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negotiation

Negotiation and Long-Term Thinking Effected Financial Success for This International PhD

November 18, 2024 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Wen, who recently earned a PhD in plant pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wen came to the US for her master’s degree immediately after finishing undergrad and started learning about the US financial system, even though she had an avoidant money mindset. After overdrafting her checking account, she realized she needed to take control of her finances, start thinking long-term, and work toward financial goals such as investing inside a Roth IRA. Alongside peers, Wen negotiated the research assistantship stipends in her department, they were ultimately given a 13% raise. She has started applying those negotiation skills in other arenas. Finally, Wen explains how she pursued a career in tech transfer, starting with professional development and an internship during grad school.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • Wen’s Podcast: Go out with Huo
  • Emily’s E-mail Address
  • PF for PhDs S14E10: The Motivation and Strategy Behind Biology PhD Stipends
  • Host a PF for PhDs Tax Workshop at Your Institution
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub

Teaser

Wen (00:01): Um, yeah, I, I think I want to circle back, um, the negotiation again. Um, I want to, uh, emphasize, um, negotiation. It’s not only like what the stipend could be like, I think every grad student could ask more from their PI, um, you know, sponsor me to this conference. This is a good workshop I want to do, and this is a career event I want to attend, and can you sponsor me? Can you cover that for me? Um, and there’s everything there. There’s a lot of things online. Talk about negotiation and everything. So I, I do want to share that. Um, when I purchased my second car, um, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, how to talk to the dealership, and, uh, just, um, trying to negotiate the best option for myself. Um, it was a quite funny, like real life big purchase that I went to the dealership, uh, and the dealer just thought I’m a innocent, uh, foreigner. <laugh> doesn’t, didn’t know what’s going on. And, um, so I think I, um, really take advantage of negotiation and know that what’s the best for me and, um, argue that, uh, those, those terms. And, um, yeah, I, I learned a lot of from practicing, uh, negotiation. And, um, advocate for myself.

Introduction

Emily (02:02): 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 (02:32): This is Season 19, Episode 7, and today my guest is Wen, a recent PhD graduate in plant pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wen came to the US for her master’s degree immediately after finishing undergrad and started learning about the US financial system, even though she had an avoidant money mindset. After overdrafting her checking account, she realized she needed to take control of her finances, start thinking long-term, and work toward financial goals such as investing inside a Roth IRA. Alongside peers, Wen negotiated the research assistantship stipends in her department, and they were ultimately given a 13% raise. She has subsequently applied those negotiation skills in other arenas. Finally, Wen explains how she pursued a career in tech transfer, starting with professional development and an internship during grad school.

Emily (03:24): I have a quick update for you on the tax return preparation workshops that I’m offering next spring. I’m super excited for my planned live in person workshops in California and Colorado and also my live virtual workshops for universities in Minnesota, Missouri, and New York. I’m sure there will be many more universities offering my asynchronous workshops as well. If you want to learn if your university is already on my list for a live or asynchronous workshop or want to help me get one offered at your university, please email me! You can reach me at emily at P F f o r P h D s dot com. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e7/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Wen.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:25): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today. Wen, who is a postdoc in tech transfer at a university in Texas, and she’s going to share with us about her sort of financial transition to the United States as an international graduate student and now postdoc. And also about, uh, her pivot to the field of tech transfer. So that’s really exciting. Uh, Wen will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Wen (04:50): Yes. Uh, thank you Emily. Um, my name is Wen and I’m a recent PhD graduate, uh, from University of Wisconsin Madison, and my major is plant pathology. And, um, when I started my PhD, uh, four years ago, um, I, I wasn’t sure about much about financial situations and all my career plans, so I’m glad, um, things are work out, uh, currently and, uh, really, um, happy to share with people in the, uh, going through grad school. Um, so yeah, and I currently start, I just started working as a tech transfer early professional as a postdoc position at university, uh, in Texas and help researchers to protect their, uh, IP and licensing the IP to, uh, the, the industry. So it’s quite interesting and fun new, um, career for me.

Finances During Childhood and Young Adulthood in China

Emily (05:57): Yeah, that is great. Tech transfer was very intriguing to me when I was in graduate school as well, and definitely a career that I considered, uh, before starting my business. I want to actually take a step back and would you please tell us a little bit about how you grew up and your young adulthood, at least in terms of your finances, um, up until the point that you came to the US so we can understand a little bit of your background and your mindset?

Wen (06:20): Yeah, so I came to United States in 2018 when I finished my college back in China, Beijing. So before that, um, before I was 22, I spent my whole life in China. So I would see that the bigger picture of how I grew up is China was, uh, developing country and we have fast economic and financial growing throughout my, the, that two decades is I live there and how that affect my early, uh, adult year is we, not only me, but my parents, they went through a insufficient, uh, lifestyle to kind of going to be self-sufficient and to industrialize and to eventually abundant, uh, lifestyle. Um, I think that affect me in the way that okay, situations always change and I don’t feel like I need to plan for financial situation when I grow up, especially rely on my parents. And that’s quite Asian family culture, um, that parents help children to, uh, uh, fund that college and find job and, um, kind of help them to establish their, the family, new family in the future too. So I don’t have many financial literacy, uh, when I came into u uh, the, the us. And another personal, um, background about my family is my parents they are, uh, they own a family business, so they always talk money, um, in our private family life, and they would argue and things get stressful. And when I went to, uh, sleep a lot of times, and I think that just make me, doesn’t feel positive to talk about money or thinking about what can money do. Um, yeah, so I don’t consider much about learning financial stuff, uh, even in college, uh, when I make, uh, decisions on what to study. So I just follow my interest in biology, went to, uh, plant pathology and decide to pursue higher education. Um, because I wasn’t thinking about making money, it was kind of a hard topic for me to discuss or openly to look into what do I need to do? Yeah. Until I, uh, came to United States and explore things on my own here.

Emily (09:15): Yeah, that’s really fascinating. And I’m sorry if this is like overly like reductionistic, but it sounds like you developed a bit of an avoidant mindset around money because both of being provided for by your parents and in an increasing lifestyle over time, right? Things are getting better and better lifestyle wise, and also because of the stress that money, um, caused in your household and that you absorbed some of that. And so that sort of came together to be like, well, it’s, it’s all okay and I don’t wanna think about it. Does that make sense? Yes.

Wen (09:46): Yes.

Adapting to the US Financial System

Emily (09:47): Okay. So then there’s a big shift right when you get to the us. Can you tell us, uh, about that and, and how it happened and how you were feeling and how you adapted to this new system?

Wen (09:59): Yeah, so when I came to us, I started my master program in Ohio State. Um, and I was awarded the research assistantship, so the regular RA stipend to start. Um, and it was quite efficient for me to, uh, start living there because, uh, to cover rent and, uh, groceries. Um, I was just excited to just experience all things. Um, and I got my first credit card, uh, when I came to United States. It’s not a thing in China. Um, and I got my first a used car, um, in my second year. Um, but I think there is a, there was a turning point when after I pay my, um, car payment to buy the car, my bank account, I didn’t realize it went to negative. Um, and I got, uh, a fine of the overdraft fee, $39. I still remember that. So I went, um, really anxious. I’m like, how could this happen? And, uh, the bank can just take, uh, overdraft fee from me. And, um, I think I was able to argue with them saying, Hey, it was my first time I was, I was new to this system. So at that point I realized, okay, like, um, I need to take serious on my situation. I need to plan and budget very well to buy things, um, and know how much number in my account, how much do I have. And, um, so I’d say more and, uh, during Covid I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, which is a higher cost of living city, um, for grad student. Um, I just starting to saving even more, um, for the moving and, um, adjust to their high rent here.

Emily (12:15): Can you say a little bit more about how you got into that, more of like long-term or annual planning? Um, because I can imagine that’s a really, that’s a really difficult thing for someone who’s, you know, within a year or two of being financially independent from their parents. I know it took me several years to start sort of pushing that time horizon out for the planning, right? Like, did you use any like tools or, I don’t know, anything that would help someone else who’s going through that transition?

Wen (12:45): So at beginning I do ha- uh, in my first year in Madison, I want to focus on getting to know my own financial habits, uh, tracking my spending, and I just downloaded very simple, um, Excel sheet from the website to track down my spending. Um, and I realized I eat, uh, a a I spend more money take out and, uh, some online shopping and necessary fashion stuff, um, into some unnecessary items. Um,

Emily (13:28): Sounds pretty typical pandemic spending though, right? <laugh>

Wen (13:32): I know, and investing couples hobbies. Um, yeah, I think those the first step is getting to know myself and, um, get rid of their, the spending. I didn’t realize I, I was, I was doing. And then I figured out if I want to save extra, um, cutting spend, it’s one thing. And another thing is I found some resources on campus. Um, back then, we do have international student group that, uh, we will go to their, uh, local food pantry that’s on campus. Um, and there are very fresh produce. We’ll go weekly with, uh, a bunch of international students and we, it’s just like, uh, grocery shopping and I will, I got save quite a lot of money from that. And sometimes our dining hall, um, they will have extra dining food and they will pack very well and give to students. I think all this, um, on campus activity, uh, on campus nresources help me allow to save some, um, necessary spending as well. Um, and it’s a way for me to find my community that time.

Emily (15:03): Yeah. Thank you so much for, for sharing that. Um, is there anything else that you wanted to add about kind of adapting to the US um, financial system?

Wen (15:12): I think getting the social security number and um, just a first debit card was, uh, essential for us to get paid. Um, and establish that is very important, especially, um, I need the social security number to apply, uh, the credit card later and, um, be aware that having credit card is essential for, for future, like the credit scores, um, which I wasn’t educate, educated, uh, in that perspective back in China. We don’t use credit score. Um, and also I just think it’s extremely more important for international student have the emergency, um, savings because we don’t have, um, the, the, the support that domestic students have, um, and always have that saving would just help so much. Um, and at the same time take advantage of the health insurance, the benefits that, uh, come with our student staff. And I always use my dental and vision and um, uh, insurance, um, coverage every year. Um, so those are now counted by numbers, but they are financial. Um, they could be financial spendings in the future. Um, yeah.

Stipend Increase During Grad School

Emily (16:53): Yeah, that’s great that you have that insurance provided you by your program. I know not everybody has that, but it’s something that more and more programs are adding if they don’t already have it. So I believe you told me in advance of our interview that you increased your stipend during the course of graduate school. Can you tell me how that happened?

Wen (17:10): Yeah, I think, uh, it’s just a, a process of negotiation between our grad student, um, group, uh, with our department. And when I started my PhD four years ago, uh, we had that huge inflation that like about 8%, um, that year. So I realized our department only increased like about 2% into the student stipend that year. Um, and the something I think it’s critical is timing. Um, most of the universities, or at least our department will decide how much to pay the year ahead for student. So for example, this August we, the department will submit their budget for next, um, next year’s, next fall students, um, payment. So I just couldn’t, um, thinking about like this lack of, um, catching up <laugh> eventually just will make our stipend pay so behind, um, the current raise of rent. Um, so in my first year I realized this financial hardship, but I think we started talking about it. Um, and until second year, I actually joined the student body, uh, kind of our grad student council, and I initiated more discussion. We talked to other departments, grad students as well. Um, and eventually I designed a survey, um, right after actually, uh, nature published a paper on the graduate student stipend survey results. Hmm.

Emily (19:17): Was that the biology PhD stipends one?

Wen (19:21): Yeah, I think so. It has a bunch of, um, PhD programs, data that related to our program.

Emily (19:29): Yeah.

Wen (19:29): Uh, entomology, plant pathology, horticulture. So

Emily (19:32): We’ll link to the episode that I did with the, uh, one of the co-founders of that, uh, database. So we’ll link to that in the show notes.

Wen (19:39): Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, I think getting the information about what’s going on with other universities really help us to push this forward. So I, um, we made, I made a survey about what’s our current inflation rate and cost of living in Madison specifically, um, and stipend numbers we quote from their PhD stipend.com, uh, a bunch of data and make, make, uh, we make a very informed, um, survey plus it, uh, plus like collection of the students data points. And we made a report, so we were able to present a report at our department meeting before they make a decision. And, um, you know, it’s hard to, um, really let them to, um, because they have their budget, uh, difficulty as well. So we will patiently, um, talk about this with our department, um, faculties and administrations, and I think we got their feedback. They want to, uh, so we ask more data from other universities, similar program, um, you can say like a competitor of our programs administration, uh, admission. So I think after two times, like monthly meeting like that, we were able to, they devote, um, increased stipend, um, about 13%, um, which includes a percent inflation and 5%, um, extra for their cover, our student’s fees. It’s, it’s like their activity fee we pay for the university. So our department, uh, help us on that. Um, yeah, so we got, uh, got a pretty good raise on that. And the good thing is, um, it didn’t make our students happier and, uh, have stronger adminis admission data to attract prospective, uh, students applicants. Also our, um, nearby like close program, they were able, the student body were able to kinda refer to what we do, we did and, uh, start some conversation with their department. So yeah, I, I think it was something that, um, really amplify, um, what I think that time was important. Just voice out, um, what we need as grad student, um, and, um, extra, uh, hardship for international student that time.

Emily (22:44): Yes, I love that example so much and I’m, I’m so glad to hear this story as well as we’ve heard a couple other similar ones on the podcast about departmental level negotiation.

Commercial

Emily (22:56): 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 2024. These educational workshops explain how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2024 tax season starting in January 2025, I’m offering live and pre-recorded workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students and postdocs 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.

Low Stipends and High Costs Impact International Students Most

Emily (24:13): So you just mentioned, especially if you’re international students, so like the way I view this, you can tell me if you agree, um, is that in that period of high inflation or I’d really any time when stipends are not keeping up with basic cost of living expenses, um, the international students are the ones who suffer the most because domestic students have sort of financial pressure release options, which are, you can get a side hustle. I mean, they, your department may not like it, but it’s legal. You can do it. Um, and or you can take out student loans. And these are just not available at least to the, you know, 90% are not available to international students. And so it’s so much more important for the international student community together with domestic students to do the type of negotiation that you just outlined, which is, let’s just raise the stipends. Can we just get these stipends up to a decent level? Do you, do you agree or like, what are your further thoughts on that?

Wen (25:06): Yeah, I, I totally, um, agree on that as well. We’re, as international students, we are restricted to apply for certain funding and look for a, a, a second shift and make extra money. Um, but I, I will say that, um, getting to know the resources out there is still, um, skill to, uh, develop, even though there are, are limited. Um, for example, that’s something related to my stories about professional development and career planning as well. Um, there are, you know, all kinds of event provide free lunch, pizza, <laugh> free dinner. So I, I try to, um, take advantage of that. Um, and it’s also a form of connecting to other students getting to know what’s going on. Um, yeah, I think be resourceful even we are restricted is, um, I think one day it, it just extra skills we develop make out of the, the, the situation. Um, yeah, so I was involved, uh, in a professional development, um, student organization called <inaudible> on campus. Um, so this is an organization help grad students, postdocs to practice, um, um, commercialization of technology. So it’s really something I really want to develop. And, um, in this, uh, organization, they hosted event to, um, work on project and they gave micro grant, which is a grant. Um, I will buy linking per, uh, subscription and take professional headshot and only use for professional development events. Um, so yeah, that covered a lot of my, um, let’s say unnecessary spending, um, that I wouldn’t spend, I wouldn’t have the capacity to spend out on my personal account, but it’s important for me in the future. Um, so I think take advantage of the resources, uh, like that will, um, be very helpful.

Financial Goals During Grad School and Beyond

Emily (27:53): Yes. Thank you so much for adding those examples. For sure. I totally agree. Um, okay, so your stipend is increasing <laugh>, it’s, it’s at least catching up to, you know, the, the damage done by inflation. Um, can you tell us about some of the financial goals that you pursued during graduate school or since graduate school?

Wen (28:10): Yeah. Um, I wouldn’t say I have a specific number to target, but I know that I want to save as much as I can and start, start investing. Um, so it’s more like explore- uh, -ation of what’s going on in the market and where the, uh, where the places and learn about all the ETF, um, and the fire movement and write books about, uh, investing. So set up, um, investing, um, with, with the, the stipend I can save, um, I, I try to, because my pay is biweekly, so I set up other automatic transfer to my saving and, um, brokerage account biweekly. Um, just couple, just not couple hundred. I think like it’s, it’s probably 10% on my paycheck each time it comes through. And I have a individual investment account and a Roth IRA in investment account. Um, and yeah, I, and mostly just looking to their, uh, VOO S-P-F, um, their ETFs, um, trying to not, uh, yeah, I don’t do like day trading and all that. Just put money in there in, uh, in there.

Emily (29:52): Sounds perfect to me. That’s the type of investing that I teach and that I, um, subscribe to. Um, what brokerage firm or firms do you mind me asking? Um, did you open your Roth IRA with or, and or your taxable brokerage account?

Wen (30:05): So, yeah, <laugh>, um, first I think, uh, firstly I use Robinhood for my individual investment account because I think it was, uh, a fun app, uh, for me to get started and to get motivated. And I, I really enjoy, simplify their investing, um, using that app. So later I got to know more about, um, the long-term investing opened. I opened uh the Fidelity, um, uh, Roth IRA and the individual accounts I transferred my, uh, the investment from Robinhood to, uh, fidelity. Um, and one thing I think about learning out this is just finding the community of people comfortable in sharing that and learning that, and listen to your podcast. Um, really at beginning of my PhD to realize, okay, I need to, uh, pay attention to my PhD stipend. I think Sam, someone shared at a grad school workshop thing, so I clicked and I subscribe, and later I did follow some podcast, her 100, uh, her first 100k writes books about like the most important thing about investing. Um, and I think I started action, just got to know people have a similar background like me. Um, there is a website called Women Overseas built by, um, Chinese, um, Chinese Women Study abroad, work abroad. And that’s really the community. I learned a lot of these things from, they will share from life to work career and, and investment. And I, yeah, I think I learned a lot from them, from their experience. A lot of the members, um, in that Open Formula firm room, they started working for years. So it was really good experience to to set up myself to that path too.

Emily (32:26): I love it. I love that, you know, my podcast became a springboard for you to investigate, you know, the subject further, and that you found a community that was like exactly, exactly what you needed. And, ugh, that just makes me so happy. I’m so pleased. There’s such a huge amount of resources, financial education related areas now, um, that kind of, everybody can find their community that reflects, you know, who they wanna see and who they wanna be. Like, and I, I get to be one of the voices in the PhD space, but then, you know, everybody has multiple aspects of their identity, so like we can expand beyond that. And oh, I just, I love that so much. Um, is there anything else you wanna add about the financial goals you’ve, uh, pursued during graduate school, aside from the investing ones?

Wen (33:08): Um, yeah, I, I think I want to circle back, um, the negotiation again. Um, I want to, uh, emphasize, um, negotiation. It’s not only like what the stipend could be like, I think every grad student could ask more from their pi, um, you know, sponsor me to this conference. This is a good workshop I want to do, and this is a career event I want to attend, and can you sponsor me? Can you cover that for me? Um, and there’s everything there, there’s a lot of things online, talk about negotiation, everything. So I, I do want to share that. Um, when I purchased my second car, um, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, how to talk to the dealership, and just, um, trying to negotiate the best option for myself. Um, it was a quite funny, like real life big purchase that I went to the dealership, uh, and the dealer just said, I’m a innocent, uh, foreigner. <laugh> doesn’t, didn’t know what’s going on. And, um, so I think I, um, really take advantage of negotiation and know that what’s the best for me and, um, argue that, um, those, those terms and, um, yeah, I, I learned a lot of from practicing, uh, negotiation and, um, advocate for myself.

Current Postdoc Position in Tech Transfer

Emily (35:00): Love it. And that’s a skill you’re gonna be using literally throughout the rest of your life. So it’s fantastic too, um, master that early. And especially I know that the cultures around negotiation are very different. So especially to understand how to do that in an American context, it’ll be received <laugh> by other people in, in this, uh, in this culture. Um, that’s awesome. Okay. Let’s talk about then your current postdoc position and how you got to it and why you chose to, you know, make this pivot to tech transfer. And you already mentioned earlier that, you know, there was this specific professional development group that you were involved with. So maybe you could start back there with like, the preparation and then, you know, like your choice in like, getting your new position. 

Wen (35:38): Yeah. So I would say like, compared to financial goal I had at, um, beginning of my PhD, I’m more really like clear about my career goal. Um, and I took PhD as one of a professional, um, period, um, in on my resume. So I don’t think I, I don’t think I’m a student, uh, in school. I think it as a, a career I’m at right now. So I know that I am not the best person, um, best on myself to do bench science when I went in, uh, grad, uh, the PhD program here and I want to connecting people and I want to bridge the science and market, um, gap. So I know that my goal long, uh, like four years later, my PhD after PhD, I want to do that kind of thing. Um, but I learned lot doing science and talk about science. And so I think I have that goal just over my head and took other opportunities, uh, in the professional development organization. And I took extracurricular, uh, courses, um, I P, uh, that taught by another, um, economic department. And then that lead me to an internship on campus at our tech transfer office. Um, and I learned, uh, really through their internship that one year time and, and got and just confirm my interest in tech transfer space. I really enjoyed talk to scientists and, uh, about their innovation and on different, um, topics of projects and then connecting that idea to their, the, the market, what could we amplify the value of research, um, and, and license this patent. So I think like networking, uh, in, in that space and outside our university and connecting to other tech transfer office, um, just, it was a great, I talked to a lot of PhD working in that space, really see myself can make that transition. Um, so that’s what I did. I applied and talked to people and eventually landed this tech transfer, um, role. And I think it’s very, um, a good fit for me to, uh, really combine my interest in the science background.

Emily (38:34): Yeah. I love how you emphasized like we’re not in a PhD program simply to finish the PhD and do research. I mean, if that is exactly in your professional goals and you wanna just keep doing research in that area and you’re gonna stay in academia or you’re gonna pivot to something really, really close. Actually, my husband followed that path. Like his research is very close to what he did during graduate school research wise. So like, it was a good preparation, but if you wanna make any kind of a little sidestep from that, like you need to start layering on those experiences and the, that networking and, and exploration. ’cause of course you don’t necessarily know right away what your goal is going to be your career goal. So it’s, it’s about figuring things out and exploring the space. And I love that you got to do an internship. Did you say it was for a year with the tech transfer office? And so was that like a part-time thing, um, that you were doing alongside your, your normal PhD type work?

Wen (39:24): Yes. And it’s on campus. Um, it’s very flexible, uh, terms of hours with my PhD, uh, advisor’s requirements <laugh>.

Emily (39:34): So it was something you had to again, negotiate with your advisor, right? To take a little bit of time to do that.

Wen (39:39): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

Emily (39:41): Yeah. Awesome, using that skill again. Um, this is so great. Is there anything else you want to tell us about that, about that career step,

Wen (39:49): Um, about transitioning to a new role or job hunting overall? I think it’s quite, um, a self discovery <laugh>, um, time for, uh, us as PhDs as we are going to this tunnel of focusing things on our field. And then suddenly we have to, I think, set up us to be very open-minded about the careers we’re, we’re, uh, we’re going to explore and I think it’s sometime we got break ourselves a little bit. Um, and it’s okay if we don’t talk in, in our research terms and it’s okay to just talk very, um, I don’t know, simple words. We don’t use scientific words. And, um, and I I think it there, the PhD is, is a, is a journey and that doesn’t represent us going to move forward, um, like connecting with others.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (41:06): This is so great. Well, Wen, thank you so much for volunteering to come on, on the podcast to do this interview. And, uh, we’ve gotten so many great stories out of this. I’m really glad that the listeners got to hear, um, about your journey. Um, would you please tell us 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.

Wen (41:31): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I think just to be able find yourself being financially independent in charge of your finance, um, is extremely empowering. And I have situations about myself going through, uh, co-living with someone and then we broke up and move out. I think all those, um, life-changing decisions need, um, ourselves have their confidence in our financials and now feel obligated to, um, make decisions around others. Especially I think as international students. I, I think the last advice is we prepare to save money for the applying for, uh, work visas EAD card. And if you want to get it on time, um, use a premium, um, service, which adds $2,000 <laugh>, um, to the application. So, um, don’t be shocked how expensive those things can take and, um, make, um, make informed decisions on that. Yeah,

Emily (42:54): I’m, I’m sure you’ve heard this since you’ve been consuming like other financial material, but I just love um, the sort of, uh, mantra or phrase money gives you options. So you’re just definitely able to, um, you know, so fully realize, you know, your potential and get yourself out of situations you don’t wanna be in and you know, pay for that premium service when you need it. Whatever needs to happen if you have the savings built up already. And sometimes we don’t know when we start saving what exactly we’re gonna be using that money for, but it’s just there as like a backstop and insurance policy just to give you, um, options in the future. So I’m really glad that you emphasize that, especially for international students. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. ’cause I totally agree that, um, you just, you need a, a bigger pool of money to draw from for it because a lot of expenses that international students experience are pretty large. Um, irregular expenses as I often talk about, about, um, on the podcast, like traveling home, like visa stuff and all that. So thank you again so much for volunteering to come on. This has really been a pleasure to talk with you.

Wen (43:52): Thank you so much, Emily. Thank you for, um, doing this and I, um, really benefit from this podcast and I, I know you will continue to serve a lot of PhD students.

Outtro

Emily (44:17): 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 Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Unveiling the Hidden Curriculum of Grad School Funding for First-Gen BIPOC Students

July 15, 2024 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, the co-authors of the recent book Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students. Yvette, Miroslava, and Emily dive into the financial aspects of the grad school application and admissions process, from applying for external fellowships to negotiating funding offers to preparing financially to start graduate school. Yvette and Miroslava share their personal experiences as well as their insights from prospective students involved with Yvette’s Grad School Femtoring coaching and podcast and Miroslava’s McNair program at UCSB. This episode is a must-listen for prospective PhD students, especially those who come from underrepresented backgrounds.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • Book Giveaway for Is Grad School for Me? (Deadline to enter is 7/24/2024)
  • Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students
    • Use the code UCPSAVE30 at the UC press website to get 30% off your purchase of the book
  • Host a PF for PhDs Seminar at Your Institution
  • Emily’s E-mail Address
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum of Grad School Funding for First-Gen BIPOC Students

Teaser

Yvette (00:00): One year, there was one student who was really, really struggling financially, had gotten into his top choice, had to move from California to the Midwest, and he couldn’t even afford his airfare. So he contacted his soon to be advisor, told that person his situation like, look, I, you know, I’m really trying to make it things work. I’m trying to work, I, but I, I just can’t afford my flight. And that advisor, without even thinking twice, bought him the flight.

Introduction

Emily (00:37): 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 (01:06): This is Season 18, Episode 4, and today my guests are Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, the co-authors of the recent book Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students. Yvette, Miroslava, and I dive into the financial aspects of the grad school application and admissions process, from applying for external fellowships to negotiating funding offers to preparing financially to start graduate school. Yvette and Miroslava share their personal experiences as well as their insights from prospective students involved with Yvette’s Grad School Femtoring coaching and podcast and Miroslava’s McNair program at UCSB. This episode is a must-listen for prospective PhD students, especially those who come from underrepresented backgrounds. In fact, I think Is Grad School for Me? is a must-read as well, so I’m giving away three copies of this book to listeners of this podcast. If you are applying to PhD programs in fall 2024 and are in the target audience for this book, i.e., a person of color who is a first-generation, low-income, and or non-traditional student, you can enter the giveaway at PFforPhDs.com/isgradschoolforme/. I would also appreciate you sharing this episode with any prospective graduate students in your life. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e4/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, the co-authors of Is Grad School for Me?

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:56): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, who are the authors of the recent book Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students. And as you might imagine, well this guide is incredible for this population and frankly, any prospective graduate student, I highly recommend the book. I just finished it a couple of weeks ago and there’s a lot of financial content within this, as you might imagine. So I was really excited to reach out to these authors and get them on the podcast so we can dive even further into the financial aspects of the application and the admissions process for graduate school. So, Yvette, Miroslava, again, welcome to the podcast. Would you please introduce yourselves a little bit further for the listeners? Yvette, why don’t you go first?

Yvette (03:41): Yes, of course. Hi everyone, my name is Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu. I’m a first gen Chicana, chronically ill neurodivergent productivity and grad school coach, consultant, author, speaker. Um, I do a lot of things. I have a PhD in theater and performance studies. I worked in higher ed for over 10 years supporting predominantly low income first gen students of color. That’s actually how I met Miros a few years back. Actually, at the start of the pandemic, she became my supervisor. And since then we’ve developed and nurtured a great relationship, which has manifested in US publishing and co-authoring this book together. So that’s a little bit more about me and what I do.

Miroslava (04:25): Great. Yeah. Hi. So I’m Miroslava Chavez-Garcia and I’m a professor of history and I’m also the faculty director of the UCSB McNair Scholars Program. So I’ve been at UCSB probably for the last 10 years, and before that I was at UC Davis, and then I had another job before that. So I’ve been in the game for a little while. Um, also a product from UCLA PhD Yvette and I have that in common as well. And what else about myself? So I’m also a mom juggling with children and a little needy dog. So life just keeps happening no matter what phase you are.

Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students

Emily (04:59): Fantastic. So let’s hear more about the book. Um, who is the intended audience for the book and why did you write it

Yvette (05:05): As referenced in the title of the book, uh, Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC students. The book is predominantly, um, catered to first gen bipoc students. But then, um, more broadly, we also address concerns for anyone who fits the quote unquote low income category or also non-traditional categories. So we’re thinking here of, you know, folks from working class backgrounds, we’re thinking of folks who, uh, maybe ages 25 and older. We know that more and more college campuses are no longer having what we may consider traditional students. A lot more of the, uh, student population is going back, they’re older, they have dependents, they have other commitments, and we wanted to meet, be able to address those other factors that individuals consider when they’re thinking about whether or not they want to pursue graduate school.

Miroslava (06:02): Yeah, definitely. I think that we were really interested in this, these folks who had not seen themselves reflected in all the literature that’s out there. So in looking at what’s been written, um, it’s all kind of cookie cutter in some ways. And they imagine maybe they don’t even imagine who, but we imagine it’s not us, right? When we’re looking at these books. And so we were very much with that intention to be able to provide a guide to all those folks who perhaps didn’t see themselves, um, you know, reflected and, and, um, and that was really important to us. And initially, I would have to say for myself, and I’m not sure if that had this thought, I was thought like, what, is there enough? Are there enough of an, is there enough of an audience for this? And, and yes, there is, you know, it’s, it’s that sort of, um, audience that we don’t hear from, but they’re definitely there. And the press was very, um, supportive of, of this, um, of, of, of the approach of the book. So we’re really happy that we were able to, um, target this population that’s been overlooked for so long.

Yvette (06:56): I have had the idea for this book since I was an undergrad. I was part of the inaugural cohort of Mellon May Fellows at UCLA. And despite the fact that I was in a very privileged position of getting into this prestigious graduate school preparation program, despite receiving ample support, I still was stumbling so much along the way. There was still so much information that I was missing out on. I still struggled to find mentors femtors, and I felt really frustrated and I found myself constantly pulling, you know, trying to find from the weeds as many resources as I could and then sharing them. And every year I was always surprised like, why is there not a book like this? Why is there not a book like this? I don’t see myself represented, not just, um, among the faculty, among my department. I was an English, uh, literature major at the time, but even within the literature, the research, the books I was running into, I didn’t, again, I didn’t see anyone like me a First Gen Chicana represented. And I wish that I had had that how to book. So that was, you know, an idea that I had many, many years ago. Of course, it didn’t come into fruition until Miros literally asked me when I’m gonna be writing a book. I never took it seriously until she approached me. And I thank her for her Femtorship and for her support and guidance, even through this publication process. This work wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the two of us coming together.

Miroslava (08:26): Like Yvette, most of my career has been focused on doing this kind of work, right? The hidden cur- un- unraveling or uncovering the hidden curriculum, addressing all of those isms, all these things that we feel, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. And so, um, when I was in grad school, there were some guides, but nothing like in the last that has been produced in the last 10, 15 years. And I didn’t even think we could encapsulate. And, and granted, this is not all about grad school. This is about just applying, right? So, but we’ve, it’s a pretty hefty book and we’ve top- tackled one topic. I think there’s many more that can be tackled, um, in the future. There’s other books out there as well. But definitely, um, it’s nice that we’re able to bring so many things together. I, with my more years in academia, but Yvette, with all of our up to date since, you know, things get really quickly, get out of date in academia and there’s new things, new trends, new um, approaches, um, especially we see right now a lot of changes happening. But yeah, it would just worked really well actually.

Emily (09:21): And if someone is convinced already that they need to get their hands on this book, where can they find it?

Yvette (09:26): Yeah, you can get it at IsGradSchoolForMe.com, and you can also find it at most major bookstores and even, um, a good number of independent bookstores have it too.

Miroslava (09:36): And definitely the press. And there is, um, if, if, if, uh, listeners are interested, they can contact us. We have, there’s a, there’s a discount code for now as well. It should probably be there for a while. That makes it more accessible to our, our population

Yvette (09:48): Yeah, you, you can go to the UC press website and this code should work it’s ucpsave30. So again, ucpsave30, it should work as far as we know. We don’t, it doesn’t have an expiration. So if you wanna get it and get it 30% off, um, go ahead and, um, get your copy directly from uc press.

Financial Support During Grad School and It’s Impact on Student Success

Emily (10:10): Perfect. And I definitely learned from reading the book that you all, uh, have an aligned position with mine that having, um, sufficient financial support during graduate school is very important to the students’ overall academic and personal success throughout that time period. Um, can you elaborate on that idea a little bit more? Um, how important is this? I mean, I know you said in the book like, you know, we discourage taking out student loans for our graduate degree and so forth. So just tell me a little bit more about how you came to that position.

Yvette (10:40): I mean, I think a, a big part of it is our experience, uh, both personal experience, experience working with student- with this population in particular for a lot of low income first gen students of color. The question of can I afford it and will I have adequate fund- funding is a very, very important question. And without it, some of them are even willing to go the extra mile of pursuing graduate school. So yeah, getting an advanced degree, especially pursuing a PhD is a significant investment in time, effort, resources. And for some, it’s not even an option without having at least some funding. So that’s why for us, it’s important for them to know, you know, what are the differences in funding options is between PhD programs, between master’s programs, what are these funding options packages even look like? That’s why we provided samples in the book because, um, the more financial burdens you have, if you don’t come in with generational wealth or trust funds or a savings account, just some sort of support, that means that a lot of people end up taking on insurmountable amounts of debt, debt that holds them back from reaching other major life milestones, or they end up staying one too many years in graduate school, they’re having to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. Or for a lot of people, they end up getting pushed out. We know that 50% of folks who go into PhD programs don’t actually make it and get to finish. And that’s a problem. And I wouldn’t be surprised if sometimes funding plays a factor in that. So we do think it’s important to, to consider the funding aspects of it, um, when you’re thinking about grad school as your next step in your career.

Miroslava (12:24): Yeah, definitely. One thing that we tackle a lot throughout the book is this idea of fit. Like is this program or this, you know, university institution for me, and one of the, I would say one of the main, you know, sort of categories of that would be around funding. I know my department does not take any PhD students. We can talk about master’s program that’s a little bit different or could be quite different. But PhD programs, we will not take anybody without funding. I mean, we have to bring in people who have support them. So that’s been going on for a while now. And I think lots of programs run that way. Uh, the PhD programs, at least in the humanities where, you know, there’s so much upfront and then no guarantee on the other end that you’re gonna be able to make up pay off that loan and, and, you know, thrive if you’re able to do that, the STEM fields might be a little bit different, but I know that in humanities, um, institutions are a little more cognizant of that, um, disconnect. Sometimes it happens.

Emily (13:13): This is something that I point out when I speak with, um, prospective graduate students. Current undergraduate students is like the funding mechanism for your undergraduate degree and professional graduate degrees is just completely different from, you know, the PhD or the, the research based graduate degrees. And while it may be perfectly okay, um, to take out debt for, um, an MD or a JD or a similar type of degree like that, it’s because the salaries on the other side of that justify taking out that debt. And depending on the PhD field that you’re in, as you just said, Mirsolava, you don’t really know what kind of career you’re going to have or what that salary is going to be on the other side. So it’s that much more important to make sure that your, um, PhD is, um, uh, you’re not, um, leveraging your future <laugh>, uh, when you’re doing that PhD, you’re only building into the future. And so in your book, one of the, one of the sections is about, um, applying for external fellowships in particular. And so why did you take the time in the book to encourage prospective graduate students to apply for that type of fellowship?

Yvette (14:14): You know, I’ll, I’ll share a personal anecdote in relation to this question. When I went into my PhD program, I was awarded a prestigious fellowship. It was a departmental fellowship, and everybody told me, oh, you got full funding, you’re good to go. You don’t have to worry about applying for anything else. And I remember my advisor at the time discouraging me from applying to external fellowships and only later on finding out about fellowships that covered multiple years that could have provided me with additional years of being on a fellowship could have minimized my teaching burden and could have even increased my chances of getting more competitive dissertation year fellowships later on. So for me, I do think it’s important, it’s not just the financial advantage of having another offer that you can then use to leverage your funding package and to shift things around as best as you can, depending on your department and their flexibility, but also access to a network. So for instance, when I became a four dissertation year fellow, I was, you know, I, I entered this space of networking, I joined the national conferences, I started meeting up with people for networking meetings, and I realized, wow, there’s like this whole world of Ford fellows out there that I didn’t know that I could have been exposed to earlier if I had known to apply to the Ford Predoctoral Fellowship if I had been encouraged. So I do think that it, it only increases your chances of, um, having access to more opportunities, having access to bigger networks. So why not do that? Why, like, don’t put all your eggs in one basket and expect to only get funding from your department or even from your program.

Miroslava (16:02): Yeah, and I would definitely agree. I’m also a Ford postdoctoral fellow. I tried the pre-doc and the dissertation, um, but the postdoc was fortunate to get that. And so Yvette’s talking about the networks, like you can’t put a dollar price on those because they’ll stay with you throughout your career. Particularly with the Ford, they always talk about us being a family and people, um, you know, in a good way, <laugh>, I don’t, so families, uh, you know, uh, but those relationships are there. They reach out to you for networking. So it’s, that’s really valuable. I think another thing to think about as well is that they bring prestige. I hate to, you know, I’m not a big, you know, showy kind of person, but nevertheless institution, it brings prestige to the, you know, value to you. Um, it shows that other institutions also value what you’re doing and it also brings more hum umph to your, the significance of your work. And I think that anytime that happens, you know, it’s, it’s for the, for the work, it’s for your subject, it’s for your project, your research, and that’s a win-win. So

Emily (16:56): I think all those reasons are so fantastic to apply for fellowships, apply for fellowships throughout your PhD, not just early on. As you said before, you aren’t when you aren’t sure what your funding is going to be. Um, but I particularly like them for prospective graduate students because, um, during admission season, it can be quite an advantage to have already been awarded an external fellowship. You can come to your program and say, Hey, I’m actually, you thought you were gonna fund me, but I’m actually bringing in X amount of dollars from this other fellowship that, that I just won. Um, can you speak more about the, um, advantages to, to that situation for that perspective graduate student?

Commercial

Emily (17:36): 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, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 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, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Orientations or very close to the start of the academic year would be a perfect time for tax education or general personal finance content. 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.

Negotiating as a Prospective Grad Student

Miroslava (19:03): I, I will, if it’s okay, I’m gonna jump in. I’ll give a specific example of one of our, our McNair scholars who, um, had applied to many institutions and, um, a prestigious one UCLA. She would I think she applied in the STEM fields and she got an NSF and that decision happened like overnight. I mean that they, the door was open quickly at UCLA for her to come in. They’re like, oh, come step right in. And, and so she took that position, but she had been, wait, not waitlisted, but I think she hadn’t heard. Um, and so that really granted her that, um, you know, provided I say the ticket to make her own decisions and choices. And so, um, that’s the example I like to share.

Yvette (19:40): I’ve seen the same scenario, so I was gonna say almost an identical scenario, but with a different student <laugh>. Yeah.

Emily (19:48): Yeah, because sometimes the reason for a rejection is not anything lacking in the candidate, it’s just the funding is not gonna go far enough to accept as many people as we would like, or, you know, this particular advisor didn’t have funding, but if you come with it, then you can work with that person. Um, and so it can reverse those decisions or get you off a wait list or whatever that, um, you know, situation might be. And it also provides you leverage for negotiation <laugh>.

Emily (20:12): So let’s talk about that next. I loved that you included information about negotiation in this book. I think a few years ago I didn’t really hear that many people talking about it, but it’s been, I’ve just heard more and more people familiar, like prospective graduate students when I bring up negotiation, they’re like, oh yeah, I, someone already told me I was able to do that, or at least able to attempt it. Right. So let’s talk about that, um, a little bit further. Like, how have you seen prospective graduate students successfully negotiated their funding packages? Do you have any tips about how they should do so?

Yvette (20:40): I think that it’s always important to tread the waters carefully, right? When it comes to negotiating. And it’s also good to have all of your information available. So you wanna know, don’t start to negotiate before you know, you know, what is even feasible. So, um, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of different scenarios. Uh, one of the most successful scenario that I’ve seen work time and time again is where when someone gets multiple offers and then they send their best offer to their top choice school who maybe may is offering less, and they ask if they can match or increase their offer. And in many cases, they either increase or match it, or sometimes they say, you know what? This is the best that we can offer you. We still really want you, but there’s no way we can compete with that. And it’s up to the student to decide maybe sometimes it is worth it for them to accept the lower offer because cost of living might be different and cost of living makes it so that that’s actually a better offer financially at the end of the day when you crunch the numbers and, and create your budget. So that’s one scenario where that’s been fairly successful. What I’ve also noticed is that a lot of times folks don’t feel like they can negotiate because they say, oh, well I don’t have another offer, or, oh, they’re not offering me any funding. How can I ask? And in these scenarios, I mean, it doesn’t hurt to ask, it is rare. In fact, I’ve only seen this happen for summer programs, but it, it’s rare for folks to have their offer rescinded because they asked for more. Of course, you want to be conscientious, of course you want to be grateful, of course you want to express your enthusiasm. Um, but you can ask, and I’ve seen this happen more than once, where someone didn’t get any, they got into a master’s program, didn’t get awarded any funding, asked if there was any funding that they could apply for or that they were eligible for and could be considered for. And the next thing you know, a few days later, they’ve got a $12,000 scholarship that wasn’t there before. I’m like, so overnight you got $12,000 for asking, you wouldn’t have had that. Aside from that, a lot of applicants don’t know what else they can ask for. It’s not always just tuition remission, it’s not always just a stipend. Some graduate students get, uh, a laptop covered, some graduate students get their travel, um, or re- relocation expenses covered. Sometimes it’s partial, but it’s still something some, uh, I’m trying to think about other things that, that folks will ask for. I remember one year there was one student who was really, really struggling financially, had gotten into his top choice, had to move from California to the Midwest, and he couldn’t even afford his airfare. So he contacted his soon to be advisor, told that person his situation like, look, I, you know, I’m really trying to make it things work. I’m trying to work, I, but I, I just can’t afford my flight there. What can I do? Can I work for you? Like, is there any way that I can figure this out? And that advisor, without even thinking twice, bought him the flight. So it’s all about advocating for yourself. It’s about asking for what you need. It’s about building genuine reciprocal relationships, helping one another out. But it also, it’s about knowing again, what even can you ask for? And sometimes you get some stuff, sometimes you don’t. Uh, but I always kind of lean, lean on the side of asking because I wish that I had been taught this skill a lot earlier on. Now I have that skill of negotiating took many years trial and error. Um, but I, I just, I, I want folks to learn this skill as early as possible because it’s gonna continue to be an ongoing skill that they practice for the rest of their career.

Miroslava (24:26): Yeah, I would definitely agree that it’s like the biggest hurdle is even knowing what to ask. And I would, I was, I don’t wanna say I grew up in the generation, but I came of age in terms of academia that of my generation where we just didn’t ask. We were just grateful, right? As a, as a Chicano Latina, I was accepted first gen immigrant, you know, that I was being, I didn’t even know that this happened at all. So even for me to get comfortable after all these years, it’s really, really hard. So when you, if you’re newer, new-ish or newer ish coming into academia, practice it and you’ll get more comfortable. And, um, also there’s a question of like sharing information with your peers. That’s another topic as well. In terms of funding packages. Do you talk about them or not? Um, other, I’ll just add two more things that I’ve seen in, in the, the last, um, few years I’ve been academia a lot of times I, what I’ve seen in, um, in terms of packages is that it’s kind of set the amount, but the one thing you could do is you could ask for money to be moved around. Like instead of having that fellowship off the first semester, I’d like it to be off the second semester so you can negotiate those things. So moving money around. Also, another thing to not, not forget or, um, is summer funding. Um, ’cause a lot of these packages do not include summer funding and then summer rolls around, it’s like, oh, oh, you know, we’ve had horror stories here on my campus where students live in their cars and things like that because there’s no, they can’t afford, you know, rent in the summer In Santa Barbara here it’s very, very expensive. So some programs are getting much better at providing funding or helping them find some form of a TA ship over the summer. There’s a lot of course, a lot more online, um, online courses. There’s a huge push in our University of California system for more of those courses. And so that’s a, a space where graduate students can work and make some money over the summer. But, um, I would have summer funding like on the table when thinking about a program.

Emily (26:10): I love what kind of both of you pointed out in that, is that the, the, the start of the negotiation process or the pre-negotiations aspect is figuring out, just really having clarity on what the offer is on what the funding path is, both in the first year and in subsequent years. Um, and even just asking some clarifying questions like Yvette, your example of someone saying, well, you know, is there an internal fellowship that I could apply for anything that we can do here, um, that can sometimes result in, uh, the, the outcome you want from a negotiation without even feeling like a negotiation. You were just asking some clarifying questions. Oh, I didn’t see that there was, um, a moving stipend included in this offer, but I, I’ve seen other universities do that. Is that something that you all offer? That’s pretty like low stakes and easy to ask and it could potentially result in an offer being made. I think something that perspective graduate students should know about the negotiation process, and you all both kind of pointed this out in different ways, is that the, the director of graduate studies or whoever the person is that you’re approaching about this, um, potential augmentation of your funding offer, they know a lot more about what levers, you know, can be pulled, what can be adjusted than you do. And so I think it’s really helpful to keep your question or request very open-ended. Like is there anything that you could do to augment this package? I’m not sure how that could come about. Um, instead of saying something like, I must have my stipend increased by X many thousands of dollars because it’s an, that’s an easy no, a lot of times a base stipend can’t be increased because the rates are set, you know, above that person’s pay grade by far. But maybe there’s, you know, a top up fellowship that they could offer you. Maybe they can put your name forward for an internal fellowship. Maybe they could, uh, get you into subsidized housing. So they know all the kind of background things that could happen much better than you do. And so I think, yeah, just keeping it open-ended is a good idea. Do you have any other tips about the negotiation process that you’d like to add?

Yvette (27:57): Well, there’s one thing that you just reminded me of is about asking clarifying questions. Because not every offer looks the same. Some are very clear and they lay out every year what you’re getting. And others are more vague. They’re like, you’re gonna be receiving a stipend of X amount every year in the program. Okay, how many years is guaranteed? And you wanna have that in writing. So first I would say get very clear about what your offer is because sometimes it’s not very clear and you’re made to feel like maybe you just aren’t reading it right. So I’ve had so many cases where folks ask me to read an offer alongside with them to make sure that they’re understanding it correctly. And then I go over, I’m like, yep, they’re not telling you how many years <laugh> you need to ask this and this and this. You need to ask about healthcare. ’cause healthcare is also not the same. You need to ask about professional development support because again, that’s not the same. I’ve had clients who have had their departments pay for my coaching services and I’ve had folks ask, and if they hadn’t asked, they wouldn’t have had that support. So you, again, just make sure before you negotiate, ask as many clarifying questions as you need to know exactly what you’re getting offered. And once you know what you’re getting offered, sometimes it can help to see if you get in somewhere else to compare and contrast the offers or compare and contrast to some of the offers we mentioned in the book. Which, you know, unfortunately, I would say they might become outdated at some sort, but, or at some point. But, um, sadly these stipends are not going up that much more. So you can kind of compare and contrast between your offer and a friend’s offer if they’re comfortable, your offer and another offer or your offering, even the samples that we have in the book. So you can get a sense of what information you do have, what information you’re missing and what’s, what are the things that are your priorities that you want to ask for. Even childcare is another one that comes up too, that people ask about. Yeah, yeah.

Miroslava (29:52): I, I will add to, um, to last things and something just piggyback on what Yvette was saying in terms of, uh, you might ask as well, like, will there be other opportunities for, um, fellowships or small grants in our program at the end of the year, we have the award ceremony and people apply for these smaller, you know, pots of money, a thousand, 2000 or even $500. Um, and sometimes those pot, those awards are for people working in specific areas, but sometimes the larger, beyond your department, the graduate division might have, um, fellowships for, um, maybe first generation students or maybe Asian American students working in a particular field. So again, like as Yvette saying doesn’t hurt to ask, um, are these opportunities available for me down the road?

Emily (30:33): I wanted to follow up on one of the thing you said Miroslava, which was that, you know, um, some time ago or, or back when you were admitted to graduate school, there was this attitude of, oh, they admitted me. I’m so grateful. This is amazing. I’m not maybe gonna look too closely at what this offer is. I’m just gonna say yes. Um, because you’re so flattered, right? To be admitted right to academia, this, um, this particular institution. And I, I definitely don’t think that attitude serves the student well. In fact, during the, um, admission season, after they’ve extended an offer of admission and before you accept it, that’s the time period when that student has really the most leverage and the most power in terms of negotiating and getting what they want and, and so forth, um, compared to any other time later on in graduate school. ’cause once you say yes to them, you’re committed. And the longer you spend in that program, kind of the more sunk costs, um, there are. And so you really don’t have as much as much leverage later on as you do during the application process. So I just wanna point that out as like, um, it’s, it’s a, it’s a golden opportunity <laugh>. So when you get are in that season, um, take the best advantage of it that you can because it’s not, it’s probably not gonna come around again, frankly.

Yvette (31:38): And I would encourage folks to get support in this process because for some of us, it’s also a major cultural difference and it feels wrong to do it. Like there’s guilt <laugh> and there’s shame involved in asking for more. And so it can help to lean on a mentor femtor, someone who’s been there, who has experienced that, who can push you or coach you or guide you so that way you can test it out and have that support. Maybe they come back, reply back, we can’t do this, but can we do that? And just that, just a lot of people do this even just professionally in their careers. They’ll hire someone to help them with the negotiation process. You know, a lot of folks, recruiters, you know, they work outside of academia, like this is the norm. But for a lot of first gen students, they don’t know this is the norm. And if they’re coming from different cultural backgrounds, then they’re made to feel like this is not okay. But it is. And, um, yeah, just if, if it’s really hard for you because it was for me at one point, get the help and support that you need from a trusted mentor Femtor,

Emily (32:44): I think something that might help with that, um, sort of realignment of mindset there is understanding that, again, as I said earlier, being sufficiently financially supported during your graduate degree is more likely to help you get to that desired end point, um, of graduating and moving on to a wonderful career, which is actually where your interests and the interests of the program are completely aligned. We, everybody wants that for the student. And if finances are going to, um, help that and help the person not be stressed and not be distracted and not have to side hustle and do all the other things that people have to do, um, to make ends meet, then that’s good for the program too. So I don’t think it’s, um, illegitimate at all to <laugh> to bring it up, but as you said it, it can take a little bit of an adjustment of, of the mindset and, um, dealing with the, the cultural backgrounds of everybody. So thank you so much for, um, for elaborating on those points.

Opportunity Costs of Pursuing a PhD

Emily (33:31): And then last question, or second to last question here, um, is let’s talk a little bit about what the opportunity costs are of pursuing a PhD because they are quite steep. And how should a prospective graduate student evaluate whether graduate school is going to be, um, a good investment for their career?

Yvette (33:50): I mean there, there are a lot of opportunity costs. Um, the first thing that comes to mind off the top of my head is the amount of time that a lot of people spend in graduate school. You might be spending anywhere from four to 10 years of your life in a PhD program. And while you, your income stays relatively the same, you’ve got colleagues whose income might be going up, who are advancing in their careers, who are getting promoted, and it can feel like that’s a big, um, that’s a big sacrifice that you’re making to pursue this PhD. So that’s one thing is the the income. The other thing I think about is, um, saving and oh, not saving, investing for retirement. A lot of times when folks are in graduate school, because your income is relatively low for a lot of people, unless you’re working on the side or working full time while you’re doing your PhD, you know, a lot of folks put their, uh, retirement investing and retirement accounts on hold. And what does that mean? That means, again, four to 10 years of your life that you could be investing, that you could be preparing for your future retirement that’s gone. Um, and even some folks put their life on hold, big major life decisions on hold. They’re like, oh, I don’t wanna have a baby or I don’t wanna get married or I don’t wanna, whatever the big milestone is in their life. So those are some things to keep in mind. That’s why we ask in the book, if graduate school is right for you and also when is the right time? Because people ask all the time like, when is the right time to go? Should I go after undergrad? Should I take a gap year or two? Should I get some work experience? And really it’s you and your circumstances and you get to decide when is the right time for you. There is no right or wrong time, even if you go back 10 years later. So it is important to calculate these costs to think about like how much is it gonna cost you? Not just if you think about taking on student debt or not just if you think about your income loss, but just thinking about the timing and other life factors and whether or not you’re willing to make that sacrifice for the end goal in sight, which might be a PhD and then whatever other career opportunities can come with a PhD.

Emily (36:03): I wanna underline everything you just said, especially about the investing time lost. Amazing. But let’s not forget about student loans either. If you have student loans from your undergraduate degree and they’re unsubsidized, they’re gonna continue accumulating interest. And as you said, if you put off, uh, if you are able to defer them, which is wonderful for six or 10 years or however long it is, it’s gonna be, you know, the interest will capitalize and the balance will be that much higher on the other side.

Miroslava (36:26): Those years I was thinking, I was thinking about that my twenties, right? ’cause I went straight through, uh, and I was thinking about how much it your life is sort of on hold. I guess for me personally, I kind of felt like I couldn’t make those decisions that Yvette was referring to in terms of a family this or that. ’cause I was so focused on my work and it was really hard for me coming from a family. Um, the questions came up, when are you gonna get a real job? When are you gonna get married? You know, or somebody to take care of you, quote unquote. And I thought like, oh my goodness. And you just have to tell them I’m one, at one point I just said, I’m gonna be in school for the rest of my life and get used to it, you know? And so that, I don’t know if that settled things or not, but um, yeah, I mean you don’t realize these things later I realized, oh, I didn’t invest. I could have been investing. I mean this is for myself, you know, coming from immigrant family and, and um, not having any of this information, uh, later on. But I will say like being on the other side now for all these years, it’s the best decision I could have made.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (37:15): This has been just, um, the most wonderful conversation. I thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast and telling us about the book and diving deeper into some of these financial aspects. It’s been so wonderful to talk with you. So I want to pose to each of you the question that I ask all of my guests at the end of interviews, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD that could be a prospective graduate student or a current graduate student, or however you wanna interpret that. And it could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Miroslava (37:43): This is based on some of the the, my own experiences, but I think it’s important when you start thinking about graduate schools, I think it’s important to come with your finances in order to the most, to the best of your ability that it’s important not to come with tons of debt or financial obligations. I think I just think about the, this is sort of like, I don’t wanna say the the, so it is the femtor in me, right? To say not to um, to come and risk putting excessive stress on yourself, on your career in grad school. Just thinking about like you have all these mounting bills, these grad, these undergrad, right? Uh, not only loans, but maybe perhaps car loans or your, you are supporting your family that you decide to, you know, come to graduate school because you, you did get a package and then that will, you know, offset you for a while. Um, I think that it’s really hard to be able to focus on your work if you have all those financial burdens. You know, we can’t, many of us can’t sleep at night when we are just thinking about where’s our, our next paycheck or am I gonna be able to do these things? Um, so you need to think about, you know, because there’ll be so many other hidden costs in graduate school. And so I’ve seen some of my students come with lots of stress, you know, financial stress and I’m always with my mouth jaws my jaw open. Like, oh my goodness, how are you doing it? So that’s one thing I would say, if possible, try to get your finances in some kind of working order or get a system to help you, um, get to your goals.

Yvette (39:01): Yeah, I mean, I’ll echo what Miros just said. I do think it’s important that this starts before you even accept an offer. So create a budget before you accept an offer and make sure you can actually make ends meet with that offer. Um, if it’s possible. Again, I know everybody’s circumstances are different, but if it’s possible, minimize debt of any kind. Um, especially, I mean all all debt I’m not a fan of, but especially when it’s more than federal debt, when it’s personal loans, when it’s credit card debt, like to try to avoid that as much as possible. And more importantly like learn about financial literacy, learn about personal finance. I put that on hold throughout my graduate school journey. I didn’t start learning until after I got my PhD and it’s a shame. I wish I would’ve just done that homework on the side because it would’ve saved me, like literally saved me a lot of money. <laugh>, Um, explore other funding or income opportunities. Some of us already learned those skills because we have to. Um, but if you haven’t quite learned that skill, you know, explore what, whether that might be tutoring, mentoring, teaching, editing, you name it, you have a lot of skills that you can use to help you make ends meet. Um, and also maximize your institutional access and resources because at one point you’re not gonna have access to that really great healthcare or to that free or low cost therapy or to those LinkedIn learning courses. At one point you’re gonna have to be the one to pay for it. So ask around, find out what those benefits are and and maximize them. And then of course, I cannot say this because I wish that older me would’ve taught younger me how to do this, which is like getting, getting into the habit of investing earlier on. Um, even if it’s something as small as, I don’t know, $25 a month, if that’s all that you can do, just getting into the habit of investing will help you in the long run. Even if it doesn’t feel like it’s gonna make a big dent, that habit will make it a lot less burdensome, a lot less scary for you to then increase that amount in the future so that you can set yourself up for success. I wish I would’ve had that. Now I have to work even harder because I started out a little later.

Miroslava (41:15): I think most of us didn’t even know that was something in my family I grew up with, um, hoarders in terms of money, immigrant, you know, put it underneath the, the mattress and save every penny. And I’m sort of grateful I didn’t go the opposite way. We sometimes we go opposite what we learn and so I’m very much a penny pincher. Um, but you know, it doesn’t grow if you leave it underneath your mattress. So, um, anyways, so we just wanna play catch up, but we try to then share that information with others to help them sort of correct some mistakes that we made.

Emily (41:46): Well, we don’t have enough time for me to praise every single piece of advice that you two just gave because that was absolutely fantastic. So I’ll just say to the listener, if you need to, you know, rerun the rerun the last couple of minutes, listen to it over and over again because there was so much gold in just those quick responses. Um, and I certainly hope the listeners will take it to heart. So once again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Um, it’s been absolutely great to have you. And the book again is, Is Grad School For Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC students. Will you say the website again where they can get it?

Yvette (42:14): Yes, that’s isgradschoolforme.com.

Emily (42:17): Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yvette (42:19): Thank you

Miroslava (42:20): This was really fun.

Outtro

Emily (42:30): 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 Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This Grad Student Strives to Change Financial Policies at His University

October 9, 2023 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Jason Anderson, a 5th-year PhD student in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. Thanks to his work experience prior to grad school, Jason developed an unusual ability to read legalese and view every “no” as a starting point for negotiation. Both as a part of the Graduate Student Council and independently, he has advocated for changes to the benefits Stanford offers to its graduate students, particularly with respect to retirement accounts, health care options, transit, and income tax on fellowships. Emily and Jason have a lively conversation regarding the history and current status of these benefits at Stanford and at other universities, culminating in Jason’s advice to other grad student advocates and personal financial advice for all graduate students.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • How to Not Hate Your Fellowship During Tax Season
  • Emily’s E-mail Address
  • Host a PF for PhDs Tax Seminar at Your Institution
  • Student Exception to FICA Tax, Treasury Decision 9167 (Example 8 on page 24)
  • Host a PF for PhDs Seminar at Your Institution
  • PF for PhDs S14E2: How This Grad Student Fellow Resolved an Expensive Tax Bill in His Favor
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
  • Jason’s Website
  • Jason’s LinkedIn
This Grad Student Strives to Change Financial Policies at His University

Teaser

00:00 Jason A: So they made some changes this year that I, hopefully will alleviate the problem. But, you know, this problem could have been alleviated years ago if they were listening to the students.

Introduction

00:16 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others.

00:47 Emily: This is Season 16, Episode 3, and today my guest is Jason Anderson, a 5th-year PhD student in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. Thanks to his work experience prior to grad school, Jason developed an unusual ability to read legalese and view every “no” as a starting point for negotiation. Both as a part of the Graduate Student Council and independently, he has advocated for changes to the benefits Stanford offers to its graduate students, particularly with respect to retirement accounts, health care options, transit, and income tax on fellowships. Jason and I have a lively conversation regarding the history and current status of these benefits at Stanford and at other universities, culminating in Jason’s advice to other grad student advocates and personal financial advice for all graduate students. You’ll hear in the second half of this interview that Jason and I dive into some of the issues regarding fellowship income and taxes, which as you know is one of my favorite subjects. By happenstance, we recorded this interview in late September 2023, and in early October, about a week before this episode publishes, I’m scheduled to give my new webinar, How to Not Hate Your Fellowship During Tax Season, for Stanford. I’m crossing my fingers that it really helps alleviate the stress of the grad students and postdocs and is received well, like it has been the other times I’ve given it.

02:18 Emily: If you’d like to bring that webinar in particular to your institution this fall or any of my pre-recorded tax workshops now or during tax season, just reach out! I would be happy to chat with you and give you more information that you can take to your graduate school or postdoc office to ask for this kind of support. You can reach me at [email protected] or read more about these offerings at PFforPhDs.com/tax-workshops/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s16e3/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Jason Anderson.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:06 Emily: I’m so excited to have joining me on the podcast today, Jason Anderson. He is a fifth year Ph.D. student in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. And Jason was actually connected to me by some of my contacts at Stanford who are hosting me for a webinar at the time of this recording. It’s coming up in a couple of weeks, and they told me that Jason is the person to talk to about some of the financial policy questions and concerns that the students may have. So that’s kind of going to be our topic for the podcast today. The advocacy work and the areas that Jason sees room for improvement in in terms of financial policies at Stanford and possibly at your institution as well. So, Jason, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast. It’s a pleasure to talk with you here. And will you please tell us a little bit more about yourself?

03:49 Jason A: Sure thing. Thanks, Emily. It’s a pleasure to be here. And I’m really glad that I’m going to be able to share this knowledge. I’m really excited to help graduate students get get every everything they deserve. So as you said, I’m a fifth year aeronautics and astronautics student. My research pertains to augmenting GPS signals with cryptography in a way that is efficient and manageable. You know, GPS signals are have been around for a while, and cryptography requires a lot of data. So that’s what my research is about. And my hobbies would definitely be emailing administrators to get them to do things that the grad students need, you know, blow off steam. You know, that does come from some of my background working for and the legal field for a while writing those nice, crisp emails.

Connection Between Legal Experience and Advocacy

04:47 Emily: Let’s talk more about that experience that you had prior to starting graduate school. Yeah. So you were working in the legal field to some degree. Tell us about that experience.

04:59 Jason A: Yeah. So before Stanford, I went to UC Berkeley, go bears, and I needed to make a lot of money for my out of state education to be able to afford that. So, you know, I was a freshman engineer and applying to all these jobs to try and get myself an internship. So I, you know, I’d have have to have that income. You know, one of the checkboxes on one of those large websites was legal intern. And so the only job that returned to 19 year old Jason was that legal job. So it turned out to be a really interesting experience for me. I worked I worked there for between three or four years, actually, as a as a telecommute or working, you know, lots and lots and lots of hours and, you know, hours functioned as an executive assistant, which, you know, scheduling meetings, phone calls. But also my mentor allowed me to learn a lot about legal things. So I spent a lot of time reading agreements and reading laws, trying to trying to, I don’t know. So there’s this, you know, not to be cliche, but there’s this Sun Tzu person who wrote The Art of War. And, you know, his his main mantra was the art, the supreme art of war is to wage war without fighting. And so that’s like a big that was a big context for me. And the law of trying to use and take pieces together, strategy of trying to fix issues, using that. And then so that sort of prepared to me for a lot of the advocacy work today. And then after that experience, I worked at a different defense contractor and then came to Stanford. And so I have served as the in the student government here. I had no interest in student government in my undergrad. And it was not until I needed things that I became interested, like with regards to health care, retirement transit, a bunch of other benefits that I wanted I didn’t have. So I came to that quest to get them. And then, you know, so Stanford just voted to unionize and I am involved with that. So our union, as you know, is is undertaking a lot of these issues to help graduate students afford living. So here at Stanford, there are a lot of issues with affordability because, you know, Stanford is a very, very high cost area to live. So, you know, we have a lot of people going to the food pantry are especially partners with children, you name it. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure that that Stanford is affordable. So and that’s that’s part of what I’ve been working on in my as my hobby project, I suppose pretty serious hobby. But, you know, I still work full time as a graduate student.

08:07 Emily: Well, thank you so much for telling us about that experience. And we’ll get into talking about these specific benefits in a moment. But I just wondered if you could really explicitly make this connection between having this experience, being able to read legal documents and grappling with that kind of language and how you’ve been able to employ that past experience and that skill in asking for finding, advocating for the things that you and your peers need.

08:34 Jason A: Well, so I say that the first sort of thing that comes to mind is like the grit to even though when somebody says no to you, it’s not actually a no. So like, for instance, one of the items we’re going to talk about is retirement and when we get to there, we’ll talk about someone gave you a legal opinion that turned out to be false. And so, you know, when someone says says no to me, it’s it’s just not no. There’s still ways there’s still a way that you can you can talk. There’s a way to position yourself to respond back in such a way. Because, you know, Stanford or pretty much any school administrator is counting on you going away like. Right. So students are there in and out. And if you can just persist just a little bit, you know, you’ll be 100 times more successful. Ah, let’s see there are a lot of student government things that come to mind, like, you know, I got food trucks to come on to campus. That was a that was quite the ordeal. You know, for someone said, well, we can’t do this because these four different department departments need to approve, you know, like the infrastructure and then, you know, like, you know, parking, transit and then fire and then police and then, you know, these other things. And anyway, so the persistence that comes from being able to respond back, you know, when somebody says no, but also to read the documents because someone says no to me and I’m like, well, can you point to me the written rule of why somebody say, no, no, they they might not be able to point to a written rule. What they want you to do is they’re just so used to saying, Oh, I can just say no to this person and they won’t question. And then, you know, there are a couple of times where somebody says no to me. I ask them where in the rules it says that. And then they’re like, Oh, well, we reconsidered. So yeah. So being able to essentially mean where can I appeal. Right. If you know I do appeal, well then yeah. So

10:41 Emily: Yeah, it’s kind of appealing or negotiating and also like asking for your source. Like if you’re telling me there is a rule, okay, I’d like to take a look at it myself. Would you send me the link? Would you send me the document? I found the same thing that people have an impression of what rules are, and that’s actually not literally how it’s written or they’ve misinterpreted maybe what was written. And there’s another way to interpret it. Yeah.

11:05 Jason A: Everything’s sort of like a game of chicken when you’re trying to spar with someone. So their game with chicken is all the same. I just said no, they’ll go away. My game of chicken is I need the rule and they’re going to have to do the work to find the rule. And then they’re going to they’re going to realize, I don’t want to do that anymore. And it’s easier just to let me get what I want. So anyway.

11:26 Emily: I like what you said, though, about, like, oftentimes administrators. I mean, I don’t like to ascribe ill will to people. That’s not very, very, very obvious that that’s what’s going on. But a lot of times people are just overloaded and it’s easier to say no or just dismiss you or whatever, because it would create more work for them. But if it’s really important to you and important to your peers, then you should both try to come to a solution together. That’s mutually appealing.

11:53 Jason A: It helps I don’t take things personally on these types of issues. You know, I am I’m not someone who takes things personally, so it’s cold water on a duck’s back to me. But I can still write that emails to respond back. But yeah,

Retirement Negotiations

12:06 Emily: All right. Well, let’s get into these enticing areas of negotiation and pushback that we talked about before. So I want to hear about your kind of personal experiences working with or against or whatever the Stanford administration in these these four areas. Okay. We’re going to talk about retirement, going to talk about health care, transit and then income tax withholding, estimated tax. So let’s start up at the top with retirement. Can you give me a summary of what’s going on right now and what you have tried to ask for, what you’ve tried to advocate for?

12:39 Jason A: Well, so I have the privilege of having some extra income. You know, not everybody at Stanford has that. But one of my goals is to save 15% of my income. If you start early, this is what Fidelity says it’s only 15%. But a Roth IRA isn’t sufficient for that. And, you know, I think retirement is more like a public health issue. So in that you should have it deducted and not think about it, because if it’s not there, then people aren’t going to do it. So that’s why I think the employer deduction is really important.

13:12 Emily: That’s why people are moving to opt in system or rather opt out systems rather than opt in systems that are normal type of workplace.

13:19 Jason A: Yes. And then also my first year, I needed to borrow for my retirement from my company because I was in a cashflow pinch for about three months. And I was able to do that because I was still employed. I was simultaneously employed. If I didn’t if I weren’t simultaneously employed and I would have you know, you have all these graduate students who are super cash for. But you know something? A lot of them work between undergrad and graduate. So, you know, if Stanford provided this retirement benefit, then, you know, a lot of things happen. You know, you can do that public health savings, you can borrow from it. And, you know, and the benefit is very cheap. So, for instance, another company I work for, I know that the price per person participant is about $4 per month. And that’s actually a very expensive plan. So what my my knowledge is, is that I know this is very cheap and it’s extremely beneficial. I mean, it’s essentially helping grad students avoid taxes from the federal government. Right. Or avoiding shark loans.

14:21 Emily: Absolutely. And furthermore, I mean, Stanford and every university already operates a 403(b) plan at a minimum. And that’s the plan we’re talking about here for the listener. We’re talking about expanding access to the 403(b) plan that the university already has for its employees and faculty and everybody to the graduate students who are also employees. Correct?

14:42 Jason A: Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right. 401- 403(b) for for my institution because I guess we’re we’re exempt from income tax. But yeah.

14:53 Emily: Yeah. And so you’re saying, yeah, just what you said. Like if a student came in, let’s say they had a 401K or a 403B at a prior employer and they were able to roll it into Stanford’s 403B plan and they’re currently an employee at Stanford then like you did, they would be able to take a loan or while withdrawal could happen either way, but a loan against the four oh three B and then be able to pay it back gradually over time to alleviate the cash flow crisis. As you said, that is so common, especially the start of graduate school, very, very expensive transition. Generally speaking, they’re not helping you at all or very much so. Absolutely. That makes sense. And as you said, to continue the, I think it’s partially like a mindset thing, like because four oh three B’s are not typically offered to graduate students. It’s like not it’s not on their mind. It’s like an out of sight, out of mind thing about saving for retirement. And as you said, if possible, saving something like, you know, a few percentage is fine, but up to 15% would be an amazing goal to be able to accomplish during graduate school. And without the employer support on that, it’s easy to put it on the back burner. It takes a lot more initiative to open up an IRA, you know, separately from what’s going on at work.

15:59 Jason A: Yeah. The only reason why I was on my mind is because while I’m out of Berkeley does this. All right? Right. And so, you know, there are institutions out there that do do this. So

16:09 Emily: Okay. And so what communications did you have with the administration regarding the 403B?

16:14 Jason A: So, you know, student government is its own own thing. And, you know, so on the docket list of priorities, retirement is at the bottom one. Okay, because there’s far more important issues. Okay. But it also costs the employer nothing. Postdocs already have this. Okay. So this is like at the bottom of the list. You know, we’re hoping that they’ll give us the crumbs or whatever. Right. So when I pursued this avenue of advocacy several years ago and the response was, well, so if we give you this plan, then you’ll lose your FICA tax exemption. So just for your readers, graduate students and students in general do not have to pay FICA taxes and which is seven and a half percent off if your paycheck for Social Security and Medicare. So it’s like, Oh, wow, Well, we wouldn’t want to give up seven and a half percent of our paycheck. So I can I can have the option of putting 1% away. Right. Well, so you know that that’s where the legal experience comes in. I’m like, well, they said no for a very good reason to me. And so I go through and read the IRS law and I look up, I see I pull up the document just in case, you know, document number 9167, And on page 24, the IRS provides a comically helpful example that explicitly explains that graduate students can participate in the form of 403B plan and not be FICA exempt. And this is like so you know that tenacity I’m talking about. Well, I read that document from page one through page 30, right? It takes a lot of gumption, I think is to read through really boring topics like this. And it turned out to be helpful. So then as a student government, I got some pro-bono advice from a retirement lawyer. After I wrote my own opinion, I had the lawyer look over it and then I sent back this demand letter that says What you said is not true. And no, and we should be able to get this. And then so then after that, they’re like, Oh, well, nobody would use it. And, you know, the survey data that I have by most, my constituents shows that that’s not the case. People would in fact use it. But, you know, you know, I’m hoping that different organization, hopefully our union will be able to win that. But, you know, there’s a lot of other priorities, too.

18:30 Emily: Okay. So that’s the current status of you think you’re in you’re in the right here, at least their excuse number one was not a valid excuse. I haven’t looked at this myself. It’s very interesting to me. I’ll have to check this out after the end of the podcast interview. And that’s where it stands right now. You’ve knocked down their argument, but no further progress.

18:49 Jason A: Yeah. I mean, I think food insecurity and affordable housing and health care are much more important issues. But, you know, two years ago when I was working on this, I was, you know, you know, Thursday evening, I’m like, we’re doing my research and I’m like, oh, thank you, IRS they like, I’ll give you an example. Like, student J, is this No, they are exempt from FICA, which is I think it was kind of comical, but yeah, they didn’t do their homework or they were they’re lying to me to give me a go away. I mean, who knows? You know, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time I think it’s clear and Berkeley and other universities are able to do it.

19:31 Emily: Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, I agree in terms of, like, basic needs, you know, paying people enough that they don’t have to access food pantries and be housing insecure and all these things very important. But there’s also like the optics on, hey, like let’s treat grad students like they’re real employees and give them real benefits that other people have in other places. It’s quite standard. So there’s that aspect of it as well. But thank you for filling us in about that, because I am quite sure that many, many grad students around the country would also like to use their universities for 403Bs and you know, maybe they can get a little budge on this like you have so far not been able to, but good efforts to move on to the second topic of health, health care, health insurance.

Health Insurance Negotiations

20:13 Jason A: Yeah. So Stanford you know your readers can Google Stanford Bill on affordability and I, I wrote with my colleagues in the graduate Student Council 10 page actually explaining why Stanford is not very affordable. But one of those things is health care. We have the most expensive health care plan that I can find. And then one of the things that is expensive about it is that Stanford students, rain or shine, I have to pay $1,000 per year for their primary health care. I do think that other universities have similar fees, but they’re covered by their tuition. So I do have family who are health care administrators, and I’ve  participated in health care advisory boards. So it’s typical for an employee, an employer, a large organization to have advisors on benefits. Stanford faculty have this, Berkeley students have this. We’re still working on Stanford students, but essentially the students come together and they advise on what benefits should they should they have like, oh, graduate students need wisdom teeth surgery because we’re young or prescription eyeglasses would be nice at Stanford they’re not covered, you know, things like that. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be cost positive or neutral. The point is, is that people should have a say because they pay into the plan. And the administrators, I think, don’t have the best knowledge. The students have the best knowledge. So that’s something I’ve been fighting for for more than two years. I mean, retirement is probably the interesting thing about the taxes and whatever. But, you know, you know, you know, we’re that’s the thing I’ve been working on for a long time. So, like, for instance, Stanford recently changed and they passed just a smidge on allowing student advice on that topic. But they retracted actually. So we’re we’re still fighting for back. But essentially, you know, the advice that I was able to talk about is, you know, students want an app to use their health care because last year, in order to get claims processed, you had to mail in the claims and pulling your hair out like, I don’t know, maybe your readers have an app for their health care, right? So I had to help. I had an app for my parents when I was on my parents insurance. And then and then. Furthermore, the plan is a very high level plan which sort of prices out. Most everybody, only people on the plan have it subsidized. So, you know, the professional students are really hurting right now because they might be over the age of 26 and their only health care options are Obamacare or Medi-Cal or this plan that Stanford offers. So I’m really, that’s something that we’ve been asking for. And, you know, I think we’re going to get it with the with the union. But, you know, I wish that Stanford was as good as Berkeley, so I’m wearing my Stanford shirt. But, you know, Berkeley has been doing this for years. I wish Stanford would catch up on this on this regard.

23:11 Emily: Well, it’s good to have a nearby, you know, peer type institution to compare to and say what are the best practices that we can take from over there and share back and forth? I think in our prior conversation, you mentioned to me that the annual premium, if I remember correctly, for like a like a single person enrolled on the health insurance plan was like $7,000, is that right?

23:33 Jason A: Yeah. So the aggregate expenses are a 68 plus 1000. So I think about 77 to 7800. And if you have a student partner with a child, the premiums are 12 grand a year. At least 12 grand last year might be 13 this year. So and so to me. So, you know, there’s been issues with the plan because it’s in low participants and they’re apparently in a spiral out of control. And, you know, you wonder why it’s so, so, so expensive that nobody can afford to use it. So, yeah, to me, that price is like, please go away. That’s what the premium says, Please go away. So and then especially to our Stanford International students who bring partners and children and they have visa restrictions preventing them from getting other jobs, you know, those are the people who are at the food pantry every month because they are doing their best in such an unconscionable circumstances.

24:40 Emily: I can confirm when you said that number to me in our previous call that really raised a red flag for me, that that was very high compared to what I hear at other institutions. I want to say. I mean, I was in grad school some number of years ago, but I want to say it was like 2 to $3000 for the year for the premium for one person. So, yeah, a very different price level between those two. So that’s interesting that you. Okay, so you’re saying there it’s an under enrolled plan because the price is so high, which causes the price to go higher. So it’s like in sort of a death spiral. But the competition, let’s say, okay, if you’re a student, you can enroll in this plan. If you’re still under age 26, maybe you can enroll in your parent’s plan or maybe have a spouse. You know, there’s other places people can go, but then that last resort is like the ACA exchange rate versus the Stanford plan.

25:26 Jason A: Yeah, what’s sad about that is you lose a bunch of tax subsidies, right, because that’s why your employer pays for your health care. You know, and there are some tax subsidies. You know, I haven’t done my research into it, but I mean, it’s a very it’s it’s really structured that your employer should pay for this. And also the plan here is for the facilities nearby. If you go ACA, you know, who knows where you where you’re going to be and especially those international students who are coming into this health care system and don’t know what is going on. But yeah, yeah. And part of the reason why the plan is so expensive is because all all Stanford, pretty much all the health care, you have to go to the hospital. And Stanford also is a nice hospital, but it’s impacted. So like I tried to get an appointment nine month waiting time for myself, you know, So they made some changes this year that I hopefully will alleviate the problem. But, you know, this problem could have been alleviated years ago if if they’re listening to the students. So yeah. And also say a lot of this is my opinion. So take that with every grain of salt.

26:37 Emily: Absolutely. Okay. So the idea here is to get a committee, a student group that advises on the health care plan. And right now you’re voicing a main concern is it’s very expensive and it’s driving people away.

26:51 Jason A: Yeah. And I’m not the only voice. I mean, people talk about the mental health issues. There’s the minority disparities in health care that, you know, my family members talk about that I think are insane. You know, this is the type of feedback that needs to come in. And I think the best way to resolve it is to have everybody speak their own voice. And I just I’m just one voice. That’s why it needs to be a committee

27:13 Emily: Okay. Well, thank you so much for bringing that up.

Commercial

27:15 Emily: 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, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2023-2024 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, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/speaking/ 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.

Transit Negotiations

28:35 Emily: Third on our list is transit. Tell us what you’ve been doing on that front.

28:40 Jason A: Stanford took away free transit benefits and May June and people are very angry about that. So I’m

28:49 Emily: Are we talking about on Stanford’s campus like busses? Are we talking about trains or what level of transit?

28:55 Jason A: Trains, yeah so rent is very, very expensive in Palo Alto. I don’t know if you’ve heard of so there’s a train that was very convenient that Stanford used to use, used to purchase the monthly pass for, and so I’d like to see that returned. Furthermore, I like on the subject of retirement benefits, costing them nothing. Every employee at Stanford has access to purchase those tickets pretax, which is an effective 30% discount to Stanford students. Right. So and yet another payroll benefit that costs them almost nothing that they can extend so that their employees get thousands of dollars every day. So I would say that that is the transit element that I would like to see happen.

29:40 Emily: Plus the environmental benefits of incentivizing, using public transit over other forms of transportation.

29:47 Jason A: Absolutely. As part of, you know, the Stanford just inaugurated a new school called the Doerr School of Sustainability. So yes, I totally agree with those arguments, although I am a little bit focused on the taxes because I’m a little bit biased on. Yeah.

Income Tax Withholding Negotiations

30:03 Emily: Great. All right. Fourth topic and one of my favorites, the lack of income tax withholding on paychecks for non employees who are U.S. citizens and residents of for tax purposes. And for that group, the possible requirement to pay estimated tax. So this is the issue that you and I first got connected over. So, yeah, I’d love to hear what you’ve been talking about on that front with the administration.

30:29 Jason A: You know, Stanford is an educational institution and I think it is on them to educate their students on their taxes. So one of the things I’ve been working with, graduation council, are these tax office hours. Well, where the government, the student government will purchase the CPAs time and will, you know, explain how to, how to do this. Students really don’t know. You know, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a high school district that literally made every single 18 year olds in your file taxes by hand and like a dummy scenario. So like I you know, you can go to the post office and get your tax forms. I didn’t know that. Right. So I came in knowing every single dollar that I earned, I have to pay tax. A lot of people don’t know that. So at the office hours, you have a wide breadth, you have your international student who’s dealing with tax treaties and all sorts of stuff, and then your domestic student who is this is their first time in their entire life that they’ve earned income and it’s a fellowship and they don’t get their W-2. It’s not you know, TurboTax can’t handle it. And, you know, TurboTax and professionals will get the advice wrong on certain aspects. So one of the things that I was fortunate enough to get Stanford to do is to take a stance on health care fees, the taxability of health care subsidies on fees. So a lot of students at Stanford, which is really why I’m excited to talk to you today, are are falsely paying taxes on their health insurance stipend. So they they get charged at Stanford $7800 a year and some people that’s partially subsidized and then it’s reported funk funky on the 1088 and 1098 is not an income tax. It’s just a it’s just a education benefits, deductions and credits right and graduations aren’t taking those deductions and credits. It’s really the wrong form for them. So you know stand for housing affordability issue. But, you know, I’m so glad that Stanford talked to you. I mean, the reason why they’re hiring you for this is I’m hoping, you know, so we can save graduates from $3,000 of taxes a year. Right. We have an affordability crisis where people are going to the food pantry every month with their wagons and children. This is $3,000 that they don’t have to be paying. Right. And so, you know, when I was student government and I had this from government to government is paying a CPA like $500 for their time. Right. And then you’ve got 100 people coming in and they’re overfull and each one of them is is saving thousands of dollars. Right. This is like the, you know, retirement, transit. But this tax stuff is probably the easiest way that Stanford can take initiative and stop all of this. You know, years ago when I was starting my advocacy on this, a Stanford person told me that that the interest and penalties that students pay every every April as part of their tuition rate, as part of their tuition, they don’t know. They come in. They they don’t know they need to make estimated payments. And then they get you know, they get those fees. That’s their tuition. It just made me so angry that they that they could send an email to everybody today. But this is an example of tenacity where Stanford’s like, it’s not my problem. I don’t want to be liable. What not. Right. But that’s not true. Okay. They they can say this is what a typical student does. You know, my high school in Marietta, Georgia, explained to us how to file taxes in a theoretical scenario. Stanford can do it, too. So, you know, I’m really glad that you’re coming on, you know, a couple of weeks to talk about that. So that’s the end of my long rant. But I could go on.

34:16 Emily: Absolutely. I mean, you hit on several different issues in there, which I think are incredibly important. So let’s start with that. Okay. $7800 in what I in my framework, it’s called awarded income. So it’s fellowship scholarship type income, not reported on W-2. That’s what I call awarded income. And as you were saying earlier, awarded income. Like you have to assume it’s taxable right from the outset. You have to assume that as part of your taxable income, unless you can prove that it went towards paying a qualified education expense and then it gets to be tax free. So the argument here is that whether or not health insurance premium paid, you know, for university health insurance for a student is considered a qualified education expense. And in my opinion, the opinion of the CPA hired to, you know, work with me on this. It is under limited circumstances where it’s required of the student and the student is purchasing it through the university. And that means that that premium or that means that the amount of money that goes towards paying the premium gets to be tax free because you all have such a high number on that. That 7800 really makes a big difference to you all, especially it’s going to be a lesser effect at other other institutions, but still in effect. And so it is an important thing to know that if you receive a 1098-T, that amount of that premium is not going to appear in box one as a as an education expense because it’s not a qualified education expense for the other benefits. As you were saying earlier, the Form 1098T is not designed for the tax free scholarships and fellowships benefits. It’s designed for the lifetime learning credit. It’s designed for the American Opportunity Tax Credit. But that’s not the one grad students are taking. They’re taking tax free scholarships and fellowships. So anyway, the 1098T is like, okay, as far as it goes, but you have to have this inside knowledge that it’s not a complete document. It doesn’t actually list all your qualified education expenses. And that’s a real disconnect. People think they receive a form and it’s kind of trustworthy and it’s really not. You have to double check everything on it to make sure that it’s complete and accurate for your situation. Oh, I’m going on my rant now too.

36:11 Jason A: Yeah, well this is why it’s really important to read those really dull IRS instructions after having three and a half years of legal experience. And you view me the legal brains like, well, health care is disallowed in sections two and three for undergrads, but it’s not disallowed in section one for graduate students. And then you’ve got a CPA. So like I’m in office hours, I’m literally arguing with someone who is has their own tax advice over the phone. And I’m like arguing with the professional over this because they’re wrong, because professionals get this wrong. And this is why Stanford needs to step up and take a stance here, because that’s a lot of money here. And anyway, it also kind of points to how our government should function because it shouldn’t require years of legal experience to be able to navigate our tax code. 

37:02 Emily: I totally agree. It’s interesting that you and I have kind of come to this in a similar way of just like I just I just read the thing like, I just sat down and read it, like, completely. And once you do that a few times over a few years, like you kind of get used to the language and it’s not so intimidating. And you can make those connections like, Oh, the definition of qualified education expense is different depending on which benefit you’re talking about. Oh, the definition of earned income is different depending on which tax benefit you’re talking about, but you only pick up on that after, you know, exposure. And as you’re saying, it doesn’t it’s very hard to find, I mean, this is the experience my client is. But if you work with me, it’s because they can’t find a CPA who’s versed in this because it doesn’t pay. This is not their typical client base. And so you either have to find a CPA and really educate them or somehow find a magical unicorn, which I have not found who is like already well versed in this. But anyway, that’s why people end up working with me, because while I’m not a CPA, but I have read this and I’ve really tried over years, including professional consultations to understand what’s going on, and now I can communicate that

38:04 Jason A: Yeah, I mean, humans were never meant to read all IRS instructions document, so I don’t really want to fault them for it, but that’s just the world we live in. So.

38:16 Emily: It’s tough, especially because even many tax preparers, CPAs included end up relying on software to prepare the returns, and they’re not necessarily deeply analyzing what goes in and what comes out of that software. And if the software, as you said earlier, like TurboTax, is not designed to handle, like you can do it if you know the tricks, but it’s not intuitively designed to handle this income. And so if the software is letting you down, but you don’t even know enough to know that it’s letting you down, it’s a really, really tough area. Oh, I’m getting fired up about this, too. I’m like, I need to create a software solution. Okay. Anything else you want to say about this topic of estimated tax or the reporting or the taxability of like this fellowship type income?

38:55 Jason A: You know, I just want to add like my one sentence obstruction, which is what I do is I go to this website called Smart Asset. I put in my expected income. I ignore the FICA taxes and I look at the federal income and state income, and I take that number divide by four. And that’s what you need to be paying every quarter. And if you forget, you’re going to be splashed with interest and with interest and penalties. Interest rates high now. So if you get a fellowship, you owe money. Even if they don’t tell you

39:29 Emily: Exactly. And that’s the same website that I recommend when I teach this as well for like, okay, honestly, the best best thing to do is to fill out the estimated tax worksheet in form 1040-ES. Yes, but a lot of people don’t do that. I understand. So that calculator is a really good like substitute. You may be paying more than the bare minimum you’re required to, but that’s okay. Like if you accidentally overpay a little bit, you’ll get a refund at the end of the year. And it’s a quick way to get some peace of mind that you’re like, you’re on top of this issue. You’re not going to be fined at the end of the year, most likely. So yeah, I really like that suggestion. And the other thing that I’ll mention, just throw in there for potential future advocacy on on your front is that the university that I went to, Duke, they did withhold income tax on fellowship, paychecks and fellowship stipends. I’ve only heard of a couple of institutions that do that. It’s very, very, very rare. But it happened to be that the one that I attended did that and it causes other complications with reporting. So it’s not an easy, easy solution. But they did it somehow.

40:26 Jason A: Stanford told me that they can’t withhold and now you say that that that’s not true.

40:32 Emily: No, it’s not true.

40:32 Jason A: They don’t have to. But you know just, another reason why it’s not my problem go away administrator, but. Yeah, I mean I talked to them about this and I totally, I it might not be the best solution but I think it’s better. People have their rent deducted. You know in the tax office hours, they’re like, my, I have this deduction why wasn’t taxes put in there. I’m like well your rent deduction didn’t include a tax deduction. So, anyway.

41:01 Emily: Yeah, it’s definitely not impossible. But as I said, it’s very, very rare. What ended up happening in my case is that the income then was reported on a 1099 Miscellaneous. So they basically so they had a box for your amount of income and they had a box for your amount of withholding. They had to use a form that did that because the 1098T doesn’t have a box for how much income was withheld from it. Now compared to back when I was in graduate school, there are 2 1099 options that sometimes gets used for fellowship income. One is the 1099 MISC and one is the 1099 NEC, I’m not sure which Duke is currently using, but I’ve noticed that some funding agencies end up putting fellowship income on a 1099 NEC, which brings up a whole other issue, which is people confusing their fellowship income with self-employment income, which shouldn’t happen and just PSA to anyone who’s listening to this, like do not allow that to happen on your tax return because the fellowship was not self-employment income, in my opinion.

41:50 Emily: Okay. 

41:51 Jason A: It’s very expensive mistake. 

41:53 Emily: Incredibly, I mean.

41:53 Jason A: Very expensive mistake, yeah.

41:55 Emily: You mentioned the 7.65% for your FICA tax it’s double that right for self-employment tax. So huge, huge issue to get into and actually I’ll reference in the show notes an earlier podcast episode I did with someone who went down that mistake route and had to correct it with the IRS. Okay. So among these four areas that you’ve been working on, along with student government and some other people, are there any like big takeaways or lessons that you can convey to the listener about like best practices around doing this advocacy around financially related policies on campus?

Best Practices for Financial Policy Advocacy in Higher Education

42:24 Jason A: I you know, again, tenacity to read the documents. You know, I think we’ve gone through three examples where a Stanford administrator says the wrong thing because there’s just not there probably want to go away but IRS instructions twice and then know. Yeah so like you know on our outline here about how to negotiate for better benefits, the first step is to ask and when they say no, do your homework with with the documents. And you know, I consulted that retirement lawyer and graciously gave me that advice to confirm what I had read in the documents. So, you know, student governments can engage lawyers, unions can engage lawyers, you know, get your own advice and stick them with the letter that says, no, what you said was false. Oh, and then get it in writing too writing is really important because. Yeah. 

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

43:22 Emily: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for that. That advice, that suggestion, that route to go down. Let’s end with the question I ask all my interviewees, which is what is your best financial advice for another graduate student or another early career path? Ph.D. And it could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

43:40 Jason A: So. Okay, maybe this might be this, this might make you chuckle a little bit. So what I do when I file my taxes is I use, I do it redundantly with two softwares and then I submit it with the free one. I make sure the numbers match and it’s actually debugging that is how I’ve really learned the tax code of of all this. So and then so don’t pay money to the to corporations that lobby for our taxes to be complicated. So I will not do that. But anyway so that’s that’s the first piece of advice.

44:14 Emily: I want to make a small comment on that because I love that suggestion A lot of people don’t know. So I’ll mention TurboTax just because I’m more familiar with the software. A lot of people just, you know, input their numbers and then the the return is generated and filed. But there’s a step before that where you can preview your return. So you preview the 1040 and any other forms that have been generated through that process. And that’s what you can compare apples to apples with another software. You also preview the 1040 over there. You get a nice PDF or whatever, and there you can compare line by line to make sure everything matches or see what the discrepancies are. So you don’t just have to blindly submit whatever forms this software is generating. You can actually look at the final form before it’s submitted.

44:55 Jason A: Yeah, and, you know, TurboTax has like the automatic import. So it’s not necessarily that you’re entering it twice. It can be a just a double check

45:04 Emily: Very good. Well, I love that suggestion. Also for me, filing my tax returns manually, like literally by hand or through the free fillable form system was a great education. And I’m very I don’t know. Is the IRS still on track for their own software coming out for upcoming tax season? I know I’m excited too. Okay what was your second suggestion

45:26 Jason A: You know, so there’s this Reddit financial or personal finance page with the flowchart on what to do. I would Google that and follow the flow chart. And then one of those things after you’ve done emergency savings is, you know, Roth IRAs can be a vehicle for your emergency savings under certain circumstances because Roth IRAs, you can pull out the contributions, you can put your emergency savings in cash and a Roth IRA or Treasury bills if you if you want to do that, low risk. And then, you know, if you have the emergency, you have the emergency. But if you don’t have the emergency and five years at six grand, you know, then you’ll have $30,000 in your retirement and your Roth IRA when you end, and then you’ll go straight into that high income job will not be eligible. So, you know, if you can, I would put your savings in cash in a Roth IRA until you have enough cash to start investing it. But.

46:25 Emily: This is an advanced technique. It’s not one that I recommend because I think it’s difficult to do that. The qualifier that you mentioned is keep it in cash or keep it in a very no risk investment inside the Roth IRA. That’s what I think is difficult and where people might not complete this whole process correctly, because it is to me very important that you not take any risk with your emergency fund. But yes, you can still keep it inside the Roth IRA. I love your point of like use that eligibility to contribute to the Roth IRA when you have it, because it may not be around forever once you get to those higher paying jobs. So good suggestion, but I want them to listen to your whole suggestion.

47:01 Jason A: Yeah, it’s all about the audience here. You know, a Stanford PhD student, you know, you’ll find people who are ready to do that advanced topic. I mean, graduate students but yes, you’re right. Totally right about that.

47:14 Emily: Well, Jason, I’m so excited that you agreed to come on the podcast. This is a wonderful interview. I hope our listeners will take some of what we talked about today and go back to their own institutions and start advocating for some of these same issues or using some of the methods that you mentioned. And I especially love your tip about basically perseverance, both in reading the documents and doing your homework and also with your communications, because you’re going to get told no. And like you said, just it’s not personal. Let it roll off your back. Come back. You know, do your homework, etc. So this is really, really valuable, I think. Thank you so much.

47:42 Jason A: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you for reaching out. And I want to say good luck to all of your listeners in their their financial pursuits and advocacy and good luck to SGWU you as well, because we’re going to we’re going to fight like hell to get to get all the things we deserve.

Outtro

48:04 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? 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 Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Unionization and Individual Negotiation to Improve Graduate Student Stipends and Benefits

July 31, 2023 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily shares first-person stories of graduate students enjoying improved stipends and benefits thanks to prior negotiation. The first half of the episode includes the experiences of four graduate students with their unions or when taking part in unionization movements. The second half of the episode includes four individual negotiation stories from prospective graduate students.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • Emily’s E-mail Address
  • PF for PhDs S12E7: This Grad Student Advocates for Higher Stipends Using Cost of Living Data (Money Story with Alex Parry)
  • PF for PhDs S5E9: Insights from the Bargaining Table with a Graduate Student Union Leader (Money Story with Mary Bugbee)
  • PF for PhDs S4E14: This PhD Compares Her Experiences at a Unionized University and a Non-Unionized University (Money Story with Dr. Carly Overfelt)
  • Dr. Katy Peplin, Thrive PhD
  • Host a PF for PhDs Seminar at Your Institution
  • PF for PhDs S8E7: Negotiating Your Grad School Stipend and Benefits: Five Success Stories (Money Stories with Various Guests)
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
Unionization and Negotiation in Grad School

Teaser

00:00 Katy P: But having a union means that there’s a level of protection between a department or sometimes even an individual and a graduate student. And that level of protection is the thing that in my opinion, only becomes possible under collective action, collective organizing. So I know that if I had not had a union, I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go to say like, Hey, this doesn’t seem fair, this doesn’t seem right. And because of a union, I had a system, I had clear instructions of how to do it. I had designated people to talk to. I had resources. I had people in the administration to talk to. I wasn’t alone negotiating a disagreement one on one.

Introduction

00:44 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others.

01:12 Emily: This is Season 15, Episode 4, and today I’m sharing first-person stories of graduate students enjoying improved stipends and benefits thanks to prior negotiation. The first half of the episode includes the experiences of four graduate students with their unions or when taking part in unionization movements. The second half of the episode includes four individual negotiation stories from prospective graduate students.

01:39 Emily: I’m beyond excited to announce that I’m offering a brand-new live one-hour seminar titled “How to Not Hate Your Fellowship During Tax Season.” It’s all about how to understand and properly handle your fellowship stipend that will not be reported on a Form W-2, which is what I call awarded income. Awarded income typically doesn’t have income tax withheld from it, which can become an unwelcome surprise and even financial hardship if the recipient is not taught what to do starting with their first paycheck of this type. In addition to teaching about estimated tax and self-withholding, I give pointers for preparing for and navigating tax season with awarded income. This seminar is intended to be taken during orientation or shortly after by people who are switching onto awarded income for the first time, so it will be exclusively available between August and October of this year. If you are starting on awarded income in the fall and your university doesn’t withhold income tax—or you’ve dealt with that scenario in the past—would you please recommend this seminar to your fellowship coordinator, program head, or graduate school? Please cc me [email protected] so I can pick up the conversation. My goal is for every grad student receiving awarded income to be forewarned about this issue before it rears its ugly head during tax season!

03:06 Emily: You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s15e4/. Without further ado, here’s our compilation episode on unions and individual negotiation.

What is Your Union or Unionization Movement Story?

03:25 Emily: This portion of the episode includes four responses to my open-ended prompt of “What is your union or unionization movement story?” If you would like to hear other episodes on unions, look up Season 12 Episode 7, Season 5 Episode 9, and Season 4 Episode 14.

Courtney’s Union Story, Oregon State University

03:49 Courtney: Hello, my name is Courtney and I am a third year Ph.D. student at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, in civil engineering. The Coalition for Graduate Employees at Oregon State was established in 1999 with the first bargaining contract in 2001 and since then, the union has successfully bargained for amazing health insurance, including dental and vision, and they have continuously raised wages and reduced student fees and provide a no strings attached hardship fund for graduate students. I directly benefit from this union by fully utilizing my health insurance. My deductible is only $100 and my co-pays are very minimal. I can go to the dentist every four months too. And my funding source is currently an external fellowship, so I’m not a full member, but I pay $10 per month to be an associate member as I still benefit from this work and I want to support them. Full membership is 2% of pretax monthly salary and is optional for grad students and assistantships and grad research assistants. The union also often has socials and provides many resources to support graduate students and assist with grievances. Full members also get discounts and deals at local establishments in Corvallis, which is pretty cool. And there are many hardworking members in this union who I am very appreciative of and make my graduate experience much more enjoyable.

Michele’s Union Story, Michigan State University

05:25 Michele: My name is Michele and I’m a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University. When I first saw MSU, I didn’t know very much about unions because of the pandemic. My department had lower participation in their graduate student organization or GSO, so there was no one to discuss unions at the orientation. However, the president of our GSO encouraged me to be our steward or graduate employees union. After I discovered that I was interested in learning more. So I’ve been representing my department for the last year and then continuing that role in the upcoming year as well. My funding is actually from fellowships and not from a teaching assistantship or a research assistant position in Michigan. Only teaching assistants are allowed to be covered under the current contract. So our research assistants and fellows are not covered under the current contract. However, the benefits that the teachers went through their contract are typically also given to RAs and fellows. For example, the previous contracts the graduate students bargained for gave to free health insurance, which was also extended to RAs and Fellows also received health insurance coverage. But we have to pay taxes on it as it is dispersed as a fellowship.

06:46 Michele: Even though RAs and fellows cannot be covered under the contract, they can join the union as affiliate members. This may change in the state of Michigan, though, as there was recently some legislation passed in the Senate that would allow us to start bargaining for a contract. I think one of the most important benefits of the union is that unites the grad students together and helps with information sharing. For example, the way fellowships are dispersed, MSU is typically in a lump sum at the beginning of the semester and during this spring semester. This past year, I did not receive my semester payment until about a month after it was stated that I was supposed to receive it on my tax form. But then I was able to contact other members of the union through our Slack channel who had a similar problem in order to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. I have also seen other members of the union get help on a myriad of other topics such as late pay and overwork. One drawback of having a formal union is that dues do need to be paid by members in order to help the union run. And then these dues are used to pay for staff organizers and paying dues to the The American Federation of Teachers and the MSU Union also had two recently increased dues for affiliate members because membership dropped a lot during the pandemic. However, as more people join the union, then the cost of running it can be spread out among more people. In addition, the benefits and pay increases that can be negotiated when the majority of graduate employees are in the union will also offset this cost.

08:31 Michele: It is also more important to make sure that you have an issue that you want to organize around, and the dues can then come later to cover the operating costs of the union once it grows. For those of you who are looking to organize a union at your own university, it will often depend on state legislation. Some states do not classify their graduate students as employees, even if they work as teaching or research assistants. And this means that they are not eligible to unionize. And a good book about learning how to organize is the secrets of a successful organizer.

09:08 Michele: And then from a personal finance point of view, the union has been beneficial to me and to all graduate students. They recently were able to negotiate a 5% raise above the minimum across the board, while bargaining has been on pause. And in addition to the health insurance, there’s also a 50% coverage on dental insurance. Overwork is also written into most union contracts, and enforcing it would also give someone more time to focus on a side hustle if they needed some extra cash. As long as it’s permitted by the university, their program. In addition, enforcing the contractual working hours, could also free up more time to focus on research.

09:54 Michele: Tuition waivers can also be negotiated into the union contract. So for MSU’s current contract, nine credits can be waived in fall and spring and five in the summer. And there’s also medical leave and bereavement leave. And so this year is also a collective bargaining year, and a new contract will be negotiated. So some of the bargaining planks that MSU has been focused on or full dental coverage, a pay increase that tracks inflation and cost of living and interest for late payments.

Katy Peplin’s Union Story, Thrive PhD

10:33 Katy P: Hi, I’m Katy Peplin from Thrive PhD, and I am a proud member of two former unions, both as a graduate student and as a teaching assistant. I was part of the UCLA union when I was there as a master’s student, and then I was part of the Graduate Student Union, GEO, at the University of Michigan my entire tenure there. I wholeheartedly believe in unions for graduate students. I think that one of the things that is most important about them is that they provide collective power in a place where individual concerns can really easily get swept under the rug. For example, when I was in my last year of teaching, I was supposed to be teaching a class which was a 50% workload. But in reality it was two sessions that I had taught for 2 hours of direct teaching, some grading, and then attending the lectures. And that assignment was switched without my knowledge or consent over the winter break into a four direct teaching hours plus screening, plus grading upper level writing class. And I was just informed that it was still going to be a 50% contract and that I would be making the same amount of money. So I immediately went to my rep and was like, Is this legal? And unfortunately it was legal, but I was able, with the help of my union, to negotiate for better terms of my pay. I was able to reduce the writing requirement and therefore the grading requirement of this class. And I knew that I would not have to rely on the word of my department and my advisors.

12:07 Katy P: So now that I work with graduate students all over the world, I think it’s really important to say that most faculty in most universities aren’t out to get graduate students. Universities run on the backs and labor of graduate students in a lot of different ways. But having a union means that there’s a level of protection between a department or sometimes even an individual and a graduate student. And that level of protection is the thing that in my opinion, only becomes possible under collective action, collective organizing. So I know that if I had not had a union, I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go to say like, Hey, this doesn’t seem fair, this doesn’t seem right. And because of a union, I had a system, I had clear instructions of how to do it. I designated people to talk to. I had resources. I had people in the administration to talk to. I wasn’t alone negotiating a disagreement one on one. My unions also made it possible for me to have livable health care, livable stipends, even if they were below the cost of cost of living at the time. And I know that those things were only possible because the group that provided so much labor for the university banded together.

13:19 Katy P: If you are a grad student who is thinking about unionizing, I really encourage you to reach out to other unions. The union that I was represented by as a Ph.D. student was formed in 1974. It’s one of the earliest university unions for teaching assistants. It’s geo at the University of Michigan, and I know that they have consulted with all sorts of burgeoning union movements all around the country. So there’s a lot of people who have walked this path before. GEO has experience dealing with shifting administrations, changing state laws, changing labor laws. They have experience with withheld pay and strike grievances and health care negotiations. And there’s a lot of information that becomes available when you start organizing in union that most graduate students don’t know anything about. Like, I had no idea what a bargaining plank was or how to get into meetings or what a provost was or who the board of Regents were. So being in a union for me was both a way to give back to the thing that was supporting me and giving me so much benefit, but also it was a really great way to learn about how universities work. Obviously, it’s a singular point of view about how a university works, and I’m sure that there are other administrations that might come back and say, You know, this isn’t exactly how it works. But for me on the ground as a union member, I learned so much about how university budgets worked, where my stipend even came from, how my health insurance was negotiated. And those are all really important skills that I’ve needed well, after I’ve left university. So even though I am no longer part of the union and I work for myself, I still use all of my union skills to think about what’s in the best interest, to look at insurance plans, to think about how budgets are made, or if I’m approaching universities to ask for funding.

15:06 Katy P: And it’s certainly something that I work with some clients every day, because the reality is that graduate school takes away from some of your prime earning your prime living years, and it’s for a good cause to create research and add to the knowledge in the world. But also there’s material impacts for taking a big chunk of your twenties or a big chunk of your twenties and thirties. Or to leave a secure job and come back to grad school. There are impacts for taking that time away. And the more that I work with people, the more I really see a distinct difference between campuses that have unions and their graduate students feel like they have some level of security, they have some level of a reliable stipend over the summer or they have some sense that their health insurance will continue from year to year, and students at universities who don’t have it.

15:56 Katy P: Sometimes it can be really easy to reduce unions to like, Oh, they’re the reason I get my good benefits or like, that’s the reason that I get a good stipend as opposed to a very crappy stipend. But I think that the the real benefit outside of those material benefits is just understanding and having some protection for these vulnerable years where you’re really giving a lot of yourself and wanting to have some protection back to them

Anonymous #1’s Unionization Story, A Private Christian university

16:25 Emily/Anonymous #1: This submission is from an anonymous contributor. Quote I’m a Ph.D. candidate and graduate assistant at a private Christian American university. When I started in my program, I was making just over half of what is considered the minimum cost of living in my city. I was not provided health insurance over the summer through my job. Needless to say, it is difficult to make ends meet in these circumstances. Eventually, the graduate assistants at my school put out a letter of demands to the university, insisting that we be fairly compensated and covered for our medical needs. We demonstrated how much money we bring into the university with each class we teach and how dependent the school is on us to teach many required courses for undergraduate students. For example, from what I can calculate when teaching just one class for one semester of 25 students, the school brings in six times more money than I am paid in a whole year. We also appealed to the school’s religious ideologies and ethics and pointed out the hypocrisy of a Christian institution taking advantage of people in this way.

17:28 Emily/Anonymous #1: The school did respond and met some of our demands, but continued to refuse to pay us a living wage. Higher ups at universities want to tell us that because we are also students, that much of our labor is an educational experience for which we should be grateful and not expect compensation. But the truth is that our labor is real work that we have trained hard to be qualified to do, and that the universities could not function without. To get a job as a graduate assistant a person must have a college degree and go through competitive selection processes. Many of us even already have master’s degrees before we start in Ph.D. programs and take these jobs. And it’s not as if we’re asking to be paid as much as professors. We are only asking for the bare minimum of what it takes to live in this particular town. But the university has refused. We realized that we weren’t going to get our basic needs met unless we united and organized. So the union effort began.

18:22 Emily/Anonymous #1: I am keeping my identity and the identity of my school. Anonymous, as we have not yet gone public with our union efforts. But we did want to take this opportunity to get our story out there so that graduate assistants at other universities would know that they aren’t alone in their struggles. Additionally, I want to say that we have been very inspired and invigorated by the efforts and successes of graduate students unionizing at other universities throughout the country. So a big thank you to all who have come before us and for the risks they took. It feels like this is a moment of progress for graduate assistants and we are excited to become a part of that. We gave our university the opportunity to write this wrong without us organizing, but they have refused. So we are going forth with our unionizing efforts. Thank you so much. Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast for having this episode and inviting me to share my story. We have a hard road ahead, but we are ready.

Commercial

19:11 Emily: 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, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2023-2024 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, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/speaking/ 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.

Individual Stipend Negotiation 

20:31 Emily: This portion of the episode includes four responses to my prompts regarding individual stipend negotiation. The prompts were: “What was your original stipend and benefits offer? What was the process of negotiating this offer? What was the outcome of the negotiation?” If you would like to hear another episode like this one, look up Season 8 Episode 7.

Anonymous #2, University of Georgia

20:58 Emily/Anonymous #2: This admission is from an anonymous contributor. Quote, I’m an incoming doctoral student at the university of Georgia, located in Athens, Georgia. I’m in the social sciences. 

What Was Your Original Stipend and Benefits Offer?

21:09 Emily/Anonymous #2: My department gave me an offer of a research assistantship and they nominated me for a university wide fellowship. The RA-ship pays $26,000, and the fellowship is $7,000 per year for four years. In addition, my tuition is waived, and every student in my department gets a $500 conference stipend per semester. All in all, I am receiving funding from two sources, one from my department and one from the university overall.

21:35 Emily/Anonymous #2: I also had a competing offer, which is what allowed me to feel comfortable negotiating with my department. The other offer was about $5,000 more a year at a roughly comparable institution. Both are one SEC schools, although the departments and selves aren’t as comparable. That offer was also comprised an assistantship and fellowship with the extra $5,000 coming from the fellowship.

What Was the Process of Negotiating This Offer?

21:57 Emily/Anonymous #2: At the time I had these offers, I was also in the last year of my master’s program, and I was really well-positioned to negotiate by virtue of my existing professional connections. Members of my faculty knew the faculty at both of the institutions I was looking at, so I asked them if negotiations were the norm in our field or if I would be perceived as out of step. I also think it’s worth asking the newer faculty in your department what they did when entering grad school and during their job search, because the tenured professors haven’t job search in a while, so their norms and experiences might not be as up to date for the actual negotiations.

22:31 Emily/Anonymous #2: I drafted an email that laid out that I had a competing offer and asked if there is anything else I should consider while making a decision. I wasn’t sure what would shake out as a result of me asking, and I was told asking directly for more money wouldn’t be the best way to approach negotiations. So I gave them an opportunity to sell me on the program. I had been corresponding with the program coordinator, so that’s who I sent the email to.

What Was the Outcome of the Negotiation?

22:54 Emily/Anonymous #2: They responded with a very kind email that basically said that they weren’t surprised I had other offers and they offered me a named department award that was specifically for professional development funding for $5,000 over four years.

23:06 Emily/Anonymous #2: I was happy for a few reasons. One, it showed me the department was willing to invest in me. Two, I got the money I asked for, and three, because it was a named award. I can put it on my CV. At that point, I went ahead and immediately accepted the offer and let everyone involved know that it had worked out. Ultimately, I’m glad I negotiated it because I got the funding I requested and because it told me more about the department culture than anything else could have. I also feel really well-positioned to take advantage of conferences and professional opportunities in my field without worrying about how I’ll pay for them. I would recommend negotiating as a graduate student, even if just to see how the department reacts. In most cases, it’s a reasonable request. So if they respond with disapproval, that could be a sign for your future in that department, end quote.

Anonymous #3, a Large Public University in the Midwest

23:58 Anonymous #3: So I just completed the second year of a five year humanities doctoral program at a large public university in the Midwest. My current program was my top choice during the application process, and thanks to guidance from the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, I was able to use the offer for my second choice program to negotiate and improve the financial package of my top choice program.

What Was Your Original Stipend and Benefits Offer?

24:22 Anonymous #3: Originally, my top choice offered me a five year funding package that included a two year fellowship to be used during a first and last year of my graduate studies. This fellowship relieves me of teaching duties and also offers a higher stipend. The original 12 month stipend was $28,316, but the university increased the stipend right before my first semester to $30,420. So this is the amount I received during my first year when I was on fellowship and I will receive this amount or perhaps even more if the university decides to increase it again for my fifth and final year. My remaining three years of graduate study are funded by a teaching assistantship. So as a GTA, I teach one course per semester. The nine month GTA stipend is $21,280 in my department. There seems to be more and more opportunity to teach a course over the summer, which pays approximately an additional $7,000 on top of that nine months stipend. However, this is not a guarantee and international students have priority over domestic students for these positions, specifically in my department.

25:29 Anonymous #3: My second choice program offered me a 12 month, $24,000 stipend for the five year program, in addition to an extra $5,000 to be used for research over the course of the five years. So in total, the financial package is about $5,000 more than that of my first choice program. But of course, this is not taking into account small differences in fees.

What was the process of negotiating this offer?

25:51 Anonymous #3: Ultimately, I sent a brief direct email to the DGS at my top choice program. I explained that I was deciding between two programs and that the other program of interest, which I named specifically in the email, had offered a more competitive funding package which included guaranteed summer funding. And I outlined all of the details of the funding package in the email to the DGS.

What was the outcome of the negotiation?

26:13 Anonymous #3: My negotiation process was actually quite easy. The DGS responded the next day and offered an additional $6,000, a lump sum that I could use any way I wished. So there was really no back and forth. I sent the email. I asked if there was anything that they could do to increase the financial package, and they responded and said, yes, here’s an additional $6,000.

26:33 Anonymous #3: So this is the financial commitment that I needed to make my final decision. I accepted the offer and I received this cash amount when I arrived on campus. Ultimately, my second choice program has since increased stipends to $30,000 per year. However, my current program has also made changes to funding packages. Summer teaching opportunities have increased in my department specifically for domestic students, and health insurance will soon be covered 100% by the university, so my first two years there was an 85% subsidy. So it seems to me that financial packages can really shift and evolve over the course of one’s program. But I think it’s critical to make sure that you have a guaranteed financial package that is workable for you from the very beginning. For me, as a 31 year old doctoral student who left a career to pursue a PhD in a completely different field, financial security is really important and pursuing programs with strong funding packages in affordable cities and then negotiating with my top choice and continuing to seek out additional grants and awards now that I’m here has been really important for my success in the program and also for my well-being overall.

Anonymous #4

27:47 Emily/Anonymous #4: This next contribution was submitted anonymously. Quote, Hello. Newly minted Ph.D. student here today. I’ll be telling you a bit about my experience of “negotiating” my offer letter for grad school. I say negotiating with air quotes because my experience was not the typical case of using an offer from one school as leverage to improve your offer at another school. But I think my experience can help motivate others to negotiate, which is why I’m happy to share.

28:14 Emily/Anonymous #4: So for a bit of back story, I knew from early on during my undergraduate education that I wanted to go to graduate school. However, the research I was doing as an undergrad wasn’t something I was super passionate about. By my senior year, I found a research area that was more interesting to me, But felt that I wasn’t ready to apply to grad school since I’d be switching fields in order to gain a better understanding of the state of the field and really specify a topic. I could devote six years of my life to. I worked as a lab tech for two years doing research in the field. I thought I wanted to pursue in graduate school and yay, I was correct in my judgment. I found a research topic I really enjoyed. The downside to this perhaps, was that I consequently narrowed my options for grad programs.

28:58 Emily/Anonymous #4: I ended up applying to two programs that are both direct admit, so I knew which lab I’d be joining and have a general idea for a project I’d work on. Following interviews, I realized that one of the labs was not the right fit for me. So by the end of the application cycle, I only had one offer letter. Now, during my interview at this institution, two PI’s, neither of whom were the P.I. I was interviewing for, and one of whom was on the grad committee. Both encouraged me to negotiate my offer. Then, prior to receiving the offer letter my PI emailed me saying we should zoom once I got it so we can go over the details and, quote, discuss anything I’d want to negotiate. So I was confident that negotiation was not taboo for this program and was reassured that my PI would even help me.

What was your original stipend and benefits offer?

29:41 Emily/Anonymous #4: But how exactly do you negotiate without the leverage of another offer? You just ask. My original offer was a 12 month appointment with a stipend of $32,000 for my first two years. Then the departmental rate guaranteed for nine month appointments for three more years, as well as an additional departmental award to be paid over my first three years. Even though I didn’t have another offer, I was still planning to ask for smaller things such as relocation assistance. Then I was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. With the Fellowship. I recognized I had a little bit more bargaining power, but at the end of the day, there was only one school I’d be able to take it to. Still, I knew that my PI and department were generally okay with negotiations, so I figured I had nothing to lose if I asked for more.

What was the process of negotiating this offer?

30:26 Emily/Anonymous #4: I first zoomed with my PI, That’s when I asked about relocation assistance. But I followed up on that zoom call with an email basically saying, I’ve heard that other NSF recipients asked for these things. Is any of this even possible? And listed the following agreement to pay the NSF stipend on non-NSF years: partial control of the $12,000 cost of education fund that is part of the fellowship and a sign up bonus.

What was the outcome of the negotiation?

30:52 Emily/Anonymous #4: My plan was to gauge what my PI thought would be reasonable requests, then go forward with only those. But they actually just went ahead and asked about all of them. And two days later I had my answers. First, the school will match the NSF statement. First, the school will match the NSF stipend on non NSF years. Second, I won’t have control over the $12,000 funds. However, the school may top it off with $2,000 that I can use for conferences, workshops, etc. I say may because this component is negotiated separately from the stipend and is still in the works. Third, a sign on bonus is not possible. However, the department award in my original offer letter was reworked into a larger amount that I will receive in my fifth year. So while it’s not technically a sign on bonus, it is an additional lump sum that I’m being guaranteed. And finally, my PI can reimburse up to $600 in relocation costs.

31:48 Emily/Anonymous #4: So overall, my negotiation, which was nothing more than just asking, was largely successful. I do want to note that there are two important factors to consider in my case. One, because this is a direct admit program, my PI was in my corner doing the asking for me. I never did any of the negotiation with the department directly, which may be the case for those entering rotation programs and why asking can be more intimidating for others. Second, my PI has external non-government funding which allows for more flexibility in how it’s spent. I’m almost certain that I would not get the NSF stipend match nor relocation assistance if my PI didn’t have private funding. So it can be useful to know what sources of funding your potential PI has to help you gauge if certain asks are reasonable versus unreasonable. I hope my story will help motivate others to ask for more than what their initial offer consists of. Whether they have offers from five schools or one school. And even if you don’t have an external fellowship like I did at the end of the day, the school offered you a spot. They want you there. I truly believe that making reasonable requests will not hurt you in the eyes of a university that wants you to commit to their program. You’re never going to have an answer unless you ask. End quote.

Anonymous #5, Negotiation Advice

33:06 Emily/Anonymous #5: This is from an anonymous contributor. Quote, I will be starting in a PhD program in fall 2023. After some correspondence with the professor in charge, I managed to secure a bit of additional funding. My advice is to think of the process as just asking questions instead of negotiation. Make a convincing case and focus on controllable and movable points.

33:30 Emily/Anonymous #5: One. Thinking of the process as simply a communication exchange helped me in two ways. By removing the pressure of negotiation, it helped me to think clearly about what I need to support myself financially and the pressure points in the initial offer, e.g. rent. And as such it help me to communicate clearly about my financial concerns. Admitted, but not accepted is the time to discuss financial details and faculty fully expect students to ask questions and are prepared to leverage their resources to adjust offers to convince students to join

34:06 Emily/Anonymous #5: Two. Making a convincing case stemmed from thinking concretely about how I would support myself on the initial offer and subsequently asking questions that were detailed and specific. Asking many detailed questions served as evidence of real and reasonable financial and material concerns. I had. Functionally, this worked analogous to asking research questions in the statement of purpose.

34:28 Emily/Anonymous #5: Three. focusing on controllable and movable points made this correspondence actually productive. What are the principal pressure points in my current offer? What tools does the program have at their disposal to improve offers? Often they do not have much wiggle room over a pure stipend amount, but have other programs or fellowships they can leverage. Focusing on effective and real possible offer adjustments helped me to help the professor better understand what they could do to turn an admission offer into an accepted offer. Relatedly, I advise taking advantage of additional funding opportunities, such as filling out optional personal statements, end quote.

Outtro

35:14 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? 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! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This Grad Student Advocates Individually and Collectively for Higher Stipends

July 18, 2022 by Emily

In this episode, Emily interviews Alyssa Hayes, a rising 4th-year graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Alyssa is a first-generation college student who experienced food insecurity and other forms of financial precarity as an undergraduate. Now that she earns a stipend of approximately $45,000 per year and lives in a low cost of living city, she feels financially secure—and wants the same for all graduate students. To that end, Alyssa shares two advocacy approaches: 1) Ask for what you need. As a prospective graduate student, she negotiated for a top-up fellowship to be added to her assistantship stipend. 2) Share pay information with your peers across universities and use that data to collectively bargain for higher stipends in individual programs. Alyssa and her peers in nuclear engineering are currently gathering this data, including stipends, benefits, cost of living, and university and departmental ranking.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

  • UNLP Funding for Nuclear Engineering Graduate and Undergraduate Students
  • Overview of University of Tennessee Graduate Fellowships
  • Alyssa’s Twitter (@NuclearQuaffle)
  • Generation Atomic
  • PF for PhDs Expert Interviews with Sam Hogan
    • S5E17: How to Qualify for a Mortgage as a Graduate Student or PhD, Even with Non-W-2 Fellowship Income
    • S8E4: Turn Your Largest Liability into Your Largest Asset with House Hacking
    • Sam’s Website
    • Sam’s Cell #: 540-478-5803
  • PF for PhDs S12E5 Show Notes
  • PF for PhDs Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (Workshop)
  • Emily’s E-mail
  • Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp
  • PhD Stipends
  • PF for PhDs Register for Mailing List (Advice Document)
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub (Show Notes/Transcripts)
Image for S12E5: This Grad Student Advocates Individually and Collectively for Higher Stipends

Teaser

00:00 Alyssa: I think that like all grad students should feel as comfortable as I feel in terms of my financial situation. I think that I make a fair wage, and maybe I’m biased because of my previous financial situation, but I personally have no complaints about the amount of money that I’m making right now. I feel supported by my advisor and by my department. I feel that I am valued for my labor. And I think that shows through how much they pay me. And I think that everybody should be able to feel that way about their department and about their advisor.

Introduction

00:44 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. This is Season 12, Episode 5, and today my guest is Alyssa Hayes, a rising 4th-year graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Alyssa is a first-generation college student who experienced food insecurity and other forms of financial precarity as an undergraduate. Now that she earns a stipend of approximately $45,000 per year and lives in a low-cost-of-living city, she feels financially secure—and wants the same for all graduate students. To that end, Alyssa shares two advocacy approaches: 1) Ask for what you need. As a prospective graduate student, she negotiated for a top-up fellowship to be added to her assistantship stipend. 2) Share pay information with your peers across universities and use that data to collectively bargain for higher stipends in individual programs. Alyssa and her peers in nuclear engineering are currently gathering this data, including stipends, benefits, cost-of-living, and university and departmental ranking. You won’t want to miss Alyssa’s powerful messages peppered throughout the episode!

02:30 Emily: Longtime listeners of the podcast will remember the interviews I’ve published with Sam Hogan, a mortgage originator specializing in graduate students and PhDs, an advertiser with Personal Finance for PhDs, and my brother. Several years ago, I told Sam how I’d heard over and over again about graduate students and PhDs being denied mortgage loans because of their unusual income sources and income history and asked him to look into the issue. Following that request, Sam actually developed quite an expertise in this area and is now the go-to mortgage originator for people with non-employee fellowship income. He even found a way around what we thought was an insurmountable barrier in the 3-year continuance requirement. If you’re considering buying a home, especially if you have non-W-2 income, I encourage you to reach out to Sam for a quote. He has a new website, which you can visit at PhDHomeLoans.com, or you can reach him on his cell phone, 540-478-5803. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s12e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Alyssa Hayes.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:56 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today Alyssa Hayes. She is a rising fourth-year graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. And we have a lot to talk about in terms of like her pay and her money mindset. And I’m really excited for this conversation. So Alyssa, thank you so much for volunteering. And would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

04:16 Alyssa: Thank you for having me! Yeah. So, I’m currently at the University of Tennessee. I did my bachelor’s degree in the same field at the University of Illinois. My current work involves like, you know, fusion engineering, specifically. I do a lot of computational plasma boundary stuff. But yeah, I guess we’re not really talking about any of my technical work today. <Laugh>

Money Mindset Up Until Starting Grad School

04:38 Emily: No, but very related to your experience as a graduate student. So, let’s take it back a little bit and tell me about sort of what your childhood’s like, and specifically how it relates to money and how that sort of developed your money mindset through your childhood and through undergrad, up until you started graduate school.

04:58 Alyssa: Yeah. So, I come from a biracial family, and my father comes from a long line of Americans in the military where, you know, his family was very like blue-collar labor. Like there wasn’t as big of a push to go to college, especially during the time when my dad was growing up in the seventies. And my mom is an immigrant from the Philippines. And her family was not extremely wealthy in the Philippines. And they came here when she was younger to pursue a better life. And she currently works at Walmart and has been for like almost 20 years and has supported my three siblings and me through retail and fast food. So, I was the first person in my family to pursue college. And we lived in an area where we had a lot of, like, there was a lot of really good funding for the school system, even though we weren’t in the nicest part of town. There were other folks who were pretty well-to-do, so I took advantage of everything that I could at that high school. And I got a full ride at the University of Illinois to pursue nuclear engineering. I didn’t have a lot of financial security while I was there, but I didn’t have to worry too much about student debt or tuition or paying fees or anything like that.

Food Insecurity in Undergrad

06:18 Emily: That’s amazing. The full ride to college, and obviously you went after it, <laugh> starting in your earlier years. But tell me a little bit about like the discretion that you had over money. Like, were you budgeting or like, how did you manage it? How did you manage what money you had above that, you know, what’s paying for tuition and room and board and so forth?

06:39 Alyssa: Yeah. So, I was first of all, extremely food insecure and didn’t realize it until I entered grad school. Once a month, I went out to lunch with like a professor who like, he knew I was food insecure, even if I didn’t know I was food insecure, and he would like pay for my food and we would like go somewhere nice that I couldn’t afford to eat at. For the most part, like there were times when like either because I, you know, couldn’t afford to go out to eat as often, but didn’t have the time because I was so stressed out to like make food from home. I like skipped meals often when I was in undergrad. I was very cheap and frugal all the time. I was constantly like thinking about like, I am hungry all the time and like bringing, like, trying to bring snacks with me. Apples were my thing.

07:22 Alyssa: I brought apples everywhere because they were so easy to just grab and then eat on the go. And then it was mostly about trying to make money to pay the bills and to pay rent. My rent, like in undergrad was only like $450 a month. But I worked a minimum wage job in the like plasma lab on campus. And then I worked as a TA as well. So that added stress onto my undergrad. I wish that I didn’t have to have worked so hard in order to like pay to live while trying to be a student. But that’s what it was like. Luckily, I don’t have any student debt now, but I couldn’t really you know, spend the money that was granted for my tuition on, you know, myself or the ability to make ends meet.

08:14 Emily: Yeah. So, I sort of misspoke or misunderstood earlier. You had a full ride in terms of the education cost, but not your living expenses. So, you were working to pay all of your living expenses.

08:25 Alyssa: Yes.

08:25 Emily: Yes. Okay. So that is a little bit like graduate school in a sense, except you didn’t have like a job that you were given. You had to cobble together like multiple sources of income, it sounds like. And there’s more management. You were probably paid, you know, less than maybe the average graduate student is. So, that sounds really stressful.

08:43 Alyssa: I had a little bit of spillover for my scholarships that I had received. So like it paid for like tuition and fees plus a little bit of extra and then like that would go towards rent, but it wasn’t like enough.

Student Loans for Dorm Payment

08:55 Emily: Why didn’t you take out student loans during that time?

08:59 Alyssa: So, I did have to take out student loans during my freshman year to pay for the dorms. Because dorms are a scam. If anyone who’s like not currently in grad school is listening to this, dorms are a scam. Do not live in them longer than you have to. The university says it’s so that way you can you know, help get acclimated to the college experience, but that’s a lie. They’re trying to take your money. I had to take out student loans to pay for those. Other than that, I didn’t take out any other student loans because I was afraid of the debt like piling up. I knew that like one of the types of loans didn’t charge interest until you were done, but the other type of loan did. And I, you know, didn’t want that to accrue while I was in college.

09:38 Alyssa: And I knew that I like had done all my budgeting and I knew that I was able to work to pay for all my stuff. So, I just kind of like, you know, I didn’t think anything was like wrong with the way that I was living. I didn’t see any like problems with like being so frugal or so cheap or skipping meals or missing sleep and stuff. But like, I guess grateful now to past me that I didn’t do that because now I don’t have any student debt. I paid off what little loans I had in like six months. But I did have to like work a lot to get there. But I was also happy doing the work that I did. I enjoyed being a TA and I enjoyed working in a research lab. And honestly, I’m glad that I didn’t end up like working somewhere that didn’t have anything to do with nuclear engineering. So that way I was able to apply all of that to my career trajectory later on in grad school, by having that research experience.

Funding and Finances in Grad School

10:36 Emily: Yeah. This kind of goes to show you like how we aren’t even aware of our own beliefs around money and our own mindsets around money until we sort of consciously try to take a step outside and examine them. And I understand that you can say now, “Oh, past me, I didn’t even know at the time.” You can say things like that because you’ve now reached a new phase in your financial life, which is the graduate student phase. So, tell us about how you’re funded now and how your finances are going.

11:00 Alyssa: Yeah. So, when I was applying to grad schools, I applied to the University of Illinois where I originally wanted to stay because I really loved working for my advisor there. And I also applied to the University of Tennessee because I had, through conferences and networking, I met my current advisor here. And I told both schools that I would stay at Illinois for less. And Illinois didn’t have the power to offer, or like the nuclear engineering program at the University of Illinois, didn’t have the power to offer me more than like the base research assistantship that they offer to like all of the graduate students there. But the University of Tennessee has these like top-off fellowships that they will add to a base stipend in order to get a student to commit to the university who’s maybe deciding between two programs.

12:01 Alyssa: And with just the base stipend, Illinois, I think pays, I might be mistaken on the exact number, but I think they were offering like $26,000 a year. And the University of Tennessee’s base pay at the time was $30,000 per year. We’ve since gotten a raise and now it’s $33K. But the top-off fellowship that was offered to me was $10,000 a year. So then it became a no-brainer. And I was like, I would stay at Illinois for less, but not this much less. And so, now I am making about $45K with bonuses and like a couple of like, you know, service-based scholarships that I get on a somewhat regular basis. So, it kind of evens out to about $45,000 a year with the raise and the top-off fellowship. And so now, I feel like more of a regular adult that has a livable amount of money and I’m not as worried anymore about like, “Oh God, I saw a movie this weekend and now I can’t do anything else fun for the rest of the week.” And so like, I don’t have any of those like worries anymore, but I do still think about them. Like that mindset is always in the back of my mind of like, “Oh, like, is this like a waste of money? I don’t need to be doing this,” or, “This is so expensive,” you know?

$45K Stipend in Knoxville

13:24 Emily: Okay. There was so much in there. So much good stuff that I want to follow-up on. Let’s take it kind of in turns. I want to put a pin in the negotiation part of it. We’ll come back to that in a moment. But let’s focus now on like again, still your money mindset. You just mentioned some of it. You don’t have to be as worried about small joys and extravagances that you allow yourself. So, you’re making about $45,000 a year. Very good stipend for a graduate student, especially in a, you know, lower cost of living area. How, like give us some context about how much that pays for. Because obviously in other areas of the country, $45K is like, “Oh, I’m barely scraping by.”

14:00 Alyssa: Yeah.

14:00 Emily: How does that feel for you right now?

14:03 Alyssa: Knoxville is very affordable to live in. When you’re going to school, like in not really a big city, but more of like a rural part of the country, that definitely helps. Although there’s definitely, you have to balance that with being a person of color, too. So there aren’t other Filipinos, like in this whole city, it seems. I haven’t met any of them or seen anybody else like that’s the same race as me. There’s also a lot of segregation here. And so like, there are parts of town that you can’t go to. So you kind of have to balance that when you’re like, “Oh, if I live somewhere rural, then that’s more affordable to live in,” but there are parts of those areas that also may not be safe for you if you’re in a similar situation.

14:48 Emily: Yeah. I’m glad that you pointed that out because it’s something that I often don’t acknowledge or that can go unacknowledged that people of color in some cases do not have all of the options available to them that White people do, or, you know, other like races. Because as you just said, there are some areas where you can’t live, you have to pay the premium to live in a different area because it’s simply not an option to feel safe, you know, paying the least amount of rent that you could or whatever. So, a very important consideration when people are choosing graduate schools to kind of, to feel out if you are going to feel safe there, and what is the university going to do to support you?

15:21 Alyssa: And while we’re kind of on this, it might also be worth mentioning the current abortion scenario in the United States. If that’s something that matters to you and you have the ability to become pregnant, like a lot of the 26 states that are passing laws that restrict your access to it may also be something to consider because a lot of those contain the rural areas where it is more affordable to attend a university there.

15:46 Emily: Another wrinkle. Yeah. We’re recording this in May, 2022. I don’t know exactly when we’re going to release this. There may be more developments between now and then. But yes, an issue that I think many of us were not expecting to have to consider when we’re choosing graduate school. So, another good point.

Prioritizing Happiness

16:04 Emily: Let’s talk more about the money though. So like, you’re able to pay, you’re able to live a more comfortable lifestyle. Your mindset is still, how is your mindset doing? Like, are you able to splurge on yourself a little bit, or do you still have some of the mindset lingering from when you grew up or your undergraduate experience?

16:22 Alyssa: A lot of it is more, I guess, in the back of my mind, but I have put like a conscious effort into prioritizing my own happiness. Not just in the way of like work-life balance, but financially to ensure that like, you know, spending money on things that make you happy is not wasted money in the same way that spending time on things that make you happy is not wasted time. And so, like I saw two movies this weekend <laugh> instead of one with my partner, because I wanted to and that helped distract me from some heavy things that were going on in my life. And that was money well-spent. Yeah, it wasn’t on a bill, but it’s something that I like, you know, put effort into not feeling bad about that. So, I’ve been dealing with grief this weekend, and I’ve been spending a lot of money, like additional money than I would in any other week on eating out a lot. Just so that way I wouldn’t have to like do household chores, like dishes or worry about cooking while I’m dealing with grief.

17:29 Alyssa: And so like, those are like, you know, that was part of like, I guess, a change in mindset that I noticed where it was easier for me to do that in my current financial scenario, like situation versus when I was in undergrad. Like I had those thoughts in the back my mind of like, “Wow, I’m spending a lot of money. <Laugh> this week alone between, you know, funeral costs and like the additional money I was spending on food.” I’ve easily spent like a thousand dollars in the last four days on not bills, but that was easier for me to accept now and probably even easier now versus like my first year in grad school, when that would’ve been a harder, like mental hurdle to get over.

18:16 Emily: Yeah. And I’m assuming that this simply would not have been an option for you in undergrad to spend in this way. It is not an option for many graduate students, either, who are being paid less. And in our prep for this conversation, you said to me something along the lines of, you know, you’re living well right now given what you’re paid and given the low cost-of-living, and you think that all graduate students should feel this way. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

18:42 Alyssa: Yes. So, currently, like I said, I make $45,000 about per year. And whenever I tell other graduate students that like, sometimes, like I try not to let it like come off as like a brag because of the low cost-of-living in Knoxville, too. But it’s more of that I obviously agree that like everybody should, you know, talk about their wages, especially to your coworkers. Because I think that like all grad students should feel as comfortable as I feel in terms of my financial situation. I think that I make a fair wage, and maybe I’m biased because of my previous financial situation, but I personally have no complaints about the amount of money that I’m making right now. I feel supported by my advisor and by my department. I feel that I am valued for my labor. And I think that shows through how much they pay me. And I think that everybody should be able to feel that way about their department and about their advisor.

Commercial

19:52 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. I have set a big goal for my business and our U.S. PhD community broadly. My goal is for every graduate student, postdoc, or postbac in the U.S. who is not having income tax withheld from their stipend or salary to be offered training on how to 1) estimate their future income tax liability, 2) determine if they are required to pay quarterly estimated tax, and 3) prepare to pay their tax bill or bills through setting up a system of self-withholding. I provide just such a training, which is my asynchronous workshop titled Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. Now, some universities, institutes, or funding agencies already offer such a training, and they have no need to work with me. But others won’t allow their employees to touch the topic of taxes with a 10-foot pole, and that’s where working with me can really benefit everyone. Would you please send me an email and tell me which camp your university falls into—or if it’s somewhere in between? You can reach me at [email protected]. Furthermore, let me know if you want to take Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients for free or think that the cohort coming in this fall should, and I’ll reply with how you can help make that happen. I look forward to hearing from you! Now back to our interview.

Learning to Negotiate

21:33 Emily: I wanted to come back now to the negotiation piece. So, I think you mentioned something like, you know, you told both universities that you would accept a slightly lower stipend from University of Illinois. Tell me like, you even brought up money in these conversations. Like why were you even having conversations with the programs? What gave you the idea that you could talk about this and that maybe there would be more for you there?

21:56 Alyssa: So, part of it was because while I was at the University of Illinois, I got comfortable asking for money. One by being a leader in a lot of the different like student programs and then having to correspond regularly with the staff and the department head there. So, I knew a lot of those people well, and at one point I wanted to go to the Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp in the year 2017. And there was like obviously paying for travel flight costs. I didn’t have to pay for lodging as part of that Bootcamp, but there was also a hefty registration fee and I couldn’t afford any of that. And so, like there was no route to like ask for it to be paid for. There was no like standardized path or form that you could fill out for things to be waived.

22:46 Alyssa: So, I wrote like a little one-page request to my department saying like, this is this program. I really want to go. This is what I’m going to get out of it. Will you pay for it? And then at the very bottom, it said more information about why I may qualify for financial need available upon request. But I didn’t really like talk about my financial situation. I just explained what the program was, and why I wanted to go. And I gave that to them, and with no further questions they paid for everything. I think they even, I want to say they reimbursed my flights, but if I hadn’t bought them, they may have paid for them in advance. I don’t quite remember. But I had realized that like they wanted to support me, and that they were okay with students kind of going the outside-of-the-box route in terms of asking for money.

23:38 Alyssa: And that was when I was a sophomore in college. So, that gave me the confidence, then, when I was in grad school to ask for a higher rate or wage when I was applying to grad school. And they, unfortunately, weren’t able to do it or I don’t, you know, necessarily know all the behind-the-scenes that went on there. And sure, they said no, but I wasn’t at all reprimanded for asking in the first place. Like nothing, you know, bad happened to me. The best that I could have done was ask, even if they said no. So, I’m glad that I did. And it turned out well for me because at the University of Tennessee, I didn’t even know that there were top-off fellowships. But I got one because I was upfront with the University of Tennessee about how I would have, you know, taken the lower offer elsewhere and about how I was considering other schools and kind of in the same way that you’re like, I learned how to like negotiate a car price down from my dad.

24:36 Alyssa: So that was, I guess, a little bit of a privilege that I had because I had to buy a car to like move to Tennessee, because they have terrible public transit here. It’s kind of the whole tell the other you know, person that you’re negotiating with about this other thing that you’re also considering. Make that look nice and shiny. So that way they’ll try to give you a little bit of a better offer. I ended up also getting this laptop and all of the accessories that go with it out of the same deal with my current advisor. Like I asked them to buy me, you know, personal equipment that I could use to like, you know, be a person outside of grad school, too. Like I didn’t have a functioning laptop at the time. And so all of that got thrown in as well.

25:23 Emily: I think that’s such a powerful message, like, and I’m glad that you learned it as a sophomore in college and that you were able to then apply it in your process for applying to graduate school. Like just ask, like, just let people know of your need and let them figure out how they can best, you know, work behind-the-scenes to make that happen for you. So, you got this amazing like top-up fellowship. I mean, $10,000 is a very significant, you know, add-on to an already, you know okay base stipend. So, that sounds amazing. Just, I think this is a wonderful message for any prospective graduate students, or anybody at any stage, really just ask for what you need. Let people know, and especially like you said that you have options and this would help your decision. I think you said earlier, like it was a no-brainer to go with the University of Tennessee once they made that, you know, augmentation to their offer. So, so glad to hear that.

Normalizing Talking About Grad Student Stipends

26:12 Emily: Let’s talk more about stipends for other graduate students as well. So, I understand you’ve recently kind of entered into some conversations with peers about how we can, union is not the right word, but sort of collectively bargain or like share information about stipends. So, tell me more about that endeavor.

26:33 Alyssa: Yeah. So, normalizing talking about our wages is like step one in changing the culture around laborers. So that way we can all benefit collectively. But we kind of wanted to take this a little bit of a step further among nuclear engineering grad students specifically because by going to conferences and networking, not just with employers or other universities, et cetera, but we also spend that time networking with each other. And so, because it’s so common for grad students to kind of see the same people all the time in the nuclear engineering programs, because we’re so small, a lot of us just know each other from like all across the country. And I know that this isn’t something that a lot of other fields have the benefit of because it’s not realistic for like every electrical engineering graduate student to all know each other.

27:31 Alyssa: But at least to know somebody who knows somebody at pretty much any nuclear engineering graduate program is realistic for us. So, we got together at the most recent student conference. And we are currently building a spreadsheet that has everybody’s like gross pay, all of the things that you have to pay for that are related to your health insurance or your academic costs, your fees, and then what your take-home pay is, and then comparing all of that to the cost-of-living based on where your university is, your university’s ranking, and your department’s ranking. So, that way you can kind of compare and contrast. So that way, if there is a department that is ranked highly compared to its university’s ranking, which implies that that department has more power to maybe change the pay that their graduate students are receiving, but those graduate students maybe aren’t being paid well, then they can use the collective sheet to say like, this is where we’re falling right now, compared to how much these other similar programs are paying their graduate students. And we think that you should, you know, value our labor a little bit more and that we deserve to have higher wages. And so, use like that collective information for other institutions to bargain. So that way maybe they can get the same level of financial comfort that I am afforded right now.

29:07 Emily: This is an amazing effort. I totally commend you and your peers for like this idea, and starting work on this. It sounds like you’re in the data collection stage.

29:17 Alyssa: Yes.

29:17 Emily: Is that right? Like you’re building the spreadsheet, putting in all these different factors. I love that you mentioned like ranking of university, because I have some work in this area as well, and I just think about cost-of-living. I don’t think about like how, you know, the university is regarded or their program is regarded. So, I think that’s a really interesting like additional element. I’m not sure when this episode will come out in relation to these other ones, but I have some other podcast episodes slated for 2022 on this same issue of like sort of information-sharing about stipends and bargaining in some manner to increase stipends. So, this is wonderful and it aligns very well with that.

Health Insurance (Non-)Coverage

29:53 Alyssa: The thing that like, the one piece of information that like made it, like click in my brain where I was like, “We need to like, do something more about this and just talk about our pay,” was that one of the grad students that I didn’t even know well, like while I was at U of I, that I was just kind of like chatting with at a social at this conference told me that his health insurance was not covered. And like, mine is, like, I don’t, it’s not taken out of my pay. Like, yes, it’s like technically like, “Oh, like you could have just, you know, they could have just given me the money that they’re using to pay for my health insurance,” but like the University of Illinois’ grad student health insurance is like taken out of their pay. So, that’s like a part of like the gross pay that they advertise. And I was like, that’s not cool. <Laugh> what do you mean your health insurance isn’t covered? So then I asked to have a meeting with the department head there because I like knew him well from when I was a student there. And he actually was the one who gave me the idea. He was like, why don’t you get more of this information from other schools? And then, so we’ll go from there.

30:59 Emily: That’s excellent. And I totally agree, like in PhD Stipends as well, I have a way to enter like what your stipend is, but then like, what are you paying out of that stipend in terms of fees and tuition and whatever. And like for health insurance and other types of fees as well, like that can add up to thousands of dollars a year. So, that’s not some insignificant like, oh, it’s a $20 fee, whatever. This is a really big percentage of like that overall stipend that they’re receiving.

31:23 Alyssa: Yeah.

31:24 Emily: The other thing I’m really excited about for your project too, is like this fellowship that you received is probably one that’s offered sometimes to other students as well. So, it’s good to have both sets of information, right? Like what’s the base stipend and then, “Oh, sometimes this additional funding is available.” Wouldn’t it be great if we could pull everybody up to that level or, you know, that kind of thing? So, I just, if you aren’t already, I would definitely encourage you to include that kind of information as well in the spreadsheet. What different students are being paid, even within the same department.

31:52 Alyssa: Yeah, we did get a raise this year, which took effect about two months ago. So, because of the change in the economy throughout the pandemic, all graduate students in the nuclear engineering department at the University of Tennessee received a 10% stipend raise. So, full research assistants are now making 33 instead of $30,000 per year as the base-level stipend. Additionally, this was through the effort of our nuclear engineering graduate student assembly, which is kind of like also not a union, but a collection of just the nuclear engineering grad students. We managed to through a couple of years actually of pressure convince our department to begin covering our academic fees. So, which also kind of feels like a raise in terms of take-home pay. So, now we no longer have to pay as much and many students don’t have to pay any fees anymore for things like, you know, your basic like academic, you know, transportation fee, student health center fee, recreational fee. So, all of that is pretty much covered now.

33:02 Emily: For sure. And it makes it so much easier to compare apples to apples, right? When those kinds of fees are covered. But I’m sure in your spreadsheet you’ll be accounting for everything. So, I love this idea. I’m so excited for y’all to like move forward with this and hope it comes together in the near future.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

33:16 Emily: Well, Alyssa, it’s been such a pleasure to talk with you and I’m so glad that you volunteered to be on here, and you’ve had so many really vital messages that have come through in this interview. And I’m really grateful for that. I wrap up all my interviews by asking my guests one final question, which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

33:39 Alyssa: I had a similar question asked of me in my most recent D&D session with my friends. Just like we were talking after. And, specifically, their question was, how much of my success is rooted in like just being confident? And that applies to so much in that, like I had the confidence to ask to go to all these different programs, the Bootcamp, to different conferences. And when I’m at conferences, then while I’m there, I’m networking with all these different potential employers and powerful people, like some of my future reference letter writers are people that I’ve only ever interacted with at conferences and have no other like relationship with them. And so, by networking with those people that, you know, that’s how I met my current advisor, and that’s how he learned about my work.

34:42 Alyssa: And that gave me the confidence to then talk to him about my financial situation. And you know, even asking to go to conferences in the first place built my confidence in asking for funding and asking for a raise. And it really taught me that, I mean, the best thing you can do is to at least ask and see if, you know, people will just give you money. Because sometimes they will. So, I don’t necessarily like the mindset of, you know, just apply to everything because it also can take resources and time. But apply to the things that you can, or that you have the spoons to. And it’s a way to try to tackle imposter syndrome is to know that other people have it too, but you deserve to have the confidence, regardless of any imposter syndrome you might have, to put yourself out there.

35:41 Emily: Thank you so much, Alyssa, for those concluding thoughts. Again, it’s been great to have you. Thank you so much!

35:46 Alyssa: Yeah. Thank you! Thank you for having me!

Outtro

35:53 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance…but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

Negotiating Your Grad School Stipend and Benefits: Five Success Stories

February 15, 2021 by Lourdes Bobbio

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

Links Mentioned in this Episode

  • PhDStipends.com
  • Related Episodes
    • Negotiating PhD Funding Offers: This Grad Student Did It Successfully
    • How to Negotiate as a Graduate Student or PhD in Industry and Academia
    • This Postdoc’s Financial Turnaround Story and Attitude Toward Money Are Incredibly Inspiring
  • The Academic Society: Grad School Prep
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Community
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Podcast Hub
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Subscribe to the mailing list

Teaser

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest One

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

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

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

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

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

Guest Two

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

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

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

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

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

Guest Three

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

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

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

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

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

Commercial

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

Guest Four

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest Five

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

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

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

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

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

Key Takeaways

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listener Q&A: Investing Savings Rate

Question

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

Answer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outtro

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

 
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