to go through this route and you just get paid more. But if you’re trying to, you know, recruit for your own department and, um, you know, feel like that’s what’s, you know, kind of funding a lot of their research, um, you could see why, you know, the, the, the chair would feel that maybe you should do it a certain way.

Emily (35:13): You are presenting all of this in a fairly dispassionate manner. I mean, you have the, uh, the benefit of time having passed since these events, but like what was the effect on your emotions around your money? Were you feeling incredibly discouraged? Were you like doubling down? Like how did this, yeah, how did you feel about it as you discovered and as you went through these various events?

Dillon (35:37): Um, I really just tried as best I could to have the mentality of I was keeping my eyes on my own page because I knew that if I, I could get so wrapped up into this stuff, but I had so little ability to change it that I just didn’t even wanna focus on that. So I was sort of like, Hey, you know what I’m getting by. I’m doing what I want to do. I’m going to try to do what I can to make it through best I can. And um, if there were opportunities to offer feedback, I would certainly engage in that, but I wasn’t going out of my way, um, to, you know, negotiate on my own behalf or to really get too, too invested in these other areas. And you know, I think there’s, even though I feel like we maybe had some very visible examples of that in our department, um, it’s pretty common even within programs that don’t have these bigger issues, they have students that get a topper on their stip on their stipend, and they don’t want other pe- people to know that. Or maybe they do want other pe- people to know that. And, um, I, I don’t know. I just have always thought that money is, is a tough thing in especially the PhD space because there’s not a lot of it, and it’s all people that are trying to establish themselves. And I always thought it was better to just push that out and try to, you know, think about relating as, as, as peers and not having that be a barrier. Um, it’s obviously frustrated me enough where I’m now speaking that out on podcast 10 years later. Um, but uh, the way I tried to deal with it at the time was to ignore it as best as po- as best as possible.

Emily (37:28): I definitely understand that as like a self-protective instinct. Like, like you said, it’s actually pretty healthy. Like keep your eye on your own page. That’s great. It’s a great mindset in personal finance generally, it’s harder when you’re being paid so little that like survival, you know, comfortable life is, uh, on the line there with that distinction, but it just, for me, reemphasizes not, not at all that I’m criticizing you, I totally understand why you took that self-protective route, but it reemphasizes for me that anybody who has the ability to do any advocacy or any kind of privileged position, um, from which to do any advocacy, um, please do it if you’re able to, um, and advocate on behalf of your peers. Because this is something that’s tricky about individual negotiation is like, okay, like you should advocate for yourself. Yes. Um, but is it ultimately going to, you know, lift all boats with a rising tide?

Emily (38:21): Like we need to make sure that everybody, even people who aren’t able to advocate for themselves, can benefit when people do ask for more. Um, one of the huge benefits of the larger unionization movement going on among graduate students, and I just wanna also make a plug for pay transparency, um, through, for example, my website, PhDstipends.com. Um, if you’re able to have these conversations, if you’re able to advocate, please do not everyone is able to, in your case, you are such on the lower stipend end of that spectrum. I totally understand why you took, you know, why you had the reaction that you did of just like, I gotta get through this. I’m investing my career. I can’t, you know, be distracted by all these pay disparities that I’m seeing. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with us about this graduate student stage of your financial journey?

Dillon (39:11): I guess that, you know, I, I did constantly feel like I was making these tough trade-offs that, you know, as I was getting into 26, 27, 28 years old, I had peers who had been working in their jobs for, you know, five, six years or making pretty good money. And I had to say no to things. And it was tough. You know, I had a friend who had a bachelor party in Vegas that I had to say no to because I just couldn’t afford to have that put entirely on a credit card. I didn’t have $3,000 to spend. Um, and that’s kind of a life event that, um, you know, I would’ve loved to have been there for. Um, and I kept telling myself, I’m in this investment stage, you know, this is just kind of the way that things are. Um, but as you get farther along in your PhD, um, it’s almost like it gets harder to keep that mindset because when you’re really gung-ho you’re just starting your 22, 23, 24, a lot of your peers are just starting out too.

Dillon (40:23): And so you’re just, you know, doing the cool thing to get your PhD, but towards the end when you’re older, um, you just feel that weight a little bit more of like, man, I, I got to get this done. I’m still not at the point where I want to be as a independent young adult. Um, and so, you know, it, it did weigh on me having to, you know, make these decision and not even like the big ones, right? Like even the decisions about going out to dinner with, with friends or something like that, you know, I couldn’t always afford going out to a $75 dinner because that meant that the end of the month I wouldn’t have money for groceries. Um, and then socially, you know, just dating wise, I know there’s a lot of, uh, people, people who might, you know, you know, really scoff at the idea of like a coffee date or a happy hour date is being cheap, or it doesn’t show your initiative or doesn’t show your seriousness.

Dillon (41:30): Um, and that just like hurt me so much because I was like, oh, well, like, I don’t know. That’s, that’s the most that I can do in a situation where I’m just trying to get to know you. And that is, even, even for, for those things is, is something that is gonna impact what I can do down the road for this this month. Um, so yeah, it, it, it’s, it’s those types of choices that, um, you get kind of like used to, but it still is something that that hurts. Um, and I feel like I did a pretty good job of balancing that, um, as best I could. Like I, I did go out in Nashville and would go to Broadway and, you know, we’d go to concerts, so it wasn’t like I was just, you know, in the lab studying or at home the, the whole time, but I had to be very kind of strategic about how I did it and when I did it. And, um, that was kind of what helped me get by.

Emily (42:35): I think what you’re saying is so relatable, and I really hope that your message gets to prospective graduate students and early on graduate students that like, like you said, like at the beginning, you’re living a little bit on your enthusiasm <laugh>, and then as the years draw by the sacrifices that you’re having to make small or large are just like piling up on top of each other and you’re like, okay, when is this stage going to be done and when am I going to be done with this lifestyle that I have at the moment? Um, I wanna get to that transition point between, um, graduate school and your postdoc. Tell me about your balance sheet as it was. Had you built up any savings over the course of graduate school? Had you built up any debt over the course of graduate school? Um, what was your kind of ending financial picture?

Buying a House in Nashville During Grad School

Dillon (43:27): I really did not build up much savings or debt, so I was really living pretty much paycheck to paycheck. Um, I started a Roth IRA, um, partway through grad school and was putting in like 50 or a hundred bucks a month in months where I could afford it. Um, and, you know, didn’t really amount to much. Um, I, I had a bit of credit card debt, but through the kind of COVID years, um, I really focused on, okay, well, I’m not going out, I’m not doing these things. Um, so I was able to pay that down to basically zero. Um, so that, that was, was huge. Um, sort of the, the side bar to this story, um, is that I knew when I started my PhD that Nashville real estate was, was going crazy. And so I was like, well, hey, if I’m gonna be here for at least five years, maybe more, um, this seems like something that I should take advantage of.

Dillon (44:40): And so I convinced my parents that this was doable without too much of a down payment and that this would be an investment both for myself and for them. Um, and so through an FHA loan, um, with my parents, I, uh, bought like a little condo, um, in this little old building, and the plan was that I was going to have a roommate with me all throughout my graduate school, and the roommate and I together would pay that mortgage. Um, and so that was in hindsight, you know, a really good move. Again, I had the support of my family that that enabled me to do that, that I couldn’t have done alone. Um, but wrapped up into that was some expenses that like a renter wouldn’t have to pay. So, uh, we had to replace the hot water heater, we had to replace the hvac, um, had to replace the microwave, um, had some issues with plumbing, all of that.

Dillon (45:45): Um, and so that is kind of where any kind of extra cash that I would’ve had, um, was put towards. Um, but I think that the end result was that, um, when I ended up selling that before I moved, you know, I was getting a good chunk of change back that if I hadn’t bought a place, um, would’ve just been lost to, to rent. And so, um, my wife and I have not purchased a house yet, but the profit from that is gonna be our down payment. And so we, we’ve kind of flipped, you know, the condo into a down payment, uh, for our next home. And so, um, that’s not really advice that I could recommend to anyone anywhere, um, but at, at, at the time, that is in hindsight, a pretty important move that I made. Um, so I’m, I’m grateful that it worked out because that’s not a guarantee.

Emily (46:49): Yeah. So it sounds like you, you were again, cash flowing, just kind of making it month to month, and yet you had these small investments that you even discounted at the start of our conversation, but, you know, you had the Roth IRA occasional contributions that you had, um, the ownership of a home, which cashflow wise, you know, maybe that’s helpful or maybe it’s not, but eventually over the long term, you can expect some kind of equity from that which you’ve received. So that’s really great. And like you said, um, I think graduate students and PhDs at any stage just have to look frankly at their situation. What’s the real estate market, the rental market, the buying market, what’s the income? What assets do you have? What resources do you have? Like you had your parents you knew that you could at least pitch them on, you know, making an investment in this with you. Um, and just look at all those factors and, you know, keep your mind open as to what might be possible in terms of home ownership or, or renting, whatever it is. Um, I, I don’t sort of dismiss home ownership out of hand for graduate students. It just, like you said, at certain times, certain places, certain people, it can, you know, be a possibility, but it’s a, the stars kind of have to align to make it happen.

Dillon (48:01): Sure. Yeah.

Emily (48:07): That is the end of part 1 of this interview! Tune in next time for part 2 in which we discuss Dillon’s faculty job search and financial transition to Florida State University.

Outro

Emily (48:22): 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? My team has 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This International Grad Student’s Low Fixed Expenses Enable Her to Invest and Travel

by 1 Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Mrunal Zambre, a 4th-year international PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. Mrunal details her money management system, from her checking and savings accounts to credit cards, and how she and her grad student partner split expenses. She focuses on travel credit cards and the Bilt card to reduce the cost of international travel. Thanks to her stipend—recently increased to over $40k—and low fixed expenses, Mrunal maxes out her Roth IRA annually and invests in a taxable brokerage account, even though she’s not sure if she’ll live in the US long-term.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This International Grad Student's Low Fixed Expenses Enable Her to Invest and Travel

Teaser

Mrunal (00:00): Time is of the essence at this age. And instead of kind of being on the fence about whether to not do it or you know, whether to just keep the money in a savings account, it kind of costs you. Um, so if you wait to figure that out till later when you have more money or more income, you might have already lost amount of money that you could have grown over time.

Introduction

Emily (00:34): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:03): This is Season 23, Episode 5, and today my guest is Mrunal Zambre, a 4th-year international PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. Mrunal details her money management system, from her checking and savings accounts to credit cards, and how she and her grad student partner split expenses. She focuses on travel credit cards and the Bilt card to reduce the cost of international travel. Thanks to her stipend—recently increased to over $40k—and low fixed expenses, Mrunal maxes out her Roth IRA annually and invests in a taxable brokerage account, even though she’s not sure if she’ll live in the US long-term.

Emily (01:44): The tax year 2025 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s23e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Mrunal Zambre.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:59): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Mrunal Zambre, a fourth year PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh. And we are gonna be talking through a lot of high level elements of her finances from how she manages cash flow to, you know, long-term investing strategies to how do we do some travel as a graduate student. So I’m really excited for this conversation. Mrunal, welcome to the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Mrunal (03:25): Yes. Yeah, thank you Emily. Yeah, happy to be here. Um, so I guess, yeah, I came to the US I’m an international student, so I came to the US in 2016. Um, I came here for my bachelor’s. Um, I did, I majored in neuroscience, did minor in computer science from, uh, university of Minnesota. I graduated in May, 2020 amidst the raging pandemic that was happening. Um, and after graduating I stayed, um, I stayed on, stayed in Minneapolis, working in a lab that I joined in my senior year. Um, so I stayed on as a research technician, worked in the lab till 2022 on OPT and then, um, throughout 2021 was applying to grad schools, um, for PhD in neuroscience and, um, am now at University of Pittsburgh since August, 2022.

Emily (04:19): Fantastic. Thank you so much for that, um, background. So let’s talk about the money. What’s your stipend? 

Mrunal (04:26): The exact number is 41,199k annually, which comes out to be around 3,180 per month after some taxes taken off, um, in 2022. It started at 33K when I first first admitted. And about a year later, um, the school of Medicine, which is where in which is, uh, which school my program is part of, um, they decided that um, all school of medicine grad programs get a stipend of 40K. So it was a big jump, uh, early on and I think it’s a privileged position to be in to get that big of a jump. Um, and after that year it’s been kind of increasing like two to 3% for inflation. Um, yeah,

Emily (05:09): Love to hear that story. Yeah. Do you know any like precipitating factors, like why they made that decision?

Mrunal (05:15): I’m a hundred percent not sure actually. Um, I don’t know. It was a new dean that had just started. I dunno, maybe there was, uh, some built up about cost of living related expenses and stuff. So maybe that played a role, but I’m not, I’m not sure actually. It was kind of surprise to me as well.

Emily (05:33): Yeah. But a, a wonderful surprise accepting at 33 and getting a jump up to 40. That’s awesome. Especially because, my understanding is Pittsburgh’s sort of a moderate cost of living city, right?

Mrunal (05:43): Yeah, exactly. It is. Uh, it’s not, it’s, you know, people think of it as East Coast, but it’s not really that close to East Coast. So pretty, pretty affordable I would say. And I think the stipend goes a long way, luckily.

Housing, Transportation, & Grocery Costs in Pittsburgh, PA

Emily (05:56): Amazing. Well, I wanna ask you about savings in a moment. Um, but first can we go over just like baseline expenses about how much you spend on housing, how much you spend on transportation, those kinds of things.

Mrunal (06:06): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, speaking of affordability, our rent is pretty, has been pretty good in Pittsburgh. Um, I am living with my boyfriend in a one bedroom apartment right now, and the rent right now is around 940. Um, my boyfriend is also in grad school at Carnegie Mellon, so he has, he does, he, we share the rent. Uh, and because he doesn’t have a stipend, my share of the rent is around 620 per month.

Emily (06:34): Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed that that 900 something was your part of the rent. Oh, okay. Sorry, I have to, to like reconfigure. Okay. So you’re paying 620 and he’s paying, that would be something like a third, right? Um, okay. Wow. Alright. Some points for Pittsburgh here. Um, awesome.

Mrunal (06:52): We are lucky.

Emily (06:53): Glad to hear that. Yeah. So give do the, do the math for me. That’s around 20% ish of your take home pay.

Mrunal (07:01): Yeah. Let’s see. 600, around 600 out of, yeah. 3000 around there. Yeah. 

Emily (07:07): That’s really great. I mean, with other, you know, you’re definitely not rent burdened like we hear from so many other graduate students, so that’s amazing. What do you do for transportation?

Mrunal (07:15): The University of Pittsburgh gives us, um, our ID counts as a bus, uh, pass. So there is the bus system. Um, there’s also a train system, but I don’t really use that for my day-to-day. Um, so that is free for me. I use the bus to get into lab and come back from lab, um, like five days a week. And I also have, uh, a 2012 Honda Civic. Uh, I bought it in 2021 in cash, so no car payments there, but there is an insurance payment, which is about $90 per month. And because it’s the Honda Civic, we get pretty good mileage. Um, and we fill up gas and because we don’t drive to work every day, uh, we fill up gas around like once every three-ish or so, three-ish weeks or so. So that comes out to be like $38 per per filling <laugh>.

Emily (08:08): Yeah. Incredibly minimal transportation expenses. Awesome. I feel like, is there a story around the purchase of the car? ’cause that was a very difficult time period for purchasing a car. Um, so how did you find such a, well, great vehicle, reliable vehicle, nine years old at the time that you bought it? Like, tell me about your decision around purchasing that car.

Mrunal (08:28): Yeah, I mean, um, at that point I was I guess a year out of, uh, college and, you know, I was in Minneapolis, a very cold winter, snowy city. You know, I managed throughout college not having a car because we pretty much spent most of our time on campus. Um, but I think I had just moved out of campus and was like, yeah, I need some way to like move around. And yeah, I think the US is a very car centric place. And so I started looking and it was at that point a tougher market. Um, it took quite a bit of time to like come across this deal. I mainly used Craigslist, um, as my source of looking for cars. I did try going down the dealership route. Um, but I didn’t really like that culture because I think it was very sales focused and the salespeople were just telling me that anything they had was a very good deal and they might’ve been, but it felt very pressuring.

Mrunal (09:27): And I guess on Craigslist, um, you, you, you know, you have to sort through the listings over there. Um, and there were some that I, I met a few times, uh, some good cars, some were, some were no shows. So I think I kept looking and at one point I was like, um, maybe not worth it. ’cause I was also going through grad school applications at that point. Um, so I was like, I’ll just keep an eye once in a while on Craigslist, see what comes up and, but focus on grad school applications. But luckily this, this came up and I kind of jumped on it pretty quickly because I knew I wanted, like, I think because my family, my family has a history of driving Honda cars, I knew that they were pretty reliable and this was a pretty good deal in terms of like how, how much mileage it had.

Mrunal (10:20): Um, so I jumped on it, met with a person, seemed like in a good-ish condition, like some rust spots. And I kind of used that to bring down the cash a little bit, uh, bring down the, the price a little bit and kind of jumped on it like, like once it looked good, like checked all the boxes and just spent with it. And I’ve been happy with it so far. It’s pretty reliable. Um, no, huge like, problems with the car, like the money goes into maintenance, but yeah. So I guess that was kind of the decision process. Sorry, it was long-winded.

Emily (10:54): Well, the reason I asked about, it’s because I know a lot of graduate students who are looking at a car purchase are nervous to buy something as old as nine years old. Um, I purchased a car when I started graduate school was six years old, which is also, you know, a lot of depreciation had also happened. It was a good deal. Similar to you. I was very patient, I knew what I wanted, I waited. Um, so there’s, you know, a big advantage if you can take that into the purchasing process. Um, but I’m just glad to hear that there hasn’t been like majorly anything that’s gone wrong. We’ve done a little bit of maintenance that’s to be expected. Um, but I do think it just, it’s nice to share a story about someone buying an older car that turns out to be reliable and very inexpensive.

Emily (11:32): Right? Because you pay cash up front, the insurance cost is less when you have. A less expensive, an older car and so forth. Um, like you said, particularly with the Honda Civic, it’s great gas mileage, so on that front. Um, so yeah, just, I’m glad to hear about that like positive story and just wanna kind of assure other people, like if you do your homework as best you can about the make and model and then wait for, you know, one that seems reasonable to come up in terms of mileage and everything. Like don’t be afraid <laugh> of buying a car that has some years on it.

Mrunal (12:00): Yeah, exactly. Like I think the only, like, I did get pieces of advice from like my brother and my dad, um, and the only like, major thing that I can pass on is like, if it is around 100K in miles, that’s, that’s okay. And I think the car has still a lot of life left in it. So it’s okay to get a slightly the older car,

Emily (12:20): Especially because it doesn’t sound like you’re putting a lot of miles on it now. Like so if you’re not using it for your daily commute, what do you use the car for? 

Mrunal (12:29): Um, so right now it’s kind of been like for groceries on the weekend, uh, if we wanna go somewhere for a restaurant or see friends and stuff, so, and take any weekend trips, uh, we want to, we used the car when we were moving from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh, so that, that, that was a trip. Um, and at one point my partner, he was working and early on like in 2022, um, and he was using the car, so we kind of share it right now. Um, so I think so far we’ve accumulated about another like 45K miles on it and I think we still have good amount of time left on it. So right now it’s mainly for leisure and for our wants rather than our needs.

Emily (13:14): Yeah. And it’s also great when you have that setup of being able to share a car with someone like, oh, we only need light usage, and hey, the two of us together are using it lightly, like not very expensive. 

Mrunal (13:24): Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it’s been been great. I’m pretty happy with it so far.

Emily (13:29): So aside from housing and transportation, do you have any other like major structural expenses that are kind of worth mentioning with your budget?

Mrunal (13:36): Let’s see. So yeah, housing, transportation. I think groceries definitely, again, because my partner and I share, um, I think in total it comes around to be like 500 per month. I think we budget for a little bit and then we always kind of go a little bit extra because I think we both enjoy cooking at home and we enjoy, uh, we prioritize having, uh, fruits, vegetables, snacks. So it 500 is okay for us, even though it might seem a little much. Um, health insurance, thankfully is covered by the program for me. Um, I only pay for dental and vision, which comes out to be $25 per month. Yeah, those are the major ones. Yeah.

A 25% Savings Rate & Money Management

Emily (14:14): And pretty much everything else sounds like it could be just discretionary types of spending. So I’ll come back to the question that I asked you earlier, which is how much are you able to save? Do you have like a regular fixed savings, savings rate or how do you calculate that?

Mrunal (14:27): It’s taking a bit of budgeting, um, like looking at where my money’s going and what I have room for. And uh, currently I’m keeping aside around 880 per month, um, which comes out, I did the math comes out to be like around 10.5k per year and I think that’s around 25%. Um, it was a little higher. It, it varies. It’s not always consistent. Um, but that is how much I’m able to save <laugh> right now. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily (15:00): Awesome. Um, let’s talk a little bit more about the money management then. Like what accounts do you have? What purposes do you have for them? How do they interact with one another?

Mrunal (15:10): So in terms of like what accounts I have, um, there’s definitely a checking account where my paycheck comes into. I keep another savings account, which I keep for, um, irregular expenses. And it is also a high yield one through Capital One. Uh, and that I keep, um, around, I’m, I’m building on it, uh, but I’m ke I keep around like 2K in there. And I also have a high yield, another high yield savings account through Marcus, which in which I keep, um, a travel fund, a four month emergency fund and a car fund and for a car maintenance stuff. So in terms of management, yeah, paycheck goes into a check checking account. I move whatever money I wanna save right away into like the savings accounts or investment accounts will come to that. And, um, yeah, some additional into the higher yield irregular expenses account.

Emily (16:17): So why are you splitting some of that targeted savings between the two different banks?

Mrunal (16:23): Um, just for I think ease like mentally. Um, ’cause I, I keep my travel, emergency fund, and car fund together in that Marcus account, just so that it’s building the interest and compounding on a bigger amount. The irregular expenses I could keep in there, but I think I like to see it in my, the same app as my checking account kind of as a buffer. Like, okay, I don’t wanna touch my emergency bigger account as much, but let me, let me use this kind of as an in between of um, pull into it as I need, but also like put money back into it as I use it up. And like, you can make these like bigger savings goals for like emergency fund, but then things like medical expenses sometimes, like, I think those can be irregular and not consistent that you can’t like really look like budget for every month. So this allows me like, okay, this is just chunk of cash that’s sitting for things that come up. Um, and if I do have like a, something I really wanna buy like a, a nice sweater for myself, I can use that money, uh, because I’ve, I’ve been putting money away into it.

Emily (17:38): Let me see if I’m, I’m hearing this correctly. So it sounds to me like the the three types of money that you keep in the Marcus account, probably you withdraw from it less frequently, right? Emergencies, ideally it’s never, but maybe it’s sometimes and then travel, however frequently travel is probably not that often and then car maintenance again as little as possible, right? Um, and then the other account it’s has more flow, right? More going in, more coming out because you’re probably making withdrawals on a monthly basis for a variety of different purposes from that account. Is that right?

Mrunal (18:09): Yeah. Yeah. It can be monthly, semi-monthly, like every other month. Like it, it just, it’s, it’s not regular and that’s why irregular expenses

Emily (18:16): Yeah, that makes total sense to me. Um, and then within that Capital One, the smaller account, um, do you have it delineated? Like, it sounds like you have an idea of the types of things. It’s for like medical expenses or like purchasing of clothes, things like that. Do you have like this chunk of money is for this, this is for this? Or is it just like, oh, I kind of just keep it pulled together and I have a sense for how much I can spend in different categories?

Mrunal (18:40): Yeah, I don’t, I’ve not been delineating delineating it. I, I guess I’ve not figured out a way in the app to like make those little buckets within the account. I don’t know if there is one, if you can. If there is, I would, I would love to use it. Uh, but no, I don’t think I’ve budgeted, I’m not that strict on, uh, allocating that amount, um, into different little buckets. It’s more as it’s giving me some room to breathe in terms of, okay, I have some money I can spend it. Yeah.

Emily (19:11): This may be like a really nitpicky question, but I love talking about targeted savings, so um, if you had like a clothing expense that you wanted to purchase, would you for sure take the money out of that account? Or would you like kind of see if you can cash flow at that month and only withdraw if you like needed it?

Mrunal (19:30): There have been times where I’m like using my monthly cash flow to like make those purchases. Like I’ll, you know, try to cut back on certain things on a monthly basis if like on, on a given a month if I’m, if I know I wanna make this, uh, sweater purchase for example. Um, but sometimes I guess it depends, like it depends on if I feel confident that I’m able to cut down my expenses that month to make a slightly bigger purchase towards something else. Or if I’m still kind of building my irregular expense account, you know, maybe I’m prioritized building it so I cut down my monthly expenses. But you know, if it’s looking at, if it’s fitting at a good amount, I can maybe make advantage of, take advantage of having saved up that pool. And so not worry about my cash flow, but just pull, pull some money out of there.

Mrunal (20:22): I think it’s important, you know, like as you learn to like save, I think it’s also important to know and be okay with when to spend it and like be okay with spending it. So, um, I think that’s how I think about it. Like, all right, if I have saved it, you don’t wanna be too restrictive. Then that can feel like you’re not doing anything for yourself, uh, even though it might be, might feel nice to see your number grow. Um, but I guess, yeah, I do get a dopamine hit. I, I study, you know, I study neuroscience so I understand that it’s good to <laugh> find pleasure in some ways and use money, which you have worked hard to save.

Credit Card Usage

Emily (21:04): I definitely find pleasure both in saving and in spending <laugh>. So it’s like great when it goes into savings, great. When you get to pull it outta savings, like both ways feel good. Um, okay. Let’s talk about credit cards as well as kind of another layer on this. So do you use credit cards? How many, you know, you don’t have to tell us exactly, but like roughly, you know, how many, what kinds of cards are they and then um, how do they play into your cash flow management?

Mrunal (21:28): I do use credit cards. Uh, it has been a journey of slow learning experimentation. Um, I started in my senior year I think with just a discover like the student credit card with, with their 5% whatever, cash back on rotating categories. Um, so I started with just one. I learned very quickly that minimum payments that they say are not really minimum payments. Um, and you know, I was building interest and it kind of, and it was not very detrimental. Um, but I think just seeing that helped me like learn that okay, I do have to pay it off every month <laugh> if I don’t want to build interest. And so yeah, managing this card alone helped build credit. Uh, and then after that I got another travel card, uh, through a recommendation, um, around the time that we moved to Pittsburgh and that was that, that’s the Chase Sapphire preferred card.

Emily (22:22): I have it as well. I love it.

Mrunal (22:24): Yeah, I love it. And um, I used it so I put, because we were moving, there were some big expenses in terms of the U-Haul and stuff. Um, so we were able to put it on that card and then make, um, and then avail the 65K bonus points that they provide for new card members. And yeah, these points I was able to like eventually use towards like flying back to Indonesia, which is where I’m from that winter. Yeah. So I use that Chase Sapphire preferred card. Um, and because they kind of gives more points for like restaurants and travel related purchases. I use it at restaurants and like coffee shops. I love coffee. And so that is one card. Then another card is that I opened recently with my partner. It’s like, it’s a Capital One Venture Card is another similar to Chase Sapphire.

Mrunal (23:17): Um, so because it’s shared, both my partner and I put expenses on it and also used it to get their um, kind of bonus and it kind of, it helped us a lot. Um, the past year when my brother got married and he was having like a wedding in Ireland and back home in India and you know, lots of international travel, lots of clothes purchases and it actually helped a lot with the flights. We didn’t spend that much like maybe $200 on those flights. So it helped a lot then. So that is another card we now use it mainly for, uh, purchasing like groceries and like household stuff because it gives two times points on all kinds of transactions. The third card that I use, uh, is Bilt, which, uh, you can use for paying rent. Um, it, you know, it creates this account for you and then you, but you’re kind of putting it on a credit card.

Mrunal (24:17): Um, and I get like one times points for my $600 that I pay every month. It doesn’t accumulate that much because rent is thankfully not that bad. Um, but once in a while, once it accumulates to a certain point, I’ll maybe use it for like a hotel or something, uh, for like a getaway. Uh, so it’s not a big priority, it’s just there just to make use of the six, $600 that I do spend on rent. And so these are my major cards. I still keep the Discover one active since it’s my oldest account and keeps the credit score nice and big. So yeah, I think these four are the main credit cards that I have.

Emily (24:56): I like how, um, selective you were about the cards to open. I don’t remember if I’ve talked with another podcast guest who has the Bilt card. It’s something I’ve been very curious about for a while. Um, it seemed great. I understand they’ve been through kind of a transition recently. Is it still one that you would recommend even with the new terms or whatever is going on?

Mrunal (25:16): Yeah, the transition, I think the process has just started and I still have to go through the details of like what is happening. Like I think they’re still offering a Bilt card, um, despite changing the main like bank that they’re working with. And I think like obviously like I, I still have to do my research on it. Um, my plan is to like look at it and I think I’ll still keep or make use of whatever rent payment credit card that they’re offering. Um, just because I think it doesn’t hurt. You know, you’re paying the amount, paying the rent, the rent every month anyways. Um,

Emily (25:57): Yeah, just be clear, at least under the old terms there was no like fee or anything associated with doing this, like you pay the exact same amount in rent, they, they cut a check to your landlord or they go through whatever system you’re supposed to be using. Um, and then you just get points that, like you said, you can eventually transfer somewhere else and and use somehow. So it’s kind of like there really wasn’t a downside before. I’m again not clear on what the new terms are, but hopefully it will still be a similar like deal of just like, hey points on a purchase that you normally don’t get any kind of points on.

Mrunal (26:26): Exactly. Yeah. 

Emily (26:28): As long as they still pay your rent on time, <laugh> it’s gonna work.

Mrunal (26:30): Yes, exactly. You just have to make sure that, you know, it’s another auto thing that you set up like all right, pay this card off and that’s your rent card, you know, um, so as long as you do that, I don’t, I don’t think it’s more work or more fees or anything, so why not? Exactly.

Emily (26:45): Yeah. And the other two travel cards you mentioned also ones, like I said, I, I still hold the Chase Sapphire. We’ve used the venture card in the past and yeah, really great for travel and other types of purchases. Um,

Commercial

Emily (26:58): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Sharing Expenses With Your Partner

Emily (27:50): And let me ask about the, the shared expenses with your partner. ’cause I know some listeners will be interested, um, in this. So it sounds like you have a credit card that is joint or you know, both of you’re on it, um, but you don’t have any common bank accounts. Am I reading that correctly?

Mrunal (28:04): Yeah. Um, just the credit card that is shared.

Emily (28:08): Okay. And then so you each pay like a portion of the card for example, and then it sounds like you have the rent split, like you have your portion, your partner has their portion.

Mrunal (28:16): Yeah, so yes, exactly. So what we, we’ve done, we have had to figure out a good system for ourselves. Uh, but what now that we’ve come to decide on is that that shared card will include like groceries, household and any other shared, um, expenses and we’ll pay that in half and whatever that is our personal. Um, so I see, I forgot to mention one addition to my credit card is, um, the venture one. So it has no fee. Um, and it has like I think 1.25 points for all purchases. But what I’ve done is that if I have an expense that is not, you know, restaurants, because you know, if, if it was restaurants I would put it on my chase ’cause that’s where it’s most beneficial, but I don’t wanna put it on my shared because I don’t want Peter to pay half of it. Peter’s his name, um, then I’ll put it on this third card and I’ll just pay that off. So it kind of accumulates points as well and can and accumulates along with the points that I get from the shared card. So in the end it helps, it just helps kind of manage <laugh> the money a little bit. We could go in and, you know, split transactions and you know, only select certain and do the math there of like how much we wanna split, but we wanna make it a system that works for us and is easy. So this is our in-between <laugh>.

Emily (29:44): Yeah, I, I really like that. I, I’ve been reflecting recently about managing expenses. It could be between two different people. It could be just as you do within yourself of like regular monthly spending. Non monthly spending and about how I so much prefer to use account differentiations for those different purposes instead of like, I’m just keeping a massive spreadsheet and I’m figuring out within the spreadsheet, this goes here, this goes here, this goes here. I would much rather do what you’re doing, which is like this is a credit card for this kind of purpose. This is a credit card for this kind of purpose, this an account for this purpose. Um, it makes it more complicated in terms of like the number of accounts that are open, but much more simple in terms of figuring out who pays for what or what account is drawing for what money. Like that part of it is much, much easier.

Mrunal (30:26): Exactly. Like there was a point where we were, you know, at the end of the month we would go through and, you know, make literally like a sheet of our expenses and categorize like is this the shared one? Is this a personal one? And then do the math to figure out who’s paying how much on that card. But it got a lot, it was tiring. Uh, we would not look forward to doing them and doesn’t help, right? Like we have to pay the credit card. So this is our system that I think, um, we’re both happy with. 

Investing as an International Grad Student

Emily (30:54): That sounds great. Thank you so much for telling us about that. Another question that I know people will be very interested in is how are you investing as an international graduate student?

Mrunal (31:03): I do invest, um, I started in around 2022. My partner was the one who kind of encouraged me and I think initially it was like, oh, should I invest or not? Like I don’t know about a Roth IRA, like I don’t know how long I’ll be in the country and I don’t want the money to be locked up. Um, but I think what I’ve learned through like learning about personal finance is that yeah, investing early and consistently is more important. Um, this like early, like the younger you are and even if you don’t know like where you’re gonna go or like what it’s gonna be like, it’s just good to have this money growing and instead of thinking about the decision point when you’re, you know, are finally at that stage of like figuring out what you’re doing with your life after you graduate or whatever.

Mrunal (31:54): So yeah, I do invest. I opened a Roth IRA account in 2022. I only started by like putting in a hundred dollars every month ’cause I, you know, it was new to me. Um, so I still started with just that and then after a few months I would start putting in like more like 500. Um, and since 2023 I’ve maxed out my Roth IRA, uh, every year, you know, after I figured that out because it’s a tax advantage account. Um, and I learned through, you know, some personal finance books about other ways to get tax advantages like 401k and stuff. But I think as a grad student, as an international grad student, we don’t have access to those kinds of benefits. And so there’s no 401k, no HS HSA. So the next best thing for me to do was just using a taxable brokerage account despite having to pay taxes on it.

Mrunal (32:50): Eventually. I think I just realized that, yeah, again, time is more important in the market. So I just started putting, putting money into it. And so besides the Roth IRA, I’ve been putting money into the taxable brokerage account since September, 2023 and been putting a little over like $200 into it whenever, whenever monthly I think. Um, so, and if some months I have some extra cash, um, I’ll add it to it whenever I can. So, so that, that’s what makes it so most of my savings right now, which is around like 800, a little over $800, most of it is investing and I’ll put some into the irregular expenses ’cause I’m pretty comfortable with where my savings and sinking funds are right now.

Emily (33:37): Awesome. Again, very simple. Exactly the decisions that I would’ve done at the same stage. I was not able to max out my Roth IRA when I was in graduate school, so that’s fantastic. But yeah, using the taxable brokerage account right after that makes a ton of sense. If you don’t have access to the other types of accounts as you mentioned, 401k, 403B, HSA, all these things are great. Not typically offered to graduate students. So we have to work with what is available to us. Let me ask briefly about your investing strategy. Like how did you choose what to invest in within the Roth IRA and within the taxable brokerage account,

Mrunal (34:10): I think it was a lot of reading. So I read these two books. Um, one was recommended to me by my brother, it’s called, I think written it down Simple Path to Wealth. I think by JL Collins. And the other one is, uh, it’s titled Friends That Invest by Sim Simran Kaur.

Emily (34:34): Haven’t heard of that one.

Mrunal (34:36): Yeah. So it started off as girls that Invest a podcast that I started listening to and their name has now changed for some, um, legal reasons. Some law, some, I don’t know, they changed their name <laugh> to friends that invest. So I, I came across like, I think I was first listening to personal finance podcasts. Um, and yeah, what I’ve learned has been through those two. Uh, what I’ve learned is that yeah, it’s, it’s better to do just broad index funds. The stock picking does not always work. I mean it could work but you know, it’s too much effort. Um, and not in the long term your money grows just as much with uh, broad index funds. So in my Roth IRA I’ve put in, I’ve put in my money mostly in the total US stock market. Um, which is I think VTSX if I’m correct.

Emily (35:30): I think that’s correct.

Mrunal (35:32): Um, and then I’ve dabbled a little bit into, I’ve put a little bit into the international market, so I put it, I think my split currently is like 85, 15%. So 85 domestic, 15% international. Um, just divers- my attempt at diversification, I’m not doing any more than this. And then in my taxable, um, it’s very similar. I half of my money in the s and p 500, um, and a little bit into like a Vanguard Growth Fund. It’s like VUG. Um, yeah, I’m not trying that hard. Uh, I’m just putting my money into these, uh, broad index funds and just watching it grow <laugh>

Emily (36:15): Sounds lovely. 

Mrunal (36:16): They do grow a lot. Yeah,

Emily (36:18): Yeah, exactly. What I would expect for someone at your like age and stage. Um, and it sounds like for the taxable brokerage account, you also have a very long-term time horizon, right? Like multi decades?

Mrunal (36:32): Uh, yeah, I mean I don’t, like, I don’t have uh, certain specific plans for any of these investments at the moment. Like I think the Roth IRA is definitely super long term unless I find the need to like withdraw my contributions early. Um, but I don’t plan on anything right now. Broker my brokerage account, no plans yet either. Perhaps maybe towards like real and real estate, like, you know, purchasing a house or something down the road. But yeah, I think what I’ve, what I’m just focusing on in terms of investments, just like letting it grow, letting it be like giving it time at the moment and yeah, I don’t know. I don’t have specific plans for it, so as long term as it needs to be.

Emily (37:16): Great. Um, and then you mentioned earlier, maybe I’ll stay in the us maybe I’ll end up moving elsewhere. Have you given any thought or planning to what happens with those investment accounts if you were to leave the country?

Mrunal (37:28): Let’s see, if I was to leave the country, I think like the taxable brokerage account is easy ’cause I can just like, you know, I think I don’t even know if I would take my money out because you know, people outside of the US also stay invested in the US market and you know, being in the US you are getting dollars, you know, you’re getting paid in dollars, it’s, it’s worth it to just remain invested even after you leave. Um, I mean it might change logistics in terms of what brokerage platforms you can use. Like currently I use Vanguard. I don’t know if I can still use it if I leave the country that would, I would have to figure that out. But I still think I was, I would stay invested or, you know, keep the money in the US market. Um, the Roth IRA, I’m not a hundred percent sure.

Mrunal (38:17): Like I think, you know, if I need to, I could take out my contributions and just leave whatever capital gain. If I’m using the term correctly, I would leave in it and take it out when I am eligible, which I think is some 59 years old or something like that. So I don’t know what the implications are. If you leave the country and you have this money sitting in the Roth ira, I think it’s doable. Like I think, I think it’s possible to just have it sit and you just take out your money once you can. In either case, I think I would still remain invested in the US market ’cause I think it’s the one that has more pot most potential for growth at the moment

Emily (39:01): For more discussion on that topic. Um, I’ll refer the listeners to, I have done two interviews with Hui-chin Chen [S4E17 and S22E1] who’s a an expert on investing in taxes for international professionals who, you know, cross borders in the course of their careers. Um, but I mean, what you were saying earlier very much echoes what she said, which is just like, get started.

Mrunal (39:19): Yeah.

Emily (39:19): Work out the details later, <laugh>, you know because first of all, the situation may not come to pass that you have to leave. Like maybe you will end up living in the US long term if it does come to pass. You can work out how to transfer, when to transfer, what the tax implications are, all that stuff at that time. And you can use professionals, which is of course as a professional what she would recommend. Um, but yeah, like you said, the, the important part is just getting started and I’m so glad to hear that like you didn’t allow these questions that we still have, um, to stop you from starting to grow your wealth because it, it sounds like it has been significant even only in the past, you know, few years.

Mrunal (39:55): Yeah. I think, uh, I think education around this is important. Like, I think everyone is gonna come in a little nervous, but I think like, which is why I think you, what you do with your platform is very important, right? Like spreading financial information, especially for grad students who don’t have a lot of access to them. So yeah, I think, yeah, I think educating around this is important and I think like the end lesson is like time is of the essence at this age because people, when, you know, people who are doing PhDs are kind of in their maybe like twenties or thirties, you know, so, which is I think a very important time for money to grow. And instead of kind of being on the fence about whether to not do it or you know, whether to just keep the money in a savings account, it kind of costs you. Um, so if you wait to figure that out till later when you have more money or more income, you might have already lost amount of money that you could have grown over time.

Emily (40:55): And I think especially for a grad student, like in your situation, so sometimes I’m so gung ho about investing and sometimes it’s really not appropriate for some graduate students. They really don’t make enough money. They have other debt they need to deal with. Um, so I don’t wanna come across as like investing is always the right choice and you have to get started and you’ll be doomed if you don’t start in your twenties and all of that stuff. Um, but for a grad student like you who has a very nice stipend in a moderate cost of living area, your, you know, fixed expenses are on the lower end. Like it really would be squandering the time if you weren’t investing right now. So you’re doing exactly, you know, the right thing for your finances for where you are. That’s not the same for everybody else everywhere else.

Emily (41:36): Um, but yeah, just imagine if, if you had led those questions, you know, hold you back from getting started and, and if you hadn’t taken that step and like what would you be doing with this money? Like yeah. Would be building up in savings or like maybe you’ll be spending a little bit more, but it sounds like you’re okay with how much you’re spending. So I’m so glad that you took that step and that you had like these other people in your life who were like encouraging you in that direction. You obviously did a lot of your own research as well, so I’m just so, just so pleased with this description and I’m so happy to share this conversation, um, with the audience and hopefully it’ll be encouraging, um, to some people and inspiring. So thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (42:11): Um, and I wanna end with the question that I asked of all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it can be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview or it could be something completely new

Mrunal (42:22): I’ve been preparing for this. What I’ve written is that, um, the early, the first thing you should probably do with your stipend is understanding it’s the taxes around it <laugh>. Um, and yeah, so that you know when to pay your taxes so that, you know, down the road the government does not hold that against you, you know, especially if you’re international. The next thing I would just say is like, yeah, budget your money. Um, keep some money aside for savings if you can and build focus on building those emergency and sinking funds first. And when you are comfortable and in terms of your emergency and sinking funds, you should start investing. And even a little goes a long way in terms of time. So yeah. And the other advice I think I would give alongside this is automating your transactions or transfers so that you’re paying yourself first, you know, in the, in that <laugh> very cliche statement, but you know, so that you’re not thinking about at the end of a month, you know, after doing your needs and wants, like, okay, how much money I have left? Just put that money initially, like start small, you know, see if you are comfortable, try it out. You can change that amount, you know, on a month to month basis, but do that in an automated fashion just so you don’t have to think about it or alleviate these decision, um, points and don’t have to spend that much energy making those decisions.

Emily (43:45): Yeah. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Um, Mrunal thank you so much for volunteering again to come on the podcast and it’s been a pleasure to speak with you.

Mrunal (43:52): Yeah, this has been super fun. Thank you for having me.

Outro

Emily (44:04): 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? My team has 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This Grad Student Experiences Financial Ease Thanks to Her Side Hustles

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Nashae Prout, a 5th-year PhD candidate in toxicology at the University of Rochester. Nashae’s first year of graduate school on a $28,000 stipend was financially challenging, so she now maintains two side hustles. She serves as a graduate community assistant for graduate housing, an up to 10 hour per week position that gives her a 55% reduction in rent. She also adjuncts for a nearby university with the support of her PI. Between these two side hustles and her disposition toward frugality, Nashae can comfortably max out her Roth IRA and spend in areas that matter to her, experiencing financial ease. She concludes the interview with excellent advice on time management and prioritization.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This Grad Student Experiences Financial Ease Thanks to Her Side Hustles

Teaser

Nashae (00:00): I know how hard it is. My first year, I definitely had to have a very strict budget in what I spent my money on and how much of it I did spend. And so it like just takes some of that stress off your shoulders and I have to think about, okay, I can’t do this ’cause I have to pay rent and I can’t do that ’cause I have to pay off this card bill.

Introduction

Emily (00:32): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:02): This is Season 23, Episode 2, and today my guest is Nashae Prout, a 5th-year PhD candidate in toxicology at the University of Rochester. Nashae’s first year of graduate school on a $28,000 stipend was financially challenging, so she now maintains two side hustles. She serves as a graduate community assistant for graduate housing, an up to 10 hour per week position that gives her a 55% reduction in rent. She also adjuncts for a nearby university with the support of her PI. Between these two side hustles and her disposition toward frugality, Nashae can comfortably max out her Roth IRA and spend in areas that matter to her, experiencing financial ease. She concludes the interview with excellent advice on time management and prioritization.

Emily (01:56): The tax year 2025 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. While I do sell these workshops to individuals, I prefer to license them to universities so that the graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs can access them for free. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they sponsor this workshop for you and your peers? You can find more information about licensing these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Thank you so, so much for doing so! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s23e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Nashae Prout.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:32): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Nashae Prout, who is a fifth year PhD candidate at the University of Rochester. And we’re gonna be talking about increasing income and making your budget work on a grad student stipend. So Nashae, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Nashae (03:51): Yeah, um, happy to be here. My name’s Nashae Prout. I am from Washington DC and I am a fifth year PhD candidate at University of Rochester’s Toxicology Training program.

Emily (04:01): Excellent. Now, uh, let’s take it back a little bit ’cause I wanna set up what your fin- your finances and your financial life were like coming into graduate school. So I understand you graduated from college debt free. Can you tell us like how that happened?

Nashae (04:16): Yes. So I have a three-pronged approach in how I, uh, got through undergrad debt free. So one, um, I started off at community college. Uh, a lot of people don’t always do that, but it’s a really viable option, especially if you don’t have that much money to, you know, go right into a four year institution. So that was number one. Number two, I did have a lot of financial aid. Um, I qualified for the Pell Grant. Um, we also have a tuition assistance grant in DC because there’s no public colleges in DC um, where, sort of this in between we’re out of state everywhere else, but where we’re in state, it’s only private institutions that cost a lot more money. And so because of that, the DC government provides students with a $10,000 grant for each year of college. I think up until five years they cover you for the, for five years, um, for any four year institution that you join.

Nashae (05:11): And so I got that every year. I made sure to put in my application each year to renew it because I needed that money once I started at Morgan State University, which is where I did my undergrad. And then on top of that I also was an NIH BUILD scholar. Um, NIH BUILD is, it’s an acronym Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity. We were one of 10 sites in the United States. Um, and so it was a two year, um, traineeship where I got partial tuition coverage as well as money each month, um, after working a certain amount of hours. Um, and I will say, um, at that point I was breaking even if not give or take about a hundred dollars. So by the end of it I did pay for my college myself, so maybe a couple hundred. But in those first two years when I was at community college, my parents did, um, help me out tremendously and thankful to them every single day for paying for my uh, community college.

Emily (06:05): Yeah, well even with parental support to, you know, for a certain period of time, that’s still a huge accomplishment to get through college without debt. Did you go directly to graduate school or did you take any time in between?

Nashae (06:18): No, I went directly into graduate school. I, that summer I didn’t do any work. I was working since I was 14 years old every summer and it was the first summer I did nothing and I quickly realized there’s a reason why I always had a summer job because I got really bored of watching daytime TV really fast. 

PhD Offer Letters and Funding Sources

Emily (06:35): Um, okay. So tell us more about like maybe your offer letter and like how, how you were funded throughout, you know, up to this, you know, fifth year of your PhD program.

Nashae (06:47): Yeah, so, um, I actually had two offers for a PhD program, one at Rochester and the other one at a school in Texas. And I, and while Texas does not have um, income taxes, that that was a good selling point, however, I decided to go for the Rochester offer just ’cause it was a bit closer to home and I loved the culture of the program as well. And so that offer letter, I think, um, I wanna say it was maybe like 28 K, but they also gave me a relocation assistance, um, fund, I think it was like a thousand to $2,000, which I, um, was really grateful for in terms of, you know, having to move, uh, six, seven hours away from my family. Um, so that did sweeten the pot. Um, the first year we’re all funded underneath the, uh, dean scholarship. So all first years, um, at my school are funded by that scholarship. Um, after that I was on a T32 grant with my program. And then currently, um, yes, so that was second and third year I was on the T32 and then fourth year and onwards I am covered by a grant with my PI.

Emily (07:52): Okay, so you’ve switched kind of from fellowship to training grant to assistantship, um, but has that 28K pretty much stayed stable or like gone up a little bit?

Nashae (08:01): Yeah, it goes up, um, what is it, I think 3% every year. So it’s gone up a little bit every year to like match inflation.

Side Income: Graduate Community Assistant

Emily (08:08): Okay. And I know where we’re going with this is that we’re gonna talk about your side income. So that 28k plus, you know, 3% growth each year. Has that not really been sufficient to pay for at least what you want your living expenses to be?

Nashae (08:21): I am never, I’d just say this, I’m never just satisfied with what I’m getting. I’m always gonna wanna challenge myself and get more, um, my parents are immigrants to the United States. They’re both from Jamaica and so they’ve always instilled in me to work hard. Um, my dad, he’s a construction worker, but he’d also always do side jobs. So I always saw him, he’d be, you know, done doing this, but he’d go into this person’s house to do the side project to get extra money. And so when I saw the opportunity, um, to start a side job, I took it. And that first one was with, um, graduate housing. Um, they had a GCA position, which is a graduate community assistant position open. I actually applied for it twice the first time I didn’t get it and the second time I ended up getting the position. Um, and it’s, it didn’t seem like it was out of the realm of what I’d be comfortable doing. It’s a lot of, you know, putting on events, um, greeting residents. I’m a yapper so I like talking with people anyways, so it’s not, um, it wasn’t too much of a deviation from like what I’d be comfortable doing on the side for a couple hours every week.

Emily (09:25): Okay. So let me ask, do you, did you have to live in the housing to have this job or were you able to live elsewhere?

Nashae (09:33): No, so you have to live within graduate housing for at least four months before being eligible to become a graduate community assistant. You also have to live in that graduate area that you’re going to be working in. So I live in my complex and because of that I am over, um, I’m responsible for um, I think the 700s and 800s like apartment blocks in this complex. If I was a GCA at one of the other complexes, I’d have to be a resident there for four months. I think I could transfer, but there’s a transfer fee and I didn’t wanna pay that ’cause there was another position open, but I would’ve had to move there to be eligible for it and I did not wanna move. I like my apartment.

Emily (10:14): I see. So you had already chosen your housing anyways, just like what you personally wanted for your time in graduate school and then, then you saw these open positions and were like, oh, I can add that into my life right now. That seems manageable, is that right?

Nashae (10:27): Yeah, because you’re only eligible to live here if you’re a trainee or a medical student or anything like that. And so everyone else that’s also GCA is also either an MBA student, a PhD student, or they’re a med student.

Emily (10:40): Okay. And you told us a little bit about the nature of the job and about the time commitment. Um, but what are you getting? Are you getting paid? Are you getting like a, a reduction in your housing costs or like how does the compensation work?

Nashae (10:51): Yeah, so because a lot of the programs don’t allow for us to be, um, paid or at least to a certain extent, we can’t get paid depending on what grant you’re on. What, um, graduate housing does is that they don’t pay us. What they do is they give us a rent reduction every month on our rent. So I get 55% off of my rent costs.

Emily (11:09): Nice. Yeah, that, I mean you said it was maybe like two hours per week. That seems like a great trade off. What, what dollar amount does that equate to?

Nashae (11:17): I’d say it depends on the week. So some weeks are a lot more intensive, especially in the summertime. We do have a lot more residents coming in, so we have to make sure that we greet them all. We have to make three attempts to greet them. Um, so that’s just knocking on their door, seeing if they’re home, if they’re not, okay, if, if they are then we have to chat with them for a little bit. Um, so it, I think it’s technically 10 hours per week, but it ebbs and flows throughout the semester. So middle of fall semester, I am doing less hours technically, but in the summertime I am doing more, but this is mostly stuff on the weekends and I, I, um, am responsible for hosting one event per month. Um, which I think the hardest part is just advertising the event. So you know, sending out those flyers, printing it off and posting it in like the laundry room and stuff like that. So it depends on for like the hours, like some are just, some seasons are more busy than other seasons are, like winter time. We don’t technically have much to do from the end of the semester to the start of, um, the spring semester in Ja- in like the end of January. So that’s like a pretty lax time where we’re not doing anything. So it ebbs and flows I’d say. So more than two hours, but some weeks it is more so like two hours. Like especially in the wintertime there’s zero hours technically.

Emily (12:33): Awesome. And you said it’s a 55% rent reduction, so I’m imagining this is a benefit worth at least several hundred dollars, is that right?

Nashae (12:40): By this year it’s at least a reduction by like five to 600.

Emily (12:44): Very nice. Very nice. Helps a lot.

Nashae (12:46): Yes, it makes like very affordable

Emily (12:49): Yeah. And so it sounds like you, you’ve, you still continue to hold this position, is that right? You started in maybe like your second year-ish and then you still have it?

Nashae (12:57): Yeah, I started in my second year. I was eligible in my first year, but again, I interviewed for it and I didn’t get it that first round. Um, still in my second year and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. I’m, uh, one of the OG GCAS in the position, so everyone else in my complex is currently newer than I am, so I sort of help them sometimes with like, oh, who do I contact for this or who do I chat with for that?

Emily (13:20): Nice. Um, well it sounds, I, I don’t know the, it sounds like a great position. I I am always a little bit like regretful when I look back at grad school and like I never even thought about like, or you know, considered doing this type of position yet. It seems like yeah, pretty good amount of financial benefit for like the work you need to put in, especially if you find the work like pretty pleasant, you know, overall. 

Nashae (13:42): I have a shopping problem so I love shopping with the school’s money to host the events anyways. Like it’s, it’s a win-win situation in my opinion.

Emily (13:50): Yeah, I would say for, certainly for current graduate students, if you would like <laugh> a rent reduction, you know, look, look into this.

Nashae (13:58): Free rent is, yeah, yeah. Free rent is worth it if you wanna do that side, but 50% off is also very reasonable.

Emily (14:04): Yeah, it’s, it’s more compensation but it’s more work, right, for, for that type of position. But I would also say for like maybe even prospective graduate students who are concerned about the cost of housing in like the city that they’re considering moving to look for this kind of opportunity sooner rather than later. It could even be part of your like decision of where you go, like whether, if it is a position that you’re willing to take on whether those positions are available because it can be a massive help, 50%, a hundred percent kind of rent reduction in a high cost of living area would matter a lot for a graduate student. Um, so I really appreciate you telling us about the position. Seems like a good fit for you.

Nashae (14:40): Yeah, I personally love it. I am hoping that other people that you know need it can also get a position similar to this, especially if you’re in a high cost of living. I wouldn’t consider Rochester very high cost of living. Like the original rent is about maybe a bit over a thousand dollars for a rent one bedroom. So it’s not, it’s very reasonable. So it’s just helps me even more in terms of like this like moderate cost of living area.

Side Income: Adjunct Faculty Member

Emily (15:04): Yeah. And I understand you have another side job, um, maybe not surprising given your description of like who you are and like just you wanna be busy and wanna be working a lot. So like what’s your other side position?

Nashae (15:16): Yeah, so my other side position is being an adjunct faculty member at Nazareth University. Um, it’s a local liberal arts college here in Rochester.

Emily (15:24): So how did you first come, well I guess tell us what you teach and like is it all the time year round or in certain semesters?

Nashae (15:33): Yeah, so I teach um, biology lab, so it’s um, a one credit course and then I also last spring semester taught science communications or sorry, intro to science communications and that was a three credit course. Um, it’s, they’re both, um, in person on campus, um, classes that I teach, I do the lab courses in the fall and then I do in the spring I did science communications. Um, it’s pretty reasonable in terms of time commitment. I do one evening class and one afternoon class for my lab sections and I only do, I only did one science communications class since that one did take a lot more time grading wise. Grading wise, since it is a, uh, writing class. So you know, you’re doing papers and continual uh, edits on people’s like work

Emily (16:23): And were you like the instructor of record for either one of those?

Nashae (16:28): Yeah, so I am the listed instructor for all the courses that I teach at Nazareth.

Emily (16:32): Nice. And did you have to prepare a curriculum as well?

Nashae (16:36): No, so, um, I do have leeway with the science communications class, however, for the science laboratory class, because it is standard across all lab sections, that one is predetermined. So I have leeway in terms of how I get the material across, but the experiments that are laid out are laid out in a scheduled fashion and it’s the same for all faculty teaching the course.

Emily (16:58): And did you pursue this position purely for more money or was it for teaching experience or like what were your motivations?

Nashae (17:06): Yeah, so, um, I got the position actually because a lab member of mine was already an adjunct there and through word of mouth I was able to apply for some of their extra adjunct positions. Um, I I would say it was 50% wanting more money and 50% wanting to pad my CV with an experience. Um, I’ve done volunteer work with teaching, um, but I want to have the experience of actually being the actual instructor for a class, you know, having to take high level science stuff and break it down into something digestible for a freshman under undergraduate.

Emily (17:41): How do you feel it’s been working for you in, in terms of, let’s take the, the career development, the CV padding as the first point, like you think it’s been worthwhile, has it been rewarding for you? Has it, you know, opened up any other opportunities?

Nashae (17:53): I definitely feel like it’s been rewarding. I really do like teaching. The worst part about teaching is just the grades. Honestly. I hate, um, having to grade <laugh> but other than that I like going in, I like interacting with the students. Um, honestly they’re all really great. I would also say that it’s good for my CV because I’m getting experience and it helped me determine whether or not I did wanna pursue education at the moment. You know, with funding crazy as it is. Um, I’m not putting all my eggs in the academia basket, but I do have the experience and it is something that if the right opportunity, you know, occurs, then I would pursue it further. Especially if it was for either liberal arts college or a health professions college, like a pharmacy school because um, I like when students are really engaged. My favorite ones are the, the, the super nerdy ones because they ask the most questions and they’re the most engaged with the course material.

Emily (18:48): Did you not have an opportunity through your regular graduate program? I mean I guess you described your funding path didn’t involve TAing at all and so it sounds like you, you sort of had to go outside your university to find these kinds of opportunities, is that right?

Nashae (19:02): Um, so yeah, my program does not require any type of TAship. We’re only, um, required to do research. So I did become a TA for one semester for one of our courses, but they don’t pay you for the, for being a ta, it’s purely a volunteer type of of um, thing. I did put it on my CV of course and there is good experience there but for me, if I was going to take my time three days out of the week to go sit down in a class and be there for the entire duration, I wanna be paid for my time. And so to me it’s worth it to, you know, go off campus twice a week or once a week to teach and get paid for it versus staying on campus which eats your commute just to walk down the hallway to the um, classroom. But I’d much rather be paid for my time than not be paid for my time. And it looks better on the CV to have like you are actually the instructor your name is on the syllabus versus just being the TA for a course at your own institution.

Emily (19:58): Yeah, for sure. Um, and do you mind sharing your pay rate for those two classes?

Nashae (20:04): Yeah, so it’s around $3,000 per class per semester. So the more classes you teach the more you can get. However, as an adjunct I am limited to a maximum of three classes per semester.

Emily (20:17): Oh three per semester. Well that, yeah, that’s quite a bit more than you’re doing at the moment.

Commercial

Emily (20:23): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Impact of Side Income on Finances During Grad School

Emily (21:15): From these two different side jobs, which you’re holding them both now, right? So this is probably like the most money slash the least rent, you know you’ve had to pay uh, during your course of time in graduate school. What would you say has been the overall effect on your finances? Like more high level?

Nashae (21:29): I would say for me it’s one being able to comfortably max out my Roth IRA every year. Um, I didn’t open it until I was like a second or third year in my PhD, but I was able to max it out for the past couple years, which I think is great because I don’t think I would’ve been able to afford to do that otherwise without maybe surviving on ramen noodles and air for <laugh>, the, all my meals and my PhD. So that is I think the biggest one. Secondarily, I’m able to comfortably like travel to see my family every year. Um, I don’t ask them for any money. I’ve been financially independent from them since I’ve moved out. I don’t wanna put that burden on them. My dad just retired, um, so I’m able to go fly to them or drive whenever I feel the need to.

Nashae (22:15): I also, um, treat myself, I do one musical festival each year. Um, I did uh, I’m doing Camp Flog Gnaw this year, so, uh, very excited for that. Um, I am splitting the hotel costs with my um, friends because I am, I like treating myself but I’m not crazy. I will not stay in LA for my own self for a hotel room. Um, we are splitting it. All four of us are spliting the hotel room. So I also do that and I also uh, like taking care of myself uh, and not having to think too much about what I’m buying. Like I definitely do, I’m very much a budget oriented person, however I’m able to like go thrifting and it was within like my allotted 30 to $50 budget for a outing. I’m able to comfortably do it. Sometimes I have gone overboard, but for the most part I’m able to save quite a bit of money every year. Just just less strain.

Emily (23:08): Yes, exactly. So like not only are you like building for your financial future through the Roth IRA, but just in your day-to-day decisions around money, you just have more ease and less stress and like you said, you’re not going like overboard as a graduate student. It’s kind of hard to go overboard in in any area, but just the additional income that you’re bringing in and the rent reduction allows you that. Um, yeah, just not to be stressed about these like more like low level purchases which absolutely characterizes, you know, the the grad student experience.

Nashae (23:37): And I don’t do like a lot of those like small purchases but like for example, I make my coffee at home. I don’t go out to get my coffee. I, I pack my lunches most days. I rarely go out to eat. Um, I will go out to drink on the weekends or something with friends or like go have a dinner here and there. But like for the most part I live like pretty frugally like my entire outfit right now it is all thrifted clothing. The outfit is under $10. Um, I love saving money where I can but because I get extra income I’m allowed to like splurge where I want to.

Emily (24:07): Yeah, and it sounds like you have a very high level of awareness of your budget too. Like you know that your spending is under control in these certain areas so that you have the more ease in the other areas that seems like they provide more like value to you.

Nashae (24:21): Absolutely. I love being able to like I think about all my purchases of course, but I’m able to comfortably pay off my credit card bill every month. I always use my credit card ’cause it’s a cashback credit card and so I never spend more than what I have anyways. Um, but even if I spend over a thousand dollars on a month on my credit card, I’m always able to comfortably cover that without going into the red.

Emily (24:44): Do you see any differences between you and your peers at Rochester in this regard or are most of your peers also working side jobs so that they can have you know, similar financial freedom?

Nashae (24:54): I would say most of my peers aren’t working side jobs. I’d say maybe 30 to 40% perhaps. Um, I have some friends that were also GCAs. I’ve had some friends that work in the graduate um, affairs office. I’ve had some friends, um, teach on the side. I know at least one other person from my school that teaches at Nazareth. Um, I definitely would say I wish more people would take more opportunities because I know how hard it is. For my first year, I definitely had to have a very strict budget in what I spent my money on and how much of it I did spend. And so it like just takes some of that stress off your shoulders to not have to think about, okay, I can’t do this ’cause I have to pay rent and I can’t do that because I have to pay off this card bill or that um, car insurance note. Or whatever it is. Um, I definitely feel like I wish more people like took more opportunities like this ’cause there are opportunities to get teaching and not have it, um, be for free. I will say the other side of our campus, like the, like the arts engineering school, they do get paid for, um, being a TA. However, for my campus we don’t. And so that is something that I know a lot of graduate students do. It’s part of their, um, funding package. But at least for my school and my program, we do not get paid for a TA ships, which is why I stopped doing it after that first semester.

Academia Approved Side Hustles

Emily (26:16): Yeah, and I, I neglected to ask this earlier, but um, does your advisor know about your adjuncting position or like is it all like sort of out in the open or is it something that you do kind of quietly?

Nashae (26:27): No, he definitely knows. Um, I actually talked with him about like how many courses I should or should not teach. I’ve never gone above two courses because we both agree that that was the maximum ’cause it’s like one evening I, it’s a 6:00 PM course so it doesn’t interfere with my studies and my work. Um, ’cause I’m able to do nine to five and then the earliest course I’ve ever taught was, uh, 1:00 PM which I, we always have our meeting directly after the course anyways, so it doesn’t impact my work negatively, I’m still meeting my milestones as I should.

Emily (26:56): I I’ve started using the term academia approved, like academia approved side hustles and like adjuncting is usually an academia approved side hustle because obviously it’s in the wheelhouse. Everybody knows even if it’s at a different institution, like everybody gets, you know, uh, why you would wanna do it and what the requirements are and the time commitment and all that sort of thing. So like as long as it’s sort of like legally permitted by everybody’s visa and like the terms of your funding and all that, um, it’s pretty likely like with your advisor that they would be encouraging of this kind of thing as long as of course you have scheduled it so that it’s not gonna interfere with your primary work.

Nashae (27:31): Absolutely, yeah, I know when I was on the T 32 I wasn’t allowed to, I think it was either 10 or 15 hours of external work per week. But even with both of my jobs, um, I teach like a one, I teach one to three credits every semester at Nazareth, so that’s not impacting it there. And then for my GCA position I, it oscillates between maybe like five to 10 hours per week. So I’m still well within or below that 15, um, that 15 hour minimum maximum, um, that’s allotted with um, T 32 grants.

Emily (28:06): Yeah, and it’s really just good to know as a student, like that sort of rule on the backend. Like especially if you got pushback from your advisor, like, oh no, I’d actually don’t think you should take that other position. You say, well, you know, my funding technically allows for this amount and this is how I’m going to balance it. You have to still convince them, but like you have a little bit of support by just it being the policy. Okay. Don’t go above 15 hours per week.

Nashae (28:28): Yeah. And I’m very happy that, love my PI, he is great and he supports me doing this because he wants me to have that breadth of experience because my, again, my uh, program does not require any type of, um, TAship or adjuncting or what have you. So this is extra opportunity for me to gain experience in something that isn’t traditionally offered in my program of study.

Emily (28:50): Excellent. I can definitely see why your advisor would be encouraging of that. Is there anything else you wanna add on that point before we move to our final question?

Nashae (28:58): I would say, uh, just my one thing about, uh, teaching philosophy. I think a lot of people, this is like the soap, this is the soapbox me. I think we should strive to be, um, servant leaders, hearing what the people that we’re serving need from us and then working to provide them with what they need instead, instead of, you know, internally thinking, oh, okay, this is what I’m going to give instead of asking what do you need? That’s my one, um, thing that I I would just like want people to, to um, have and just spread as information. Like if you’re in a leadership position, make sure that you’re serving the people that you’re leading.

Emily (29:34): I can see how that applies both to your teaching position and your position with graduate housing. Definitely.

Nashae (29:39): Exactly. Yeah, I always wanna listen to feedback and listen to requests, um, and then work to achieve that.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (29:45): Awesome. Well let’s wrap up with the final question that I ask of all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it can be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already or it could be something completely new.

Nashae (29:57): Yeah, I would say my advice for any early career PhD is to time manage very well. And if you can time manage very well, then you can do a side hustle. I would never want someone to prioritize their side hustle over their PhD. Um, I’m here to get my PhD, that’s what I moved here for, so I’m always gonna put that on top. But if you have the time management skills to do a side hustle or do two like I’m doing, um, then do it. I think it’s one of the best financial decisions I’ve made as an adult, um, is having these side jobs that, um, one are not very hard. Really the only thing I dislike is the act of grading because it’s very tedious to grade each student, but my class is never more than 16 students, so it’s not that much in the grand scheme of things. I’m not doing a 100 plus person lecture where I’m grading it’s maximum 30 students that I’m grading for an assignment at a time. So if you can time management, if you have the time management skills, then do it. If you can’t, then focus more so on your, on your studies and look for opportunities within your university so that it’s a bit easier for you to potentially add something else onto your plate.

Emily (31:06): I totally agree. You have to like get your, you have to have your time management house in order, as you were saying before you can pursue these other financial opportunities because like you said, you have to keep the main goal in mind. The main goal is to finish that PhD and get a great job afterwards. And if you get distracted by side hustles, especially side hustles that like, you know, your job as an adjunct, like that’s still career building, um, most likely. And so especially if you get distracted by a side job that has nothing to do with your career, it can really add a lot of time, which is ultimately detrimental financially to you. So these two are like very, very intertwined. So I’m really glad you brought that up. Thank you.

Nashae (31:44): Absolutely. Yeah.

Emily (31:45): And thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. It was great talking with you.

Nashae (31:49): Absolutely. I am happy to be here and I’m happy if at least one person takes my advice or falls in my footsteps and is able to save more money than they would have and be a little bit set up, you know, better for the future considering like the crazy economy we have going on right now.

Emily (32:05): Absolutely.

Outro

Emily (32:15): 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? My team has 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

How Financial Policies Impact Graduate Student Attrition

by Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Connor Ferguson, a postdoc at the University at Buffalo studying how professional development and student success initiatives influence the graduate training environment. While pursuing her PhD in higher education at West Virginia University, Connor worked full-time as a student affairs professional supporting health sciences graduate students, which has given her multiple perspectives on how to support graduate students. Connor and Emily discuss the best practices that universities and programs can implement to reduce graduate student attrition and strengthen the workforce development pipeline, including how to raise stipends and provide for basic needs.

Links mentioned in the Episode

How Financial Policies Impact Graduate Student Attrition

Teaser

Connor (00:00): You don’t want the students to be overwhelmed. You don’t want them to burn out. But at the same time, if they’re not able to make a wage to sustain a healthy living environment, they’re gonna be overwhelmed and they’re gonna burn out.

Introduction

Emily (00:21): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:50): This is Season 22, Episode 8, and today my guest is Dr. Connor Ferguson, a postdoc at the University at Buffalo studying how professional development and student success initiatives influence the graduate training environment. While pursuing her PhD in higher education at West Virginia University, Connor worked full-time as a student affairs professional supporting health sciences graduate students, which has given her multiple perspectives on how to improve the graduate student experience. Connor and I discuss the best practices that universities and programs can implement to reduce graduate student attrition and strengthen the workforce development pipeline, including how to raise stipends and provide for basic needs.

Emily (01:34): If you want to bring one of my live tax workshops to your university next tax season, get in touch with me ASAP! Between now and the end of the year, I’m populating my calendar, especially early February, with in person and remote speaking engagements. My workshops are typically hosted by graduate schools, postdoc offices, and graduate student associations, and sometimes individual departments. Whether you are in a position to make those arrangements or simply want to recommend me, you can get the ball rolling by emailing me at [email protected]. My tax workshops, both live and pre-recorded, are my most popular offering each year because taxes are such a widespread pain point for graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s22e8/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Connor Ferguson.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:45): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Connor Ferguson. She is a postdoc at the University of Buffalo, and we met last summer 2025 at the Graduate Career Consortium annual meeting, and during the poster session, we got deep into a discussion on grad student stipends and advocacy and Connor’s particular interest in attrition in graduate among graduate students. And Connor told me about this upcoming study that she’s working on. It was just so fascinating. I knew I had to have her on the podcast, so I’m very excited. Connor, welcome to the podcast. Um, and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Connor (03:22): Sure. Uh, thanks Emily. Thank you for having me. So I received both my master’s and doctorate in higher education from West Virginia University. I also have a graduate certificate in university teaching. My doctoral work specifically examined the influence of faculty mentorship on graduate student self-efficacy development, but also while I was pursuing both of those graduate degrees, I worked full-time as a student affairs professional, specifically supporting health sciences graduate students at my institution. Uh, my professional role was to support the graduate education environment through mentoring, strategic recruitment, and the implementation of professional development programming. And during this experience, I formed individual connections with students and I really got to learn about what they loved about graduate education and the research, but also I really learned about what made it a struggle, um, and how I could try to help them. So during that practical experience, I identified areas in which practitioners could shape programming or initiatives to support the needs of the graduate student population. And that objective has been pretty consistent. It’s a consistent theme across all of my work efforts. And I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Buffalo, where our lab focuses on culting-, cultivating and retaining the future STEM workforce through the implementation of some evidence-based practices that emphasize equality of access. And I’m specifically looking at how professional development and student success initiatives influence the graduate student training environment.
Emily (04:57): Those of you watching the video could see that I was just nodding, nodding, nodding, nodding along with everything that Connor just said. I love this like dual or at least like multiple perspectives, um, that you have, you know, personally and professionally on the graduate student population.

How Do Stipends and Benefits Impact Grad Student Attrition?

Emily (05:10): This is amazing. And so as you know, and as all the listeners know, this is a finance podcast. So let’s take what the framing that you just gave all your background, you know, what your lab is currently doing, and let’s talk more specifically about money. So how have you observed or how are you hypothesizing that stipends and benefits and other monetary, you know, things that affect the graduate student population, um, and their own personal finances, how are they contributing to this, um, overall problem of attrition? You know, and you also phrased this as workforce development, right? So broad broadly, workforce development maybe more specifically attrition at the graduate student level.

Connor (05:49): Sure. So, um, at a more general level, research has shown that students choose to withdraw from graduate programs for many reasons, including program fit, uh, personal reasons, departmental issues, but also financial challenges. Um, before I dive fully into the financial component, my professional experience and research is placed in the biomedical and health sciences graduate student realm, of which these programs tend to be on the upper end of those stipend and benefit ranges, um, compared to students in the humanity and social sciences. So just that overarching perspective, I am in the biomedical realm, but overall across disciplines, financial instability is a serious concern for graduate students. So when stipend and benefits don’t support a living wage, students can face a chronic financial stress that impacts both their academic performance and their overall wellbeing. And we see more and more students reporting that they are being paid at, at or near the poverty level. And with some of these graduate programs, they’re also expected to essentially work full-time in the labs that they’re in. So there are limited opportunities for students to pursue additional employment elsewhere. Some programs are also discouraging students from pursuing additional employment. They state that this is because graduate studies and research makes up a full-time commitment. And I can see that coming from a place of care, right? You don’t want the students to be overwhelmed, you don’t want them to burn out, but at the same time, if they’re not able to make a wage to sustain a healthy living environment, they’re gonna be overwhelmed and they’re gonna burn out.

Emily (07:25): Not to mention the international population, right, who are legally barred from having virtually any source of income outside of their stipend.

Connor (07:33): Yes, that’s an incredibly important point. Thank you for bringing that up. So for example, I had spoken with a student who worked full-time as a PhD student, right? But they also worked overnights as an EMT, and they were incredibly exhausted and incredibly tired, and that weaves its way into all aspects of their life. But they felt that they needed to do that in order to support themselves and their family. So when students are discouraged from pursuing supplemental employment but are in need of a supplemental income, they could feel trapped between the institutional expectations and financial survival. And that tension can contribute to burnout and attrition.

Emily (08:17): And I also just wanna say, I mean all, all your points are perfectly well taken, but like I also firmly believe that it’s not just about basic needs and survival, it’s also about having a satisfactory and fulfilling life. Especially if we’re talking about PhDs, like that’s a long time to be living at the poverty level, for example. So like for me, I just wanna encourage everyone listening like, it’s okay also to want more for your financial life than just baseline survival, although that is the discussion that we’re having in certain kinds of programs at certain places,

Connor (08:49): Right. Yeah. Uh, baseline living wage is the bare minimum <laugh>. Um, but unfortunately we do have to start at the bare minimum in some of these discussions, um, in order to get this going. And stipend ranges are really variable across programs, disciplines, institutions. Um, in my previous employment I collected stipend data for comparable institutions because our students were consistently, and if this was good that they were consistently bringing up that the stipend wasn’t enough. Um, oh my gosh, now make, now I’m thinking about why it’s usually student led efforts, but maybe we can loop back to that. Um, I know that there was a broader graduate student effort called PhDstipends.

Emily (09:31): That’s actually my website.

Connor (09:33): Okay, perfect. Well, it’s still ongoing. Um, and that was collected student reported data, so prospective students can check that out to see if the stipend and the, I think they’ll probably connect probably to the MIT living wage calculator.

Emily (09:49): We actually used to link the MIT living wage database, but more recently I could not secure permission from the owners of that database to do so. So it’s no longer there. Although I highly recommend it. I highly recommend visiting the living wage database. I find it to be a very useful resource.

Connor (10:04): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, also when you’re thinking about getting a new job and trying to understand what your salary here versus in a new location, what that all translate to the really helpful resources. I guess another point that I feel, um, I should discuss is that there’s more to the graduate student financial package than just the stipend. Um, a lot of times we forget about the value of the tuition waivers. So for doctoral research assistantships, for many PhD programs, they’ll receive a stipend tuition waiver and health insurance. And that tuition waiver is a substantial amount of money that the student’s not responsible for while they pursue their training. Ultimately though, the stipend, so the take home salary is often not supportive of a living wage. Um, but I myself was not in a stipend supported position, so I feel like I would be really grateful for a tuition waiver. So that’s why that little caveat perspectives in there.

Emily (10:58): Yeah, I definitely find that graduate students feel different ways about this. Um, some put a high value on that tuition waiver or scholarship, whatever the form is, um, because they really are considering, wow, I would be paying that, you know, to pursue that degree. Um, if this wasn’t offered and others are like, this is funny money and it is meaningless to me because whatever the number is, you would pay it for me. So I really just care about the stipend. So I definitely see, you know, those different, um, perspectives there. I wanna actually sort of double click on something that you said a few minutes ago, which is about, um, that the students at West Virginia were coming with their concerns around the stipend to the administration. And that was very helpful to you and your position to hear, you know, all of those concerns and then start doing that research of, okay, what are our, you know, peer programs offering? Are we competitive with them? So I just wanted to reemphasize that to the listeners of like, this is an effective strategy. Like if you have concerns about the stipend that’s being offered, bring it up and get your peers to bring it up at every, you know, reasonable opportunity. Um, especially actually at the prospective student stage. Um, it may not, I mean, hopefully it’ll, you know, enhance your offer that you try to negotiate. Maybe it won’t, but the people who you’re voicing this to are taking notes and they will eventually respond if they’re hearing over and over again that their stipend is just not competitive with other programs.

Connor (12:30): Yeah. And we did in fact, get some feedback once from an applicant who chose to go a different way. And it is really helpful to see that one of the reasons was that the financial package was not comparable to another opportunity because ultimately, uh, graduate programs are seeking to recruit those students. So they want to be competitive. And being vocal on all avenues is how we can create change. Um, if we’re quiet, then the administration either doesn’t know or they’re gonna choose not to know about these challenges.

Why Should Universities Care About Grad Student Attrition?

Emily (13:01): Absolutely. We’ve just spoken quite a bit about the effect of, you know, insufficient stipends or low stipends on graduate students’, um, wellbeing, their ability to progress in their programs and perform well and all of that. Let’s flip the perspective to the university side. Why <laugh>? You know, we, we talked about attrition, we talked about graduate students withdrawing from their programs. Why do universities, uh, care about that? It’s kind of a silly question, but what’s your framing on that?

Connor (13:31): So, universities should be concerned with graduate student attrition at multiple levels. Um, so it can be considered a failure to support the student. It could also be viewed as a disruption to the research enterprise. Um, and it could also demonstrate financial inefficiency within the institution itself. So kind of like three different perspectives. Um, and so my student affairs background leads me to center the individual. So I’ll start here with the, the student perspective. So looking at the student as individuals and supporting them through the attainment of their educational goals and the pursuit of their desired career pathways. And here I’ll emphasize that not all attrition is negative. Sometimes leaving a program is the right choice for the student’s goals, but my research focuses on attrition that occurs because of structural barriers, not personal fit. So when students leave under those conditions, it can reflect a failure of institutional support and could also signal some broader inequities in how we prepare and sustain our students. So from that student affairs perspective, attrition can represent, represent like an unfulfilled promise between the institution and the student.

Emily (14:49): I’m so glad you started with that framing ’cause that’s exactly where I would, um, sit as well. But because I spend so much time there, I’m curious about your other approaches as well to this issue.

Connor (15:00): Sure. So in order to get some stakeholder buy-in, um, it’s really helpful to kind of frame these issues from the broader research enterprise or from the business perspective. So in general, um, graduate students are significant contributors and leaders within the academic research enterprise, uh, both in terms of advancing science within their academic research team, but also as they progress into their future careers. And these students are active members of their research teams. And when research teams as a whole encounter a challenge or a setback, those setbacks can pose a considerable cost to the research institution and their team. So we look at graduate student nutrition as a specific type of challenge to that research progress. And you could also consider more of the ripple effects of graduate student attrition. Um, graduate students become active members and leaders of the broader scientific community or the scientific research community. And so attrition within graduate programs for reasons outside of the student’s personal motivations could impact the quality and viability of the overall research enterprise.

Emily (16:10): That approach to it is something that I’ve become more and more concerned about as the more work that I do in this area. And starting to see that bigger picture of you as you phrased it earlier, workforce developments. Go on. What’s that third way that, uh, that you frame the issue for, for universities?

Connor (16:26): That third way is framing it within the business realm of higher education, um, because much of the United States higher education system functions within a business structure now. So we frame attrition around this concept of waste. And we’re not using waste to devalue the student experience or to devalue the student, but to make that problem legible to those in- institutional decision makers who are viewing this as a business. Um, so in general, supportive doctoral programs requires a significant, uh, commitment of institutional, state and federal resources. So we have a lot of stakeholders, um, at play here, and the costs increase when cases of attrition occur. And so more specifically, training doctoral students requires a substantial investment of many layers. This includes the stipends support, but also through student and faculty recruitment in training students. And also if you consider time as a financial resource, which it should be considered a financial resource. So when a student leaves those resources are partially lost. And university stakeholders can view such attrition as a sign of institutional waste and inefficiency. And we are in a time of tightening budgets and a real pressure on accountability metrics. So attrition then becomes a point of concern specifically related to institutional inefficiency. So I suppose when I talk about attrition as waste, it’s really a call for universities to invest wisely into efforts that promote greater retention. So investing in financial stability, but also mentorship, programming and supportive climates. Those are effective strategies to yield positive training outcomes and reduce financial inefficiency.

Emily (18:17): And the way that, you know, you approach that really is sort of turning around saying to the institutions, there is a degree of waste happening here. As you said, it’s not because of the, the fit issues that aside, maybe people leave programs because their career goes no goals, no longer aligned. That’s that’s totally fine, that’s a separate issue. Um, but if you see that you’re not, uh, that money is being wasted, uh, because you’re not supporting the graduate student population sufficiently in x, y, z areas, well address those x, y, z areas, reduce the waste, like win win, win win for everybody. Right. Um, so I’m so glad that you took the time to explain like the, sort of those different perspectives, um, on the issue and, and put that term waste, you know, in, in some context for the listener. So I appreciate that. So when we met last summer, uh, you were telling me that you were putting in a grant and that you have, um, some ongoing and also some upcoming studies around this issue. So can you tell us more about, um, what you’re planning?

Other Attrition Related Research: Lab Switching and Master’s Degrees as Career Exploration

Connor (19:17): Sure. So the study that we spoke about, uh, last summer was specifically about the phenomenon of switching labs. Um, sometimes referred to as changing mentors depending on the discipline and whether it’s bench work or not. So in my study, I’m proposing that the biomedical sciences education community specifically just to frame the balance of my case view, switching labs as a type of attrition to be studied and prevented when appropriate, uh, to promote positive student outcomes and support the significant financial investments made when matriculating doctoral students into pro- um, programs. It’s a little different than fully withdrawing from the program, but we have less knowledge about switching labs. We know that it, it can increase the time to degree. So at a, you know, far back lens, we can see that an increased time to degree means more financial commitment. Um, but we don’t formally know about the phenomenon. And so we don’t know about the factors that influence the decision to choose to switch labs. And we also don’t know about the corresponding impact on the training experience for both the student and the faculty member, but also training outcomes and the overall institutional financial commitment. So I’m implementing a mixed methods approach to capture institutional metrics, but also the student and faculty narratives of lab switching.

Emily (20:46): Anecdotally on my end, I remember from graduate school that some lab switching preceded withdrawal, right? It sometimes the issues can be resolved by changing mentors and sometimes it’s just indicative of graduate school not being a good fit for that, um, individual. So just from my own like observations and experience, I can see that this is definitely merits, you know, further investigation. Would you like to share anything else about other sort of questions you have, um, or that you’re trying to ask that are cir- circling around, you know, the topic we’ve discussed?

Connor (21:20): Yeah, I have, I have one that I can share about. One study that we’ve wrapped up and we’re working on submitting a manuscript at this time is examining master’s programs specifically, um, with students that seek out master’s programs as precursors to professional or doctoral level degree programs and students viewing those as strengths to build their application resume. But they’re also perceiving those as significant financial investments into the opportunity to pursue an additional graduate degree. So we’re looking to understand maybe what can we do to, uh, supplement some training that these students are seeking at the master’s level within their undergraduate programming, such that they might not need to make such a significant financial investment. Um, a lot of the times a master’s degree is necessary, um, or important towards their career goals, but for those students that were in our particular study, it may not have been the most financially necessary decision. And ultimately we want our students to be financially stable. It’s better all around for their productivity, their wellbeing in this uncertain job market and uncertain economic climate. So we’re just looking to see what interventions can be done at the undergraduate level to maybe help students go straight to where they want to go instead of using master’s programs as career exploration tools.

Emily (22:52): Absolutely. This is a population that I’m also highly interested in, and whenever I get the opportunity to teach rising or prospective graduate students, I absolutely relish it because so much trouble financially that graduate students get into, you know, years into a PhD program. A lot of that could be headed off, um, earlier if they understood the culture of different programs better or if they did, you know, um, weigh finances maybe more heavily among the factors when they were choosing their graduate program or if they had attempted to negotiate or, or there’s a lot of different ways that that could play out. Um, but I think oftentimes prospective graduate students kind of related what you were saying as like using the masters as, um, a tool for, you know, further career, you know, further educational attainment, um, down the line. Sometimes undergraduate students, um, aren’t yet making the best decisions around. They don’t understand the context and the meaning of all these numbers that are being thrown around in front of them, um, yet in a way that they will start to appreciate multiple years down the line. So the more we can get information in front of them and context in front of them, the earlier the better in my opinion.

Commercial

Emily (24:09): Emily here for a brief interlude! I’m hard at work behind the scenes updating my suite of tax return preparation workshops for tax year 2025. These educational workshops explain how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2025 tax season starting in January 2026, I’m offering live and pre-recorded workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

What Steps Can Universities Take to Reduce Attrition?

Emily (25:27): Okay. So going back kind of to the beginning of our conversation, um, and also, you know, the, the studies that you’ve been talking about, what ways do you, what steps do you think universities and programs could take to reduce attrition among their graduate student populations to reduce this waste, you know, aspect of their expenditures? Um, this doesn’t have to be super well supported by evidence yet, but, you know, drawing on your professional expertise and your observations, what are your thoughts? What are some best practices?

Connor (25:57): My thoughts might be like big dream ideas that would require a lot, a lot of work, but I do think that reducing graduate student attrition would require a multifaceted approach. So one that would support students before they enter graduate school. So prospective graduate students, uh, one that provides strong onboarding once they arrive into their graduate programs, and then one that focuses on interventions when challenges arise. So we had just kind of started talking about this, so I’ll start, I’ll really dive into preparing before graduate school. So some graduate student attrition happens because students realize mid grad program that the degree doesn’t align with their goals. And that could be seen as a gap in earlier career preparation, which is not necessarily the fault of the student, but it is definitely an area in which institutions can target interventions. So how can, right, we kind of spoke about this, how can institutions educate undergrads about the variety of careers available with a baccalaureate degree or about the pathways that would necessitate a graduate degree? So I personally pursued a master’s degree right out of undergrad because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. And I was like, I’ll just take out loans. And I, it’s not, I would say it wasn’t the most financially responsible decision I’ve ever made. Uh, specifically because I used the master’s program as a career exploration tool. Um, I stand by the program, I’m happy where I am now. It led me to my PhD program, it led me to my research, it worked out. But I am drowning in student loan debt. And I do feel that this is a problem that other students face as well. And that personal experience shapes how I view career exploration at the undergraduate level. So what can we be doing at the undergrad level to appropriately educate students on the values and purpose of graduate degrees as they relate to their broader goals?

Emily (27:58): I’m sure you’re absolutely aware, but you know, this issue is not an individual issue only, it’s not a university level issue only. It’s now like in the spotlight for the federal government with the changes that have just been implemented to the federal student loan program. 

Connor (28:12): And students are anxious about that. Students are uncertain if they’ll be able to pursue their graduate programs or continue their graduate programs. It’s just we don’t need more question mark, question marks in an otherwise stressful time for students..

Emily (28:28): And the financial implications are gonna become stronger, right? For, you know, people who have to access the private loan market instead of being able to use federal loans, et cetera, et cetera, interest rates, repayment options, like there’s just gonna be even more weight on this decision. So it’s very timely <laugh> that you’re looking at this. Yeah.

Connor (28:48): So that was focusing at the undergraduate level, right? Because if we can reduce the number of students who realize mid grad program that this wasn’t the pathway for them, we could also be saving both the students and institution the time and the resources. But most of my like passion projects, my efforts and research tend to examine the onboarding programming of graduate students like orientation, um, because I’m particularly interested in strengthening mentor mentee relationships and the graduate student training experience. So structured onboarding efforts can help normalize graduate student expectations and also prepare students for the transition to this new environment. And these programs are more and should be more than just presenting logistics, uh, and instead provide opportunities to help students be successful in graduate studies and beyond. And so these are perfect places to begin exposing students to resources that will help them, like topics around financial literacy or, you know, advertising podcasts like these during orientation. It would require consistent reminders throughout their training that these resources and support systems exist. Because I know students experience an information overload when they start their program, but being aware of these resources early can be so beneficial because then you’ll know where to look when a challenge arises. Um, it’d be nice if you were prepared in advance, but I think many of us seek out resources when we need, when we’re in a time of need.

Emily (30:21): Um, and I’ll just put a plug in there that, I mean, ideally during orientation, yes, graduate students would be introduced to their, uh, financial wellness offices, which I don’t know, they aren’t always called that they might be housed in financial aid or other areas around the university, oftentimes in, um, student affairs or student services. But somewhere on your campus, there are people who can help you with your financial matters that arise. Not just taking out student loans like you might think that’s all financial aid is therefore, but these offices do many, many other things. Um, and so in case you didn’t hear it anywhere else, access your financial wellness office at your university, they will probably be delighted to see a graduate student because they normally see a lot of undergrads. Um, but the more, like we were talking about earlier, you know, the more you bring up financial issues to administrators, well the more you and your peers visit the financial wellness office, the more they will start to pay attention to your population and your specific questions.

Connor (31:13): Absolutely. It raises awareness to other institutional leaders as well of the significance of those programs and departments. Um, looking at it like a customer service base, right? You see a rise in customers, let’s pour more resources into that support service. Um, and those professionals, like you said, would love to see a student. They’re there for a reason. So let’s use those resources

Emily (31:35): Using that same framing of like, okay, we, you know, we, we talked about, um, graduate student attrition as a waste issue for universities. You just talked about seeing students through certain offices, you know, maybe, um, could in one light, view students as customers to their office, to their small business within the university. Um, hey, go use those resources more because that will bring more resources to that office that serves you, um, and your peers. I actually make the same argument about basic needs. I wonder if you agree with this that like, go use that food pantry on campus if assuming you are eligible for it. Don’t think someone else needs this more than me. No, you are the one who needs it. <laugh>. Go there and use it and then they’ll get more resources and there’ll, there’ll be a bigger pie available for everybody who needs it.

Connor (32:21): No, absolutely. I, food pantries are so significant and I understand why students might not wanna go to a food pantry. I do think there’s a, an unfortunate negative stigma surrounding food pantries or like students can feel embarrassed is what I’ve heard. It’s there to help, it’s there for you. It’s there as a resource. I’ve seen some institutions do some more creative approaches to try to alleviate some of those feelings of embarrassment, right? Like, so you don’t necessarily need to sign your name or log in to use the food pantry. So it’s just removing some barriers to make those things easier, uh, to access.

Connor (32:58): And I actually think that ties into my interventions when a challenge occurs idea. So starting big picture here, attrition can follow an unresolved conflict. So there could be conflict, um, with a mentor within a research team. Um, attrition can also follow conflicts that lead to personal or financial challenges. So an institution can make a real difference by focusing on these interventions. So in- interventions that would support students in a financial crisis, right? Beyond increasing stipends could include robust leave of absence policies that are easily shared with students so they know that they’re there before a crisis occurs. Um, or expansive food security services. So food pantries that are accessible to students that are on various points of campus, uh, food pantries that are inclusive of a variety of dietary needs, um, and food pantries that are responsive to changes in the landscape that impacts food security benefits. So when we see a rise based on benefit changes, um, food pantries that rise to that occasion to be accessible to the students that are no longer receiving other support services that they were previously receiving.

Emily (34:14): Yeah, I don’t think we need to talk around it. So we’re <laugh> recording this episode on November 13th, 2025. So, uh, the, the federal shutdown has, has just ended and SNAP benefits, um, allegedly have been or will be restored, but it’s obviously the timelines are different on like a state by state basis. So the SNAP benefits should be coming back, uh, or, or have been back depending on where you are. Um, but absolutely in total agreement. So like I’ve of course have been thinking a lot about SNAP, um, supplemental nutrition assistance program of food stamps, um, of course during this shutdown, especially as it loomed, you know, towards the beginning of November. Um, and I was also thinking about how some universities, like I believe at least in some University of California campuses, I don’t know if it’s like all of them, they have people on campus who help students enroll in SNAP benefits. Like they know that enough of their population qualifies, that they have dedicated people at least periodically, um, who help students enroll. So that is another one of those, like it’s, it’s not necessarily responding in a crisis, but it’s, it’s preventing a crisis from occurring by there being more visibility around, hey, there’s, you know, federal, state, local benefits that graduate students may qualify for. Let’s help you, let’s help you get past that barrier of paperwork. And maybe that barrier of, um, shame or like self-selecting out by just kind of normalizing it. I mean, okay, I don’t love that graduate students in some places are paid so little that they do qualify for SNAP on a regular basis. Like let’s, that is a problem. Um, given that that is the situation, it is helpful to get them past the paperwork hurdle, um, of, of that, you know, particular being able to enroll in that benefit. So anyway, is there anything more that you’d like to say about like accessing federal, state, local benefits as a graduate student or how universities can tie in with these other resources that are available?

Connor (36:06): Yeah, I mean I think a huge factor is just educating, like you mentioned the students one, that they’re eligible for these services and two, that it’s not bad to use these services. Like they’re there for you, they’re there to support you, and we have limited social services that are available to us compared to other countries. And so we should really be using the ones that we do have because as we’ve seen, we can lose those very quickly. But as institutions, let’s educate our students because they might not be aware of these resources and services available so they can pursue those if needed.

Emily (36:39): One other resource I wanted to bring up that you didn’t explicitly mention, but was in kind of the theme that you just brought up of like, you know, sort of helping in a time of crisis. I mean, I totally agree about the leave of absence policies. It also doesn’t have to be crisis. We can talk about parental leave medical. Like, you know, all, all under that category. Um, but a lot of universities have started offering emergency loans or emergency grants. I mean, the grants is the most helpful <laugh> thing there, but sometimes it’s in the form of a loan. Um, this is outside of, you know, the federal student loan system or whatever. This is something that the universities themselves provide. Um, it’s a growing trend that I’ve seen across, you know, the financial wellness, um, operations at universities. And so that’s another resource that again, is a best practice universities should be providing and making it obvious to students when they qualify or what kinds of things qualify for, you know, being able to take out those grants or loans. Um, so that, yeah. And, and students also being more aware of this, like on your side. Yeah. If you’re experiencing something and it’s going to affect your ability to perform in your graduate program, just reach out and see what your university can do for you. It might be something like a grant or a loan.

Connor (37:44): Yeah, I think the key factor there is that students sometimes need to reach out to learn about these resources. So I suppose in a preemptive intervention is to just kind of really make sure those resources we tell them to students right out the gate. So we don’t lose any students who encounter a challenge and then just get sucked into this, this bubble of trying to navigate the challenge that they don’t ask their student affairs professionals. But I agree it was something that my previous employer was starting up, um, like a, a grant fund for students in emergency need, uh, before I left the position. And I think it’s, it’s a wonderful resource when our students are aware of it.

Emily (38:23): Anything else you’d like to add on this topic of, you know, um, once a student is, is a continuing student in the university, um, best practices for helping them navigate through financial challenges?

Connor (38:35): I think there is tremendous strength in being open in the dialogue surrounding financial challenges. Uh, we see this with successful, you know, student efforts that lead to stipend increases. Just building that sense of community amongst your peers, um, offers the chance to learn from others about what they’re doing, but also provides opportunities for collective action. So I think really focusing on open dialogue is just, it’s, it’s a gift and we should be leveraging it.

Emily (39:05): Hmm. Yes, I’ve absolutely heard that from other interviewees who have been involved with unions or involved with unionization movements or not even an official union situation. Just as you said, collective action, Hey, talking with your peers and bringing up financial concerns to your department chair and like maybe there is something that that person can do or that they can forward onto, you know, the person of the chain from them. Um, it doesn’t have to have a formal name like a union to be helpful. Um, like you said, it starts with building community. So yeah, thank you for adding that. Well, Connor, it’s been so wonderful to talk with you. I’ve learned a lot from this conversation, so thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast after just meeting me one time briefly at a conference. I really appreciate it.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (39:46): Um, I’d like to ask you the question that I end all my interviews with, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it could be something completely new.

Connor (39:58): My best financial advice for early career PhDs I think will stem from what we just spoke about, about open dialogue, uh, but specifically being proactive and transparent around conversations about salaries and benefits, which I’m sure people hear a lot, but it’s for a reason. So I think a lot of confusion and anxiety around career decisions. I’m, I’ve experienced this myself, I’m experiencing it now as I looked to transition to other jobs about, it comes from this secretive nature about money that we’ve been taught in the past. And we often don’t know what a fair salary looks like for our field and what benefits we should expect, but also what benefits we could ask for in addition to a package. So it’s just incredibly important in an uncertain job market where so many are also managing student loan debt and that lack of information really creates a sense of vulnerability.

Connor (40:54): We also tell students to follow their passion, and I, I love that, but passion alone won’t pay rent and it won’t pay off the student loans. So hopefully emphasizing financial transparency will allow students to make career choices that will be fulfilling, but also sustainable. And we are seeing some employers being more transparent upfront with pay ranges, but we’re also seeing that many still aren’t. So graduate and early career professionals, um, are kind of left to scavenge for this information when employers could easily bridge this gap by providing that information upfront. So my advice is to don’t, don’t be afraid to ask, um, ask about salary ranges early in the interview process. Uh, talk with peers about what they’re earning, be open about what you are earning. That way we can normalize these conversations and we can collectively push back against this culture of salary secrecy that is really creating a disadvantage for folks that are starting out.

Emily (41:58): Absolutely. Who does this culture of secrecy benefit? Who is perpetuating it? Um, exactly examine that. I actually, I’ll point listeners to a recent interview I did with Dr. Gabrielle, uh, Filip-Crawford of recovering academics where we talked around the same theme of, um, openness around financial, you know, salaries, benefits, all those kinds of things as well as, you know, you just used the word sustainability and in the light of like our broader conversation around workforce development, like we as a world country state, et cetera, we need people who are highly trained in these specialized areas to perform work functions that are beneficial to society. And so it just makes sense for all of us to be concerned about people persisting in those career paths and ultimately getting to the place where they can have a great job where they’re, you know, contributing, using their training and so forth and, you know, benefiting our society as a whole.

Emily (42:55): And so these earlier investments like we’ve been talking about throughout this, um, interview, um, only ultimately help towards, you know, sustaining that pipeline and getting people to that end result that we all benefit from. So I love this framing around how do we invest just a little bit more to get these people to the finish line of their PhD and into, you know, the career that they desired and they went to training for. So I love it. Thank you so much Connor for agreeing to come on the podcast and it was great to talk with you.

Connor (43:23): Yeah, thank you for having me.

Outro

Emily (43:35): 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? My team has 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.