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How This International Graduate Student Grew His Career and Social Wealth Alongside His Net Worth

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Cyrus Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Grinnell College. Cyrus came to the US from China as a graduate student without any knowledge of how the US financial system works. Over the course of his PhD, Cyrus found ways to minimize his expenses and increase his income so that he could meet his goal of investing $500 per month into a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account. He also invested in his physical and mental health and grew his career and social wealth in a frugal manner. Cyrus ends the interview with incredible insights into why he was motivated to work on his finances during graduate school and in what ways academics are truly wealthy.

Links mentioned in the Episode

How This International Graduate Student Grew His Career and Social Wealth Alongside His Net Worth

Teaser

Cyrus (00:00): Don’t underestimate yourself because you are a PhD student and you definitely have the knowledge base and then sharing those knowledge with the community, and you are passing to the knowledge. This is the wealth we possess, right? Normally people think we are poor, but actually, and a wider definition of the wealth here we have this part to share with someone else.

Introduction

Emily (00:33): 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 (01:01): This is Season 18, Episode 2, and today my guest is Dr. Cyrus Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Grinnell College. Cyrus came to the US from China as a graduate student without any knowledge of how the US financial system works. Over the course of his PhD, Cyrus found ways to minimize his expenses and increase his income so that he could meet his goal of investing $500 per month into a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account. He also invested in his physical and mental health and grew his career and social wealth in a frugal manner. Cyrus ends the interview with incredible insights into why he was motivated to work on his finances during graduate school and in what ways academics are truly wealthy.

Emily (01:45): I’m offering a new slate of workshops for my university clients this fall, and over the summer I’m practicing delivering these workshops for free to a limited number of graduate students and postdocs on the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list. Last month, we did “Seven Steps to Start Investing as a Graduate Student or Postdoc,” and later in the summer we’ll do “Your Financial Orientation to Graduate School” and “Tax Season Preparation Starts Now for Graduate Students” and possibly more. If you’re not currently on my mailing list but want to receive notice about the upcoming pilot sessions once they are scheduled, please join now! The best way to get on the mailing list as a podcast listener is to sign up through PFforPhDs.com/advice/; you’ll receive a document that summarizes all of my interviewees’ responses regarding their best financial advice. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Cyrus Liu.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:56): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Cyrus Liu. He’s currently a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Grinnell College, and we are going to be talking about his fascinating financial journey, um, as a graduate student and now a postdoc in the US as an international student. And so, Cyrus, I’m so happy that you’ve decided to join me on the podcast today, and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Cyrus (03:19): Yes. Hi, Emily. Thank you for having me here. So I graduated in December, 2022 from computer science degree. Um, after that I landed this, uh, postdoc, um, fellow in computer science. And the current position, I’m do- mostly doing research in the area of programming languages and security.

Money Mindset After Arriving in the US

Emily (03:45): Excellent. So let’s go kind of all the way back to when you first arrived in the US. I assume that was at the start of graduate school, but you can correct me if that’s wrong. Um, tell me like about what your money mindset was at that point and how, if at all, how familiar you were with the US financial system.

Cyrus (04:01): Also, this is my first time before I come to US. It’s actually, I’ve never been to us before my PhD and I’m from China, so I grew up in a poor family, in fact, there. So with that in mind that I’m kind of sort of inherently frugal. But what’s interesting is back then, like I never feel poor in terms of any financials. In general, I have no idea about in credit card scores, uh, credit cards and investing or retirement. And, and that’s later on. I discovered after I entered the US that I do have, uh, a saving and spending mindfully and because how my parents raised me. Right.

Grad School Stipend vs. Local Cost of Living

Emily (04:50): I see. And so when you arrived for, um, graduate school here, can you tell me about, um, what your stipend was and how that struck you, maybe versus like the local cost of living?

Cyrus (05:02): I was living in Hoboken for, um, two years and a half, and also Stevens Institute with the university. I finished my PhD is located in this really beautiful city and it, it is, the local cost is like 60% higher than the national average. I would just say and put in the number that means like I think if you got two bedroom apartments that you might need to spend, um, at least 1700 for one bedroom, that means you need a a roommate. And back then the stipends, uh, I would say it’s like a 28 thousandish and it’s roughly, I remember we got paid like a biweekly, it’s like 2000 a hundred per month after tax.

Increasing Income During Grad School

Emily (05:55): Okay. Well, I really wanna dig into this, uh, with that, you know, relatively expensive cost of living and the relatively low stipend. Um, and the listeners don’t know yet, but this is a financial success story that we’re about to talk about <laugh>. So we’re gonna see how, you know, I wanted to see that starting point and now let’s see how you got to the end point that you got to. Um, so let’s kind of break this down, um, systematically. So during the course of your time in graduate school, how did you, what did you do to increase your income?

Cyrus (06:24): Yeah, so there are a couple things. Um, like I said that before I entering, uh, US, I have, I really have no idea what’s the, uh, um, investment, investment investing or credit cards, and that’s a totally different systems, but I do have a mindset that I need to save, right? And it is how I grew up. Um, but it’s not too much. So most of the case, um, I start to reaching out, um, all the resources I can, I, I think I start with reading the book first and then also I love reading. And then the first book I get to know is basically, uh, it is called I Will Teach Rich by the Ramit. And, and he, he actually kind of introduced me to the whole US financial system from credit card, from the, uh, uh, Roth IRA and then how you would you, uh, increase, uh, your finance and manage your, your spending habits and to how would you invest if you have extra money, even though if you don’t have extra money, just put maybe one, uh, 100 or $50 you can squeeze out. Just experience how things work. Uh, at the beginning it was a little bit overwhelming, but I, I enjoyed read his book. I I think this is also helps me to manage my life, uh, here in a completely, uh, foreign nation. Right?

Emily (08:04): Yeah, that’s a wonderful first book to get started with. I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi. Um, yeah, great, great introduction. He’s very firm about how to tell if someone, someone, you know, an institution is trying to take advantage of you. Like he’s really helping you, like recognize that and push back against it. So I can definitely see how that would be useful when you’re entering a new system, um, entirely. So awesome recommendation, you started there, you read that book,

Cyrus (08:28): And then I start to act <laugh>.

Emily (08:31): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Cyrus (08:31): And then I open the credit card and then I, I, I take the, the same strategy that I recommended by the, by the book. It, it’s not promotion for the book, but it’s more like, I think around nothing to think of that it is really like you try to minimize all the possible interest, right? Rates I would have and then, or a lot of promotions provided by the credit card and then try to take advantage of that because now we think about that credit cards more like the more you expense and then the more you can potentially save and also they encourage you to spend. So, but I personally very mindful with my expense, but the same times I think they do, credit cards do offer a lot of discounts in terms of purchasing. So that’s the first step.

Emily (09:24): So are you saying that you pursued credit card rewards, like points and cash back and stuff after? Of course, you initially need to establish credit and get started there.

Cyrus (09:32): Yes, exactly.

Emily (09:32): But is that where this led eventually?

Cyrus (09:34): The, the signing bonus and also the cashback reward, that’s also something new to me that I never did, uh, touch before. And then also we do have, uh, I think the first one is the discovery. I think most of international students would get to discovery first because we don’t have any, uh, credit score history here. And so they also have these online stores that will give you 10% or 5% discount. And then when I go out to buy clothes in, or I was living in New York City area, so there’s a lot of department store that can use with this discount opportunities.

Emily (10:16): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Okay. So both increasing income through credit card, um, bonuses and cash back and so forth. Also finding a way to be even more frugal in saving certain percent, percentages on the purchases that you do make.

Cyrus (10:28): After that, um, uh, I started to opening a investment account that was also a little bit struggling because I, first of all, as an international student, I do not know if I was allowed to do that. So I, that’s kind of for research myself. But in the end, after like, um, as long as we are considering as a tax payer resident, and then, so you should have the same opportunity to open all those investment account. And then I, I remembered I started with, uh, uh, 500 ish, um, over the month for the first month. So I just put, I think I, I, I was not expecting to gain anything. I just, uh, put 500 to get to understanding, uh, how the investments work and buying individual stocks. And I think I bought, that was 2018. I bought a Tesla <laugh> because I really like, uh, Elon Musk.

Cyrus (11:30): Um, but that was another story. It was really funny. And so that’s one part. And then, uh, after that, uh, I get to know the, Roth IRA and then the retirement account. Um, it’s also be, uh, I, I get to understand how the tax work here and then the tax deferred account. And I think that’s whether in long term if, uh, I am staying here or not. I, for me, it’s like, I think it’s, uh, uh, beneficial to open this account as soon as possible because I do pay a lot of taxes. I mean, it’s, uh, in terms of graduate students. Uh, so I think, uh, that’s one way you should take benefit of that. And then I did that, but um, although I didn’t have much money to put on that, and then, uh, in the end, I would, my, my goal was, uh, try to save like, uh, 500 and put into other way to the Roth IRA or the personal, um, uh, investment brokerage and yeah. But this all comes with the risk. So with the mind that you, the money you put in, in the investment account, like it’s possible to lose all of them. Right. But I was fine with that.

Contributing to a Retirement Account as an International Student

Emily (12:47): Couple things there, uh, because I get so many questions from international students and postdocs, um, yeah, maybe they know, they, you know, in theory could contribute money to a Roth ira for example. They, they understand the eligibility, but they’re more questioning like, is this a good idea? And it sounds like you came down on Yep. As soon as possible, whether I end up in the US long term or not, this is a good idea. Can you tell us a little bit more about that thought process and how you made that decision?

Cyrus (13:15): Uh, I think that this decision is very personal for me. Um, because that, that’s all really depends, um, where you going to stay, where are you going to retire in, in the future, right? Um, for me, I didn’t really think that too long. Um, I can in, in the long run, I, I prefer this. I might not stay in United States. Uh, but, uh, I, but uh, for me, you, you got to understand what, what, what’s your, uh, long-term goal. Uh, if you are not going to come back to us at all, or even this is the case, but it is still helpful that because, uh, you are kind of tax deferred assuming you grow your money over there, right? Um, and it just take some penalties if you break the, the rules that you’re taking out the money before your retirement age. But if you can stand with that, it is nothing comparing that if you in your future that you might want to settle down in US or you go want you coming back in us in a later life, it, it, it, it can benefit you a lot, but without risk balance you got assessment, what’s your goal, it is. And then for me, I would like to take that even though maybe a few years I have to, uh, uh, leave or, or for, or I have to withdraw the money, but I need to take a 20% or I don’t know exactly number the penalty for that.

Emily (14:53): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, yeah, if I’m remembering correctly, it’s, I think it’s only 10% and it’s only on the gains. And if we’re talking about the Roth IRA, right, because you can withdraw the contribution. So it’s, as you said, you know, there’s a, um, a, a risk there in a sense. Okay, well maybe I will need to remove this money early for some reason. Well, this is the penalty. Am I willing to accept that? Do you know, I’m, and the penalty again, is only on the growth. So it’s only if, yeah, if there things have actually gone well with that investment account, um, in the intervening years. So thank you for giving us a little bit more insight there.

Investing as a Graduate Student

Emily (15:24): And then I also wanted to ask about the taxable brokerage account. Um, you mentioned you bought Tesla. Yeah. Were you, um, cashing out, like making trades and actually taking income from this money over the years? Or is it more been like just sitting there for like, for the long term and you’re not taking income from it?

Cyrus (15:40): So for me, it’s more like a, um, a personal habit. Like, um, uh, I do, I don’t, I didn’t, I did not have much money to invest, and I think I was just bought two or three, few five shares of Tesla, but in 2018, and, but after that, Tesla was like a, like a high rocket, and I do, I did sold a couple share, but those number I really like comparing it, it’s not much. And so no, it, it, it’s more like, uh, a habit. That one is a habit. The another one is I, I did not really have much extra money to invest in this account.

Emily (16:24): Yeah. And I, you said the number of $500 earlier, was that your, was it your goal to invest $500 per month or is that over a different period of time?

Cyrus (16:32): Uh, yeah, I was, uh, uh, a month.

Minimizing Expenses as a Graduate Student

Emily (16:34): Let’s talk about keeping a lid on expenses or decreasing expenses then, because we’ve already heard that the cost of living is very challenging on your grad student stipend. So you already mentioned having multiple roommates. I think you said you were sharing a bedroom, right? So like maybe four people in a two bedroom apartment, is that right?

Cyrus (16:49): Um, um, no, that, that was like, uh, we do have five bedrooms in, uh, a big house, but we, we have our own bedroom. But the things like, uh, in that case we did cutting down a lot of expenses. We share everything.

Emily (17:05): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Okay. So kind of the, the frugal tip there is like larger residents, more roommates, more people to split everything among, right?

Cyrus (17:15): Yeah. Not many PhD students actually live in Hoboken. I was lucky to find this place. Uh, but the same times, like I personally, I don’t think roommates are bad. And because I, I get a chance to know different people and, uh, in my case, uh, there’s a, a little, uh, uh, that, but I can stand with because we do sharing, uh, things, uh, and then sometimes can getting busy, but most of the case are fine with that. So we, I have four other roommates, but they are working in a different area. So basically we would have a different schedule. So in this case, uh, it’s doable and especially, uh, given the resources I have, I don’t commute that much. And then I enjoy in the on campus resource, I like to do it to gym. So it’s like a 10 minutes away from my, uh, my, my lab and then also the, to the gym. So the, I spend most of the time in the lab. And then after that, I go to the gym really just, uh, over the night, come back. And then sometimes we have the good parties, you have roommates, and you can have some little party on the weekends and watch a movie together. That was pretty nice.

Emily (18:30): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I actually really like the setup of a single family home that’s shared among multiple different, multiple, you know, people at their own bedrooms. I feel like that’s a pretty, in most areas of the country, that’s a pretty economical way to live if that type of housing is available to you as opposed to like the apartments or, you know, the townhouses or whatever. Yeah. Um, yeah. So what other ways did you find to decrease or minimize your expenses?

Cyrus (18:55): So at the same time, um, we, we do have, uh, uh, so I try to, uh, take a break from my research sometimes. And another way is like, um, travel. When, when it comes to travel, um, I prefer to go with my friends or in a group, and in, in generally I do meal prep. I do, uh, regularly do, uh, exercise and eat healthy. Um, the meal prep myself, it’s also cost less. So I think it is a, it is beneficial in two ways. Um, also in long run, I do value work workout regularly and keep your mental health checked. This would’ve, uh, stopped me going to hospital that often. Like I remember when the seasoning transitions during the transition seasonings and you catch flu isn’t sometimes it’s not just going to the hospital suffering. It’s more like you take at least one week to recover and then you get behind with my research and then that kind of padding up. It’s a lot of stress. So I, I, I wouldn’t, so I, I realized that like, and I, the good way is like take, do more exercise and then to, to keep your immune system robust, <laugh> against that. Um, another thing is like, it, it’s very funny, like when we pay in taxes, right? We, we considering as a, a tax resident. And, uh, but at the same time, I really appreciate my student id. I was living in New York City area and then using student id, you got a lot of free, uh, tickets and also discount tickets to the art gallery and museums and, and gardens. So although I, I, I was, uh, frugal, but I didn’t miss out any fun things over there. I, I still go to museums, gardens, and sometimes, uh, uh, uh, meetups and, and, and local, uh, parties. I, I was, was really fun. And it didn’t really cost you much.

Emily (21:10): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So your entertainment was also satisfactory to you, but you found a way to do it in a frugal manner.

Cyrus (21:16): Yeah. Yeah.

Emily (21:18): Anything else on your list of, of expenses that you managed to minimize?

Cyrus (21:22): I don’t drive, right? So it is also, I was living in the city. It’s really, uh, so those expenses not really, uh, a thing for me. I personally, I do not really purchase too much clothing for me. I’m very minimal. Like, uh, as long I have, uh, uh, a clean fit clothing, that’s enough for me. And for shoes, like, uh, I don’t like to switch too much, and also maybe I have two or three, two, uh, three pair of shoes that one for winter and one or two I can switch during the summer or something like that. So, uh, wearing the things like to the, to the most, um, I think this is preco- probably also because the way that I, how I raised that I am fine with that. And I think that’s kind of, uh, one part, uh, that can cut off the cost in my case.

Emily (22:26): Yeah, definitely.

Commercial

Emily (22:29): 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.

Increasing Social Wealth

Emily (23:56): Is there anything else that you would like to add about overall how you increased your net worth during graduate school? We talked about investing in the Roth, IRA and also in the taxable brokerage account. Anything else in that category?

Cyrus (24:09): Uh, I think one thing that is more intangible, the the wealth and the finance that, uh, the, it is kind of the, the social wealth, the, which I, I, I, I was not really proud of that, um, and try to, uh, take advantage of the local resources, right? And then I was lucky to live in New York City area, and then that’s, and also Hoboken locally and is very nice community, but I think no matter where you live, the local community more often, have more resources that you can imagine and you might not be aware, just try to reach out. And for example, I was attending almost like every weekend I go out and then join the meetup and conference, and most of, of the time they provide you these free meals, lunch or dinner, and then it, it, it’s a, it’s a nice way you can social and also you don’t need to cook your meal yourself. So these things are very subtle and the same things happening on campus that, um, in, in your department, uh, no matter which major you are, um, try to join the, uh, the, if you have any habit, right, join the club and then your peers, and those are most likely have this, uh, social events that can help you, uh, to reduce sometimes if you don’t want to cook or for breakfast meal. And then those are all great ways to, to do

Emily (25:59): Classic grad student strategy. Um, but I like that your focus here and kind of your spin on it is both like, yeah, you can get some free meals from time to time, but also you get, you get your entertainment and your social interaction. Um, and so it fills your, your calendar and helps you again with your work life balance and your wellness overall. And I like that you mentioned not just doing this on campus, but in the community too. And the thing is that if people are putting on events and they’re giving food and all those things, they really want you there. They really want people to come. So like you’re also, you know, you’re contributing to their community as well.

Cyrus (26:32): Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, um, one of the things not just about the meals, and another thing is about the, the, the social wealth. I would say it’s all, uh, it’s also the concept I learned from the books that, uh, it’s more how would you connect to the people? And then that was, uh, kind of potentially, and the connection may or may not be lead you to in the future when you are in the job market, you could have used these connections, but, uh, I wouldn’t say put this in more like a transactional way, but you should try genuinely more just enjoying the life. But at the same times, you might not realize by doing that, you kind of gain the social wealth.

Freedom as the Ultimate Goal

Emily (27:20): You were obviously putting in a lot of effort with your finances, right? All the things we went through, ways that you keep your lifestyle to a minimum ways you figured out how to increase your income, you know, self-education, and then that turned into more investing and so forth. Um, why, why weren’t you just satisfied with getting by day to day and saving all of that for after you finish graduate school?

Cyrus (27:45): I, I think that’s awesome. One role of the reason is due to my personality, I guess. Um, I think the, the ultimate goal is the freedom to achieve the freedom and to be confident. W- with the any decisions I’m going to make. So I would like to, we are talking about freedom and confidence. It’s more like in the sense that I was, I can make decisions based on my own personal demand, not really subject to any resources surrounding me, right? Like, like I said, like before I entering us, I never felt I’m, I’m poor <laugh> because I don’t really have, have much need and I was spending most of my life and time with school. And then after you explore the world, I have this dream, and then now the time’s moving on, and then I start to realize that I really, it’s not what you think, like ideas are great, but you have these obstacles that related to this, uh, money topic, and then you actually making decisions based on what the resources are available for you. So the final goal, then I would start to thinking like, yeah, this comes so natural, you save more, but saving is just one of those strategies. So, and then that’s why I end up start to find out the other opportunities and yeah. So I, I would say the ultimate goal is to be freedom.

Emily (29:30): Do you feel like, you know, you are, I don’t know, five, six or so years into this now, um, do you feel like you’ve attained that to a degree? Obviously you’re not, maybe, you know, complete financial independence is still, still some time away, but, um, I guess I’m, I’m wondering about, yeah, like does it feel like you are a percentage ways, like towards that at this point?

Cyrus (29:53): Uh, in terms of the net worth, obvious, No, that is a far away, but I think in terms of mindset and the knowledge, and then I am preparing myself and then I’m being mindful with my personal life. It’s called personal finance, right? And then you, I i, I was now I’m able to figuring out in the big picture and then what’s the come in flow, what’s the outflow? And I’m, I’m very mindful of that. And then in the end, it, it’s really also, it’s another pro- a question for myself. Do I really want to be retired early or not, or, so the, the, the, the freedom for me is in a more, in a wider definition that it’s more about the resource management and the organize myself, and it, it, it, it includes material and, but also my mind. I think this kind of, uh, uh, knowledge and skills over these past five to six years that I develop, it’s very helpful. Um, in the long term. I, I think if I stick to that and then keep this growth mindset and in the future, the net worth is just a number, whether you choose retire 40 at 40 or 50 a a it is, can is this is the freedom that I, I’m talking about. I can decide, doesn’t matter if, if I have to work or not, right?

Emily (31:33): Absolutely. I love that. Thank you much for pointing that out. I similarly, I think I came to this similar kinds of reflections after I had finished graduate school, after I’d been on that path for a few years, like recognizing how, um, having not only some money in terms of the net worth, but also those mindsets and the habits and the skills and everything that it took to start down that path really afforded me more, uh, choices even at that relatively early stage, um, in life. So thank you so much for sharing that. Exactly.

Personal Finance Resources for Grad Students

Emily (32:07): Um, do you have any additional resources that you’d like to recommend, either to specifically the international graduate student population or maybe graduate students and postdocs more widely? I mean, your first recommendation, I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi was an excellent one. Were there any other books or I don’t know, podcasts or YouTube channels or anything else that you, uh, that you felt was really helpful along the way?

Cyrus (32:27): Yeah, I think, um, so I, I think books are really, uh, good to start with. And in terms of which books you should read, uh, um, uh, I would recommend if you use Reddit, and that there’s a personal finance Reddit channel, uh, you can join that one. There’s a lot of resources about personal finance and what books you’re getting started. And if you like a podcast, and I think this one is very nice since, uh, at the beginning I, I couldn’t find much resources. That’s also how I get to know this podcast. And I was very excited that actually someone thanks to you <laugh>, um, so you, you, you can get, keep get informed to make a good decision, right? Um, and this, uh, this, this is, uh, complete within your reach if you want to do that. And then I would suggest you do that.

Cyrus (33:28): And in terms of, uh, um, tangible resources, be mindful for the, uh, reach out to your university resources. Like, um, especially I was using this, uh, psycho, uh, psychological services therapy and be open-minded. And for those like, um, we are PhD students, we are graduate students, and then it’s can definitely be very lonely. And then even you are in a relationship, so, and those resources are really just find somewhere to talk. And this I think is the part that can easily be ignored by the students, especially international students thinking I’m really, because I’m alien here and then I feel constrained. But actually, uh, uh, in us, you can definitely, especially in your university, you have a lot of resources, uh, uh, to help you out. And then when you graduated, and actually the careers, uh, service is also very helpful, but you need to know that and you need to reach out for yourself.

Cyrus (34:41): And in terms of local community, no matter where you live, try to find a city. And what I did is like get engaged with the locals and I like running and then I go to 5K races. So those are, you can, um, reach out without any cost, right? And also you can, uh, remain your, uh, healthy mind, mind, uh, mental health. So yeah, I, I think overall just be open-minded. We are living in this, uh, information liberal age is really, you don’t feel missing out, and then you have the access to other information you can figure out yourself. And what’s, one thing I, I learned is, um, what makes you, uh, anxious is mostly the things that you actually didn’t do right? And then if you act on it, it, it, it doesn’t matter how challenging the, the things itself, and then you will be fine. But sitting there <laugh> doing nothing, that that’s the big problem.

Emily (35:54): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, I’ve absolutely seen that in, I mean, it, it applies widely, but certainly in the case of finances, um, it’s better to just face it and engage. Yeah. And try something. Um, yeah, instead of, as you said, kind of avoiding or spending a long time in analysis paralysis, not sure which direction you should go, just try something. And you’ve tried a lot of things and I love that we got through all of that in this interview.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (36:16): Let’s wrap up with our last question that I ask all of my guests. What is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Cyrus (36:28): Yeah, so, um, I think everyone has a very unique experience, uh, in terms of giving. Otherwise, I would just say I wish what I have done or done more to in my PhD. Um, so one thing I think, like I mentioned couple times, um, value social wealth. And that means that, uh, try to, uh, go out and in, in your spare time, sometimes you might think you don’t have time, especially as a PhD student. And, but I tried, I have the similar mindset, uh, at a certain amount of time. But the thing is like you stick in the lab and the home, you might, you become less productive and then it might take more time than comparing that you just go out and do some activities and then come back with, uh, more energy and fresh mind. So this is the thing that I, I think I did, uh, less, uh, whether it, if you are in a relationship or not, it is the similar thing sometimes, like go out with friends and, and to the meetups and or more importantly, um, it’s also more, uh, career wise or professionally. Like we, we as a graduate student, we don’t really have money to give out, but the same, uh, idea applies. The more you give the, the, the, the, the better. So, but as a scholar, that means that volunteer to giving talks in the meetups, workshops, seminars in your neighboring institutions, I think, uh, don’t underestimate yourself because you are a PhD student and you definitely have the knowledge base and then sharing those knowledge with the community, and you are passing to the knowledge. This is the wealth we possess, right? Normally people think we are poor, but actually, um, a wider definition of the wealth here, we have this part to share with someone else. And then the same times you will get rewarding back, right? Because you, you go out and people get your idea, you get a chance to talk about your research, and the same times you build this genuine connections with the community, and in the future, this connections might help you to navigate your, your future career path.

Cyrus (38:58): So this is the thing that I, I think I missed out a lot also because we was in the covid times, and that’s really dark age. Um, on the other side, as I, I would like to share is I think what I did to contribute the success of my PhD is one thing is really be open-minded. I considering myself a very open-minded person, I, I, at the same time, very minimal for me. And then, but I do exercise more and then, and try new things at the beginning. All those investment accounts really scares me because every time I open the account, that’s a whole for legal documents I have to read. And I, as an international, I’m concerned that I fly-, am I breaking the law or something like that. But if, if you are looking into it and it’s really not that scary, right?

Cyrus (39:56): So I think, I think I, I stand with myself and then I, I try all those things. And then the, the, the, the idea is you need to realize that if you don’t do that, and it’s actually you are paying that, you are not doing that, right? Because the inflations and the interest rates, rates all the things that you have to, you kind of, everyone should open their investment account and, and, and do the investment and manage that to beat the, at least the inflation. So another thing I think I value, uh, more is the people itself, whether it be your significant others or friends. I do valuable value those things. Um, uh, that means that if, if there’s a chance I can spend more time with my friends, like, uh, we go out for a nice, a night, a fancy dinner. Sometimes we go out for, to New York, Manhattan to try different restaurants. I, I, I, I really not at that moment, I value more with the time with my friends. And even though the meal is expensive sometimes, I remember one time we spent almost a hundred each of us for one meal <laugh> was like, but I think that was really, uh, um, uh, valuable for me.

Emily (41:15): Yeah, so insightful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Thank you for this entire interview Cyrus, for volunteering to come on the podcast. Um, it’s been absolute pleasure to have you.

Cyrus (41:24): Thank you. And thank you for having me and it is great to sharing the stories with everyone. Thank you so much.

Outtro

Emily (41:41): 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.

How This Life Sciences PhD Fosters Entrepreneurship

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Marquicia Pierce, who holds a PhD in molecular physiology and biophysics from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Northwood University. In the ten years since finishing her PhD, Marquicia has worked in various capacities to foster life science start-ups and small businesses, and she is now the owner and principal consultant for Ruby Leaf Media, a science communication company for people who want to turn their tech story into a business story. Marquicia recounts the courses and projects she pursued during graduate school that set her up for her post-PhD career and how she balanced her advisor and committee’s expectations with her career ambitions. She also details the multitude of government, academic, and private sector resources that are available to founders and inventors and the skills and mindsets that a PhD can bring to entrepreneurship.

Links mentioned in the Episode

How This Life Sciences PhD Fosters Entrepreneurship

Teaser

Marquicia (00:00): Get in a great habit of, um, not only just looking at the numbers, but what is the story behind the numbers? If I was to say, have a narrative around this, what did, what did it mean? And it’ll help you uncover what your priorities are. Something that’s not working. Like I, I spent so much money on this, but I don’t know if it’s really working. You’re kind of already gut checking and doing like an audit, if you will.

Introduction

Emily (00:31): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:00): This is Season 18, Episode 1, and today my guest is Dr. Marquicia Pierce, who holds a PhD in molecular physiology and biophysics from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Northwood University. In the ten years since finishing her PhD, Marquicia has worked in various capacities to foster life science start-ups and small businesses, and she is now the owner and principal consultant for Ruby Leaf Media, a science communication company for people who want to turn their tech story into a business story. Marquicia recounts the courses and projects she pursued during graduate school that set her up for her post-PhD career and how she balanced her advisor and committee’s expectations with her career ambitions. She also details the multitude of government, academic, and private sector resources that are available to founders and inventors and the skills and mindsets that a PhD can bring to entrepreneurship.

Emily (01:52): I’m looking for a couple more interviewees to round out Season 18 of this podcast! If it’s been in the back of your mind to do so, this is your official invitation to please volunteer to be interviewed. I love that on this podcast I get to feature PhDs and PhDs-to-be who are almost exclusively regular people and learn and share their real-life stories and strategies. Please go to PFforPhDs.com/podcastvolunteer/ and fill out the quick form, and I’ll be in touch over email. I look forward to interviewing you in the coming months! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e1/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Marquicia Pierce of Ruby Leaf Media.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:51): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Marquicia Pierce of Ruby Leaf Media, she’s the owner there. And Ruby Leaf Media, as she described to me, is a science communication company for people who want to turn their tech story into a business story. And just in our pre-interview chat that Marquicia and I had, it was so fascinating to hear about her career journey. I know you’re gonna get a lot from this as well. So, Marquicia, welcome to the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself and your company for our listeners?

Marquicia (03:18): Thank you so much, Emily, for having me. This is such a great opportunity, um, just to chat, sit down and chat with you. You’ve been providing such great valuable resources for, uh, a lot of my colleagues, so I appreciate the opportunity. Um, so yes, so my name is, um, Dr. Marquicia Pierce. I am a life scientist by training. My, uh, training was in molecular physiology and biophysics. And, uh, ever since my time in the lab, I, I found that I really enjoyed being able to take those concepts from the lab and bring them out to the community. So, um, as we’ll get into, uh, some of the, the context here, um, my background includes, um, being a military brat who, who knows that community can be, uh, made and you have an obligation to, to bring something to that community. And so, um, I’ve just been able to fortunately, have been able to do that for a lot of different, uh, high tech companies that are started by PhDs and they’re trying to cross over from the lab to, uh, bringing value to, to their community, wherever that is.

Experiences During Grad School That Went Beyond Basic Research

Emily (04:20): And this is gonna be a really fascinating interview, um, on just all the opportunities there are in front of graduate students and PhDs for doing just that, for, um, advancing their careers and translating their work. And this is gonna be amazing, but I wanna hear more about your kind of personal journey as well. So going back to graduate school, can you tell us a little bit about like the, um, the things you did that were above and beyond just your basic, basic, you know, research as a graduate student that were like side hustles or like, like extra projects that you did just experience that you gained that helped you, that helped you along in your career path?

Marquicia (04:54): Absolutely. I love this question. Um, so I did my PhD at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. And during that time, I knew two things for certain. I knew I wanted to incorporate some type of business into what I was, um, what I, what I was studying at the time. I was looking at how vitamin C moves in the brain, uh, on a molecular level. We were looking at different proteins that made that po- possible, if there were any, uh, phenotypes or if there’s any characteristics when you didn’t have these nutrition, um, in your, in your diet. And I love that I could connect that to and translate that to my family, like, Hey, if you don’t eat these particular nutrition, these things might happen. Um, and, uh, I remember very specifically, my, my grandmother had major symptoms of diabetes during the time that I was, um, getting my graduate program, uh, completed. And I distinctly remember one day thinking through, I know down to the molecular level what’s happening with her symptoms and her disease progression, what would happen. But I feel so useless and helpless ’cause I don’t know if there’s a particular innovation or something that could, that could help. And that I think that kind of solidified for me that there has to be a way to take what we’re learning and translate. Um, many people have done that, but that’s when it clicked for me. And so, um, I knew I wanted to incorporate business. Uh, I wanted to get an MBA, but at the time, there wasn’t really a great place to insert that into my, my program. So I ended up, um, auditing engineering, a lot of engineering management courses in the undergrad engineer engineering school, and being able to work with them on their marketing, their tech management courses.

Marquicia (06:39): Uh, I was able to be involved with one of their capstone day for seniors where they were, um, trying to put together a research project, um, around a particular technology. We were working with a small businesses in the ecosystem. Um, uh, I had a fantastic member, uh, mentor around that, Dr. John Beers who, who facilitated that connection. And so in the lab we were doing what we needed to do, but I was auditing courses, um, around that particular thing. I was involved with, uh, tech, tech Venture Challenge where we were tasked with we being other students from the medical school, the graduate school, the law school, the business school. We were all trying to get behind a particular Vanderbilt, um, or small business in Nashville invention and make a case for this could be a business that could be sustainable and provide value to the community. Um, those are, those are things that I think were pivotal to add on. You always wanna have science plus something that you, you, uh, enjoy. And also like creative graphic design types of things. So I was, uh, a lot of those art science, um, classes as well. Uh, but yeah, definitely had a lot of projects while I was getting my PhD that helped spark that fodder, if you will, for, you know, what do I do after I get my PhD.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities for Grad Students

Emily (08:02): And in your, outside of just your own personal experience in graduate school, can you think of other like, types of opportunities that graduate students might encounter that would provide similar benefits?

Marquicia (08:13): Sure. So, um, a lot of the student competitions are a great place to start. If you just want to, to dip your, your foot in. How do I work with other interdisciplinary teams, law students, business students on a project? These could be anything from a hackathon to, uh, which, you know, you spend a weekend trying to figure out a business proposal to, um, auditing a course that even, even though they’re undergraduates, that’s, that’s a great opportunity to kind of bring in some of those concepts that are complementary to your PhD. Um, we had a, we had a, uh, academic alliance that was between, uh, Vanderbilt and the entrepreneur community as a whole that, um, it was called Life Science, Tennessee Academic Alliance, where you could get involved as a, a mentor or you could, you can bring in speakers to your, your class. You could, uh, host this tech venture challenge.

Marquicia (09:08): Um, those are great opportunities if you just wanna see if that, that opportunity is for you. Um, a lot of, a lot of times now that was, that was 10 years ago, uh, I’m seeing a lot more, uh, fellowships or courses that you can take while you’re doing your, your, your PhD that will incorporate, Hey, here’s a small business proposal, a market research, um, uh, project, uh, at, at in Michigan, there is a group called My Lead. It is graduate students, postdoc students that do just that. They work as a small boutique consulting agency where they put together, uh, a market research plan. They dig into the de the details and the data both on the science side and the business side and be, and are able to work with other companies in that way. So, um, those smaller projects, six, three to six months or a semester long, uh, is a, is a great way to kind of get your feet feet wet. With that.

Pushback For Participating in Activities Outside of the Lab

Emily (10:05): I’m wondering, um, did you encounter any cultural in terms of, uh, the field that you’re in, the life sciences, any, uh, pushback to you participating in these outside of the lab activities? I’ve just noticed that the life sciences, um, among the STEM fields would probably be the most resistant, um, to those kinds of things. But it sounds like Vanderbilt itself was pretty well set up to facilitate this. I’m just wondering what your observations were around that sort of like, culture of do we engage with business, do we engage with startups, like from, you know, the research side of things?

Marquicia (10:41): That’s a great question. So I know that there were, there were parts of, um, the community that really was open to, you know, there’s, there’s opportunities to kind of engage in these particular ways. We very often had that same conversation, like, how, how much do I say? I don’t want to necessarily, um, have an update about this in my committee meeting, uh, <laugh>. It could very well in that particular case be, um, seen as a distraction. You know, you’re, you’re here for getting your graduate studies done, you stay in the lab, especially if things aren’t working, it’s very hard to justify, you know, um, yeah, well, I won’t be able to work on it, you know, I’m, I’m trying to do this particular class. Um, I think that’s why auditing the class was really helpful. And, um, uh, the way Vanderbilt was set up, it was, uh, their IGP or the interdisciplinary program was very used to these different departments had courses that was as attached to it that we were, depending on our specific route, able to go to.

Marquicia (11:47): Um, and so there was a little bit more set up for if you wanna audit a class, um, we can, we could help that. But I still have to get permission through the graduate school to audit an undergrad class. And that included a conversation with my PI and my director of graduate studies who very, at the beginning, very naively, I said, you know, Hey, I, I think I would like to get my MBA. They were really open to, that’s a, that’s a great thought, uh, in theory, <laugh>, you know, but not necessarily having a pathway for to, to that happen. But yeah, it was very much, uh, I felt like I’m living two lives, and if, if you’re going over to the dark side of consulting or industry or management of, uh, investment banking, something that in, in included that, it was, it was kind of, um, you have to be very careful and impactful of how, how you were able to ex explain that. Um, you know, this is a class that I’m taking, it will be over at this particular time, uh, for one of the projects, uh, as intern, I have to say, well, I, I would be willing to take a pay decrease because I’m not, I’m not putting in the same amount of hours per week. So it, there were, and whether or not that that’s discouraged or encouraged, um, especially if you’re going on year six, six of your PhD, it, those can be very awkward <laugh> conversations, to say the least.

Resources for Academics Who Want to Start a Business

Emily (13:09): Well, thank you so much for sharing kind of your experience in that area. I hope it’s, I hope it’s encouraging to people who are facing similar like questions of, it’s, it’s worth pushing it through. It’s worth having these conversations. Maybe you don’t need to tell them everything that’s going, you know, tell them what they need to know, but, you know, get your work done and, and still, because these, these, these extra quote unquote experiences are the ones that are the most valuable for your career. I, I would say, we’ll see in your own story how this, um, develops. So can you say anything more about, um, the, the resources that are available for, let’s say, graduate students or postdocs or people who are still associated with academia who want to start a business, how, how the, how academia can be set up to help them do that. Um, and what are like the pros and cons of accessing those resources?

Marquicia (13:54): That’s a really good question. Um, if you are in academia, you do have a lot of resources that say if you were not, and you were trying to get something, uh, into, into the marketplace on your own that you might not be aware of. So first of all, if you’re a student or a faculty member, um, the things that you would want to be on the lookout for is if there are any, uh, connections you have with your tech transfer office. Because first and foremost, you’ve probably signed some contract or you have something spelled out with your, your place of employment that any intellectual property or even idea or anything that you work on is, is owned by the university point blank period. So you’re, the process for being able to, um, if, if it’s connected with your research, bring that into a business, they, they have a process for doing that.

Marquicia (14:47): They usually, the tech transfer office will, will, uh, facilitate. Um, it includes, Hey, I have this idea. It is just here, I’m disclosing it to you. I haven’t formed a company. I have this idea. It’s, it’s outside of my research scope. What information or what types of resources do you have, uh, for, for this particular setup? Um, at Michigan State University where I did my postdoc, there was actually a research foundation that, um, helped if you were a student, a faculty member, or even a staff person that was at, at the, OR alumni that was affiliated with the university, and you want to start a company, they were there for you to provide resources like, uh, entrepreneur and residents would be a person who’s gone through that process. They will help you build out a business plan, build out your value proposition, which basically says, how do I, how do I make a business that creates value for other people?

Marquicia (15:39): How do I monetize it and sustain it? There will also be your guide for, here’s some state resources, here’s some academic resources in terms of money <laugh> to fund either other students, undergraduates or postdocs that can help you work through this idea. And they will actually be the, um, work in tandem with the tech transfer office, um, to say, Hey, this, this is related. This could be something that we would need the university to continue to help fund the research for think medical devices, therapeutics, um, things that it takes a university and maybe a team to research. They, they work together. Anything that has to do with clinical trials, you would have to need, you would have to use a village <laugh> that, that EIR or the entrepreneur residents can help guide you through. Um, so there’s academic ins, uh, resources, so tech transfer office, student entrepreneurship groups.

Marquicia (16:36): Um, I’ve had a lot of students that I’ve worked with that are working with a family company, they’ve been able to go through with their student, um, business groups, the, the business schools there. They have pitch competitions that give very real money, 10, $20,000 sometimes. And then also connections around that. How do you get your marketing out, your packaging, your, um, your, your story for pitching to other investors? Hey, you have this food company, Hey, you have this idea. Who in your alumni network can help bring some of, uh, some insights to this? So there’s, there’s resources there, uh, at the school. And then in the, um, community, you have, um, state resources that wanna see particularly life science, high tech innovations, push their economy forward. So there’s grants on that particular side for, uh, if you’re just in this particular region working on a high, high tech, high growth company, scalable company, which a lot of life science companies are, um, here’s what we can offer to you.

Marquicia (17:38): Here’s the connections, market research, um, legal consultants, regulatory consultants, um, how do you put together a website? Those are, those are resources that are available on that end. And then one last thing, I know I need to be brief, brief about this. There are, uh, government particular, uh, outside of the different accelerate accelerators for those things, there are government funding. It’s called, uh, small Business Innovation research, or S-B-I-R-S-T-T-R grants that can specifically, if you’re connected with the university, they, um, would provide high risk, um, uh, financial, financial resources to high risk, um, innovations. Those take a little bit longer to do, and you definitely want a team to help guide you through that. But those are also, that’s also money that you don’t have to give up equity or parts of your company to access. And I’ll, I’ll pause there.

Commercial

Emily (18:35): 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.

Ownership of Ideas and Technology Created With and Without University Resources

Emily (20:02): Yeah, I think that you led right into kinda the next question, which is like the more, um, I guess aside from technology that was developed under your employment with the university, that would then be, you know, co-owned with the university. Let’s say you had an idea outside of it, not related to directly your work, the university wouldn’t own it. Um, the more kind of help you reach out for, depending on the type of help that you get, you may be giving up, um, ownership in your idea. Is that right? Can you speak a little bit about that? I mean, maybe there’s different, you know, giving up equity is different than getting a grant, for example. Can you talk about some distinctions there?

Marquicia (20:39): Sure. So at the very, um, at the very early stage in early stage in life sciences are, um, say you have a device, a medical device, you have a prototype for that device, but you haven’t tested it out on humans. You haven’t done a clinical trial or you have a therapeutic that you, you’ve maybe tested it out on mice, um, but you haven’t, you haven’t moved it towards, um, seeing if it holds up in, in humans. Most of the time you’re doing that stuff with the university. But, uh, if you, if you aren’t and you’re still in that early stage, um, the, the choices that you have are, you can go for grants and in kind services they call this non-dilutive funding, where you don’t dilute your ownership. And, um, there’s regional and government funding for that. And then sometimes accelerators or, uh, venture venture groups will have a program in which they are developing something or they’re developing co-developing with you something that can fast track that time to the market.

Marquicia (21:42): So some examples of this could be like Y Combinator or, you know, um, uh, Techstars or something where in order to have access to this, this great structure that they put in, uh, and maybe even some funds to get together, they would require a percentage of your company small, it could be many that are between five to 12% of that company. Um, the thing is, if you are, if in, if you’re in the life science space and you’re that early stage and you’re already giving up equity, you have a very long runway <laugh> to go to where every, at every milestone the company gets a little bit more valuable. And if you, you’re already given up equity at those earlier stages, you don’t have as much for the, the really heavy duty milestones, a clinical trial, uh, you know, a a distributor agreement to also incorporate or leverage giving up some of your equity. Um, so it’s, it is a very different, uh, thing for the life sciences or an academic project to, to kind of evaluate these options. Uh, if you’re really early on, you haven’t gotten a lot of the feedback or regulatory spot you could consider yourself early and the latest you can push off giving off a pa- piece of your company, the better because it’ll be valuable hopefully later on. And, um, you’ll still have that, you’ll retain that, um, that ownership.

Common Skillsets and Mindsets Between PhDs and Entrepreneurs

Emily (23:09): Well, thank you so much for giving the listeners kind of a taste of that, um, those decisions that need to be made earlier on. It, it sounds like, um, being, you know, having an academic affiliation can be so helpful because you are in many ways still considered like a learner no matter, no matter what stage you’re at. And so there’s so many resources available to help you along that path. So I’m, I’m curious now about your personal journey and also the journeys you’ve observed in others, um, from, I believe you mentioned earlier that you started your company sort of out around the time that you finished graduate school. You’ve also had a lot of other positions along the way that have, you know, added to your career. Um, and so I’m wondering for you as an entrepreneur and someone who works with entrepreneurs, what kinds of, um, skill sets, maybe mindsets are common between PhDs and people who start and run businesses? Um, like what’s help? What did we learn in the PhD that’s helpful for later entrepreneurship, those kinds of things. And that could be from your personal experience or the people you’ve known.

Marquicia (24:09): Sure. I’ll start with my personal experience. So the very first time I was introduced to like, we have to set up a company around this technology was during my postdoc. So after I left Vanderbilt, I went to Michigan State University under a, a industrial postdoc position where, um, the goal was I was working with two academic re- tenure track professors, <laugh>, trying to get a company up and going and started. And so, um, the skillset that I brought to the table and that I was trying to hone, um, was, was interesting. ’cause I was, while I was getting my PhD, I was also getting my MBA, so I was learning what were some of the frameworks that business people used, how do they talk about how they use a process, and then how do, how does that work in the lab? Or, um, how do I need to translate that from what we were doing in the lab?

Marquicia (25:00): And so, um, I would also often go back to the framework for problem solving and commu- and gr- and great communication were, um, very much similar. They just were talking about different things. So I’ll, I’ll explain. So, um, in the lab I’m working through, okay, is a small molecule, uh, useful. We do a battery of tests to distinguish why, um, based off a couple of characteristics. It might be this one is, um, it works well with cells, it’s less toxic and, you know, um, it’s, it’s easy to make. I’m being arbitrary. The way I would translate that story, um, going through my, my MBA type of framework would be, well, what value are we creating and, and specifically, who is it for? So the molecule, these, these features that we have that we were very, um, we’re trying to, trying to point out and be distinct about, now I have to turn them into benefits.

Marquicia (26:01): Well, uh, it, it’s this type of molecule that means that it’s, it’s less toxic. What does that mean to our business uh, story? Um, the people who would use it, the physicians or even the patient themselves. Well, that means that if we can keep it within the cell, it’s not messing around with your, your gut and causing you nauseous or, you know, killing other healthy cells, that means that you could take less of it. And, you know, that means for the physicians, they might adhere to the, to the drug cadence a little bit better for the patient. It means that I’m not getting upset stomachs as as often, I don’t have to, you know, get as many injections. Those are the types of communication skills where you, you are working through the same rigorous process, but you’re just trying to communicate it in a little bit different way. Um, that you, that you see when you’re filling out that story as a, as a PhD, well, I’m doing this study who, who’s in my audience? Or who’s, who’s my audience? Usually it’s your community members, right? So they wanna say they wanna see what happened, what are you doing next? And then, you know, what, what can we help you with? Same thing with a, a VC <laugh> or a, a grant writer. You have to say, what was the background, um, in their particular words, what are you working on? What is, what’s the value that you’re creating? And then where can we go from next? What’s the big milestone? So you’re, you’re able to think through a structure, uh, that’s very similar. It’s, it just needs to be translated a little bit different. Um, but being able to communicate that is, is a strength. Uh, being able to work with multiple teams that are very bright people, but they don’t work where in the same lab and the same methods and tools that you work with, you need to be able to talk their language.

Marquicia (27:41): You have to do that in, in the business world as well. And the scientists and engineers who are able to cross that gap or the ones and coachable for doing that, understanding that, okay, this is a different language. You can apply the, the practice of it, but you have to say it in a certain way. The ones that are open to learning that those are the ones that can convince other people that this is something of value. Get on our team, give us funding, give us resources, uh, that, that helps them to move that, that tech forward.

Emily (28:10): That’s fascinating. Thank you so much. Was there anything else you wanted to add on that question about skills or mindsets that transfer?

Marquicia (28:18): Um, the only other thing is that, uh, usually when I talk about my PhD and I, and I hear other people’s story and they, it comes off very linearly. We can only say one thing at a time. We did this and then we did this, and then we did this. But in reality, your, your skillset that you’re picking up with these different experiences, they aren’t a straight line. They look more like a Gantt chart. It’s like, I was trying this and then I got, I got into graphic design by being the newspaper editor for the department or something like this. And then I, that kind of went to see what policy was doing. So I volunteered a semester at this and you know, you don’t really know if they overlap or if it will lead to that big next step, if you will. But, um, that’s okay.

Marquicia (29:00): It’s, that’s what makes the journey yours is how you find out what’s create, um, how, uh, what you resonate with and the skills that you learn and these offset project or offshoot products or something that you, I was just interested in. Those are the ones that, that when you’re talking to a hiring manager or a, a program manager for that next big gig, those are the things that will resonate with them too. So, um, uh, just know that it won’t be a straight line. You’re not gonna be able to line up, uh, everything until you’ve kind of stay taken a step back and said, well, well actually, that set me up really well for this. I didn’t even know I liked doing this particular thing. So that’s, that’s all I would say for that.

Ruby Leaf Media

Emily (29:42): Absolutely. It’s just a great encouragement to, um, devote I would say a certain amount of time, a certain consistent amount of time throughout your PhD to these, like outside of the lab type activities, um, just so you can explore yourself and explore your environment and figure out what you like. And, um, as you said, you don’t know where it’s going to lead, but that’s a reason to just experiment. And I certainly did this, I didn’t do this as much in my earlier years of my PhD, but certainly by the last couple of years I was more like actively reaching out and trying different things, including the things that led to personal finance for PhDs. Um, because I wanted to figure out where I wanted to go next, and I knew I wasn’t gonna get there by just like keeping my head down and like staying in the lab all the time. Um, that wasn’t where, uh, I was gonna be headed, so. Okay. Would you please tell us a little bit more about Ruby Leaf Media and how people can get in touch with you if they would like to follow up?

Marquicia (30:31): Sure. So I, I started Ruby Leaf Media, um, shortly, like around the time I was finishing up graduate school because I wanted to continue doing these small projects around market research or, you know, putting together a, a industry report and getting paid for it <laugh>. So, uh, basically I, I started Ruby Leaf Media to, um, have that vehicle for that and I really wanted a place to infuse some creativity. Uh, at the time I was really, um, interested in how can you turn, uh, something that’s really technical into something that could be very beautiful and inspiring to your, the people that are closest to you, your family, your, your, uh, community. And so, uh, create creativity versus, um, you know, just being very defensive and, and, um, tactical about what you’re saying. I wanted to kind of merge the two. And so being able to have my own company that worked at that intersection of, uh, storytelling that businesses usually will have to do in some type of, some shape of way was my, my reason for getting started.

Marquicia (31:41): Um, today I work with, uh, a lot of ecosystem partners, accelerators, um, academic universities or academic institutions, I to, I should say, that are trying to instill some of these ideas, um, in some of these concepts and just some of this creative, um, mentor learning or peer group learning, if you will, uh, with their, with their portfolio companies or with their, with their founders. And so, um, being able to, to provide structure for that, either through a program or being able to give them tips on how do you pitch, uh, for a particular funding opportunity, how do you put that story together? That’s what, that’s, um, what my team and myself are, are really interested in doing. And we’re really interested in being able to do that for a lot of different, um, providers so that you can get that group learning experience. Um, right now, uh, the best way to look to, to figure out and see all of the different companies that I’ve worked with actually is actually my LinkedIn profile. <laugh>.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (32:48): Very good, thank you. The last question that I ask of all my guests is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Marquicia (33:01): Um, the advice part, uh, it kind of goes around budgeting. So graduate students, uh, well, when I was a graduate student, we got paid once a month and, um, I think probably a lot of graduate students started doing this. They’re doing something similar, but it really helped me got get into the idea of, um, a little bit longer term planning than two weeks or, or even one week, like what are some of the goals that we have for this particular month? IE what bills do we have to pay? What are we trying to get, get done? And, um, it set the habit of budgeting month by month and then, um, being able to bring that over to my business. Budgeting is absolutely one of the, I mean, I feel like a lot of your resources kind of talk, talk, talk through this, but, um, just getting a great habit of, um, not only just looking at the numbers, but what is the story behind the numbers?

Marquicia (33:59): Uh, just kind of walk through. I I, I kind of like when I go through my budget, like, okay, if I was to say, have a narrative around this, what did, what did it mean? And it’ll help you uncover what your priorities are. Something that’s not working. Like I, I spent so much money on this, but I don’t know if it’s really working. You’re kind of already gut checking and doing like an audit, if you will. Uh, and, and it’s, and it’s really helpful with business ’cause it’s like, I’m paying for all these subscription services, or I’m trying, I’m trying to get this marketing campaign off the, off the ground. I think it’ll be done with this quarter, but I’m already 15% into the budget. Did we do what we needed? Just kind of talk it out, <laugh>, just have a narrative around, around your finances and just, just say it out loud. We’ll help you uncover, you know, what’s, what’s working, what’s not working, what are some of your plans? Like, if you find yourself saying things over and over, it’s like, that’s, I keep saying this, uh, that’s, that’s been helpful for me.

Emily (34:55): You know, I, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that suggestion before. Like, not only within the podcast, but like in all the personal finance, you know, material that I read. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, you know, in the budgeting reflection process to tell yourself a story and to create a narrative around how did this period of time go? Did I accomplish what I wanted to accomplish? And I find that to be such a good suggestion and I think I’m gonna start doing this <laugh>, um, because it feels very like non-judgmental. Like it’s, it’s just this is how things went. I’m gonna review that. I’m gonna tell myself the story of it, and next month I have the chance to start over again and make a different story next month if I want to or tell the same one if I thought it went really well.

Emily (35:37): And so, yeah. Yeah, that’s so creative and, and I obviously it plays back into this whole interview that we’ve had and the importance of communication and what you do now. So like, it shouldn’t surprise me that this advice, uh, you know, came from you in particular, but I think it’s, that was, that was really amazing. Thank you so much. Um, Marquicia, this has been such a fascinating interview. Um, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast and to share kind of all of these wonderful, you know, experiences you’ve had and the resources you’ve been able to, um, tap into and just suggestions for other people who want to go on a similar path. Thank you.

Marquicia (36:08): Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate what you’re doing and this is great. I wish I had been listening to your podcast when I was a grad student.

Outtro

Emily (36:24): 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.

Can You Earn Money from Publishing a Scholarly Book?

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer, a developmental editor with Manuscript Works specializing in authors publishing with scholarly presses. Laura has personally published two books with university presses and has a third under contract and has worked with hundreds of other authors. Laura describes why a prospective author would choose a scholarly press over a household-name publisher or self-publishing. Laura and Emily systematically discuss how publishers earn money, how authors earn money (directly and indirectly) from their books, and the costs of publication. While publishing with a scholarly press is primarily a labor of love, Laura gives ranges and examples of how much an author might earn from royalties and an advance, if any, depending on the type of book they publish.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Can You Earn Money from Publishing a Scholarly Book?

Teaser

Laura (00:00): But if you have research that is applicable in industry or policy, or places that have kind of other kinds of funding, you can command more money than you ever would make from the book itself, in speaker’s fees, or consulting fees or things like that. So, you can sort of think of the book as a strategic investment in your reputation and your platform that then would allow you to expand higher goals In other venues.

Introduction

Emily (00:34): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:02): This is Season 17, Episode 5, and today my guest is Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer, a developmental editor with Manuscript Works specializing in authors publishing with scholarly presses. Laura has personally published two books with university presses and has a third under contract and has worked with hundreds of other authors. Laura describes why a prospective author would choose a scholarly press over a household-name publisher or self-publishing. Laura and I systematically discuss how publishers earn money, how authors earn money (directly and indirectly) from their books, and the costs of publication. While publishing with a scholarly press is primarily a labor of love, Laura gives ranges and examples of how much an author might earn from royalties and an advance, if any, depending on the type of book they publish.

Emily (01:53): The tax year 2023 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s17e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:58): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer, who’s the owner of Manuscript Works. Laura and I kind of met on Twitter. She was recommended to me by another past podcast guest Dr. Katie Peplin. And Laura is a developmental editor of sorts. And so we’re gonna get into more of that line of work. And actually in preparation for this interview, I read her excellent book, the book proposal book, which is all about people publishing books with scholarly presses. So that is the subject for our interview today. Laura, would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Laura (03:30): Yeah, I’m so happy to be here. Um, so yes, my name is Laura Portwood-Stacer. For the past nine years, I have run a company called Manuscript Works, where I help authors, um, navigate the book publishing process, specifically scholarly authors. Um, building on my background as an academic, um, I got a PhD. I published my dissertation as a book. Um, and now I’ve moved on to helping others navigate that process, which can be very anxiety provoking and you know, there’s not a lot of guidance out there, so I’m trying to fill in that gap.

Scholarly Publishing, Trade Publishing, and Self-Publishing

Emily (04:02): Yeah, and so any listeners who want to go down this route, certainly again, I’m recommending the book proposal book. I found it very, very enlightening. Um, but we’re actually gonna be talking more today about the financial side of this because of course this is a personal finance, um, podcast. And because, um, that was left a little bit vague, I think, in your book, so I’m gonna see if you’re willing to share some, uh, more specific numbers or number ranges with us, um, as we’re going through the interview today. Um, so first of all, I just wanna help the listener understand the distinction between what we’re calling a scholarly press and then the publishing industry that they may be more familiar with, and then the self-publishing industry. So can you just tell us a little bit about how someone who thinks they would like to publish a book at some point, how they might know which is the right route for them to go?

Laura (04:47): Yeah, so I’ll say, uh, scholarly publishing is, um, sort of a narrow subset of the larger sort of traditional publishing industry, and it’s really focused on a certain segment of reader and a certain, um, distribution channel. So your readers, if you’re publishing with a scholarly press, your readers are going to be other scholars, um, people who are doing research, who are citing previous research in their own research, who are building on your research to write their own books or their own articles or, um, grants or whatever it is they’re doing. Um, and, and the distribution would be mostly directly to other scholars who might, you know, purchase from a publisher or purchase from an online retailer. Um, and institutional libraries, public libraries, um, uh, places that are sort of invested in furthering scholarly knowledge, right? So the focus is on scholarship, not necessarily on entertainment or, um, you know, personal improvement or the kind of things that you might pick up a book from Barnes and Noble for. Um, it’s really has sort of a professional scholarly bent to it. Um, whereas probably most of the publishers you’ve heard of that are household names that are not university presses. Um, they’re gonna be more focused on commercial books that people are, you know, just gonna wanna spend money on buy as gifts. They’re not necessarily serving that, um, intellectual purpose in the same way. There are some books that cross over from like scholarship to, um, a more broad audience. Um, and we can talk about where those kinds of books get published. Um, uh, but, but yeah, so that’s sort of the distinction between a trade publisher and a scholarly publisher. And a trade publisher, of course, is gonna be mostly selling in bookstore online retailers. They’re focus is not gonna be libraries or universities. Um, and then self-publishing is sort of a totally separate avenue. Um, and you know, I guess the difference there is that the, the distribution is kind of all up to you as as the publish as the writer. So you would need to find your readers. Um, you’re not sort of tapping into that built-in infrastructure of a scholarly publisher or a trade publisher.

Emily (07:19): I see. That makes total sense. And what really, I mean, maybe this is obvious to other people, but what impressed me with reading your book was like, oh, I’m really seeing how much work the publisher is putting into each one of these books that goes out. And of course, the audience that they have in mind, like you were saying earlier, and that is in the self-publishing realm, completely up to the author whether or not you’re going to invest in other people to help improve the work and and so forth. But that’s all part of the, the process when you go with, um, either a scholarly press or a trade press, right?

Laura (07:51): Yes. Yeah, and I’ll say that’s, you know, often there’s a perception among scholars that, you know, presses just profit off of our work and, and we provide this for free and we don’t make any money off of our books, so what are we getting out of it? But one of the big things you get out of it is that infrastructure that is already in place at the publisher where they know how to peer review the books, improve the content, um, produce the book so they look nice, then distribute it to the places that are most likely to buy it. All of that stuff is like, happens on the publisher’s end. Yeah.

Emily (08:23): Absolutely. Thank you so much for clarifying that. Okay. Now I wanna hear a little bit more about your books that you’ve published. Sure. What the process is kinda like, and then also what you do now for clients.

Laura’s Book Publishing Journeys

Laura (08:33): Yeah, so I have published two books to date. Um, I have a third under contract. Um, so my first book was a revision of my doctoral dissertation. Um, pretty typical straight straightforward process there. Um, I pitched it to a small independent publisher that got, um, absorbed by a larger commercial academic publisher. Um, so it was ultimately published with that larger publisher. Um, you know, it went through peer review. I did not receive an advance for that book. It has made minimal royalties, you know, a little bit over time, but not much. Um, but I wrote it for, you know, career reasons to just sort of get my research out there to make me more attractive on the job market. You know, kind of the typical reasons that a scholar would try to publish their dissertation. Um, my second book, which uh, was published, let’s see about eight years later, was the book proposal book, um, which is, um, it’s, you know, it’s a practical how to kind of book, uh, it’s, it is sort of research based in that it draws on my own sort of personal experience helping authors get their books published and write book proposals that impress the publishers they want to impress. Um, and you know, I did some research into the publishing industry to sort of inform that, the advice that’s in that book. Um, but, you know, it’s a different kind of, readership has a different kind of purpose. That book has been much more lucrative than the dissertation based book. Um, and we can talk about some of the reasons why, uh, if, if you want to get more into that. Um, and then my third book is currently under contract, so that means that I’ve written a proposal, I’ve pitched it to my publisher. Um, they have accepted it based on the strength of the proposal and on my previous, um, book with them. Um, and I have received part of an advance for it. I will receive the advance in installments, um, but I have not received any royalties for it yet because the manuscript has not been completed, uh, completely revised and approved and accepted for publication. So the book is not in production yet. We’re still a ways out from that.

Emily (10:48): Yeah, that’s fascinating. Um, I definitely wanna talk to you more about the financial aspects of this in a moment, but now I just wanna hear tiny bit more about how you serve your clients because I think it helps the listener to understand that you’ve not only had this personal experience, but you now have like the professional experience of helping, um, shepherd other people through this process.

Supporting Authors From Proposal to Publication

Laura (11:05): Yes. Yeah, so I mean, of course the personal experience is really helpful because I know the emotions that an author goes through. I have all those same anxieties, um, you know, about pitching my work to publishers and making a good impression and all of that. But I would say, um, the, the help I’m able to offer really comes from having been through this process with other people, um, in a wide variety of disciplines. Um, so I, uh, I basically help authors kind of distill what their book is supposed to be into a book proposal, help them write it in a way that is going to connect with publishers, that’s gonna speak to what publishers are looking for, which is not necessarily the same thing that academics are thinking about, um, when they’re thinking about their research. Um, and then, uh, you know, then I’ve, I’ve seen the process follow through where they actually get the contract and the, the offer and then get their book published. So, you know, I do online programs, so I’ve worked with hundreds of authors, um, who have been through this process. So getting to see sort of the different nuances and how it works at different publishers and, and all of that has been really helpful for getting that broad view of how it works.

The Financial Side of Publishing a Book

Emily (12:16): Awesome. So I wanna dive into a little bit more of the, the money aspects now, because that, of course your, your book is taking people step by step through the whole process. Um, but I want to just get some more details about like what people can expect if they <laugh> for financially if they decide to publish a book through this kind of press. I wanna start on how these books make money and how authors make money from them. So am I correct in assuming that money is made from these books by selling these books? Is that the direct way money is made by the publisher?

Laura (12:48): Yes.

Emily (12:48): Okay.

Laura (12:49): Yes.

Emily (12:50): Now, what do the authors get <laugh> after the publisher sells you books? You’ve mentioned advances, you’ve mentioned royalties. Can you define these a little bit further and talk about sort of the scope of what these contracts look like? ’cause some people get advances, some people don’t, maybe the royalties are different amounts for different authors. Like what’s the range here?

Laura (13:06): So yeah, so publishers, you know, even university presses, which are nonprofits, um, so, so they’re not necessarily trying to make a profit, um, but they are trying to stay open and they do rely on book sales to stay open. You know, I think there’s a misconception that they are just funded by their universities and some receive some funding from their universities, but that amount is of course shrinking, uh, with austerity and everything, um, you know, in university administration. So they really do rely on selling their books in order to stay open and keep performing their service to the scholarly community. Um, so, so that’s one reason why they are looking for books with a readership of hopefully hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people will wanna read each book that they put out. Um, so, and, and they are investing tens of thousands of dollars in producing each book. Um, and a lot of that goes toward the labor or the editorial labor, the production labor, um, but also materials, um, you know, everything that goes into making the book as a product. So, um, they are recouping that investment, um, in the form of the, the sales of the book. And in most cases they will share some of that, you know, recoup with the author in the form of royalties. Um, so the author would typically get of small percentage of whatever profit the book makes. So, so yeah, so they’re always sort of calculating, um, projecting profits and losses for each book. And based on that, they may think about, okay, what can we afford to share with the author and still break even on this book, or still even make a little bit of money that we could invest back into our press to help publish maybe some of the books that aren’t gonna sell as well. Um, and that’s where they’re figuring out, you know, how much money they’re gonna share with the author. And, and in advance is, um, the amount of money the, the publisher would give an author upfront before the book even starts selling copies. Um, and that is basically just an incentive to get the author to publish with that press. Um, so that is most likely to come into play when the press believes they have to compete for the book with other publishers. Um, and they’re also going to have to project pretty significant profits from the book, you know, so they’re not sinking even more into it without some prospect of getting it back out. Um, so, so advances, you know, scholarly publishers do sometimes offer advances again under those conditions where they think the book’s going to be profitable and they think they have to compete to land this author. Um, and the range of those advances varies a lot. It could be just in the low hundreds, more of like a token kind of thing. It could be a thousand dollars a and I’m speaking from experience of having worked with people who got advances for their dissertation books. Um, so it does happen. Um, but I would say the range has been from like a thousand, maybe 2,500, maybe $5,000. Um, that would be an advance that might be available. Not common, I would say, but available, um, depending on the project. Um, for, you know, people who are more established in their careers, they have a big name they could choose to publish with a trade press, but they have chosen a university press instead. Um, people who are writing a textbook or something that is likely to be widely adopted, not just read by a few hundred people but read by tens of thousands of college students, um, or, you know, scholars who are gonna use this book for some practical purpose. Um, that’s where you can get a higher advance maybe more in the five figures. Um, it’s not unheard of for a six figure advance to come from a university press, but that would be pretty rare. That would be them competing with a trade press that might be more used to dealing in those kinds of numbers. And they’re gonna expect that book to really pay off for them to help them keep the lights on for all the other books that they sell.

Emily (17:45): So, fascinating. Thank you for telling us those like orders of magnitude for the, the different types of books. That’s really, really helpful. Um, so let’s say, um, whether or not an advance was given, um, I think you said something like when the book sales exceed the costs that have been invested, then royalties are shared with the author. Is, is that correct that royalties don’t come from book number one, but only once costs have been recouped?

Laura (18:11): No.

Emily (18:11): Okay.

Laura (18:12): Um, not exactly. Um, so yeah, it’ll be written into the author’s contract, uh, and, and I’ve seen various types of offers. Uh, some university presses will say, okay, no royalties on the first 500 copies, say, um, ’cause they know they’re not gonna break even until they’ve sold 500 copies. Um, I would say that’s a less common than a royalty from copy one. Um, but you know, the press, it might not break even until later on, but they’ve factored in the fact that they are going to compensate the author something for sales of the book. Um, so, so yeah, it’s really hard to know what that break even point is, but, but publishers are like, you know, they have a lot of data points and they are really projecting out into the future optimistically hoping they’re gonna get to that break even point. Um, but the author will likely seal some money before that point. Probably won’t be a lot of money, but some money.

Emily (19:15): Okay. Let’s, I wanna get some orders of magnitude again. Sure. So let’s say for the example you gave earlier of like someone who’s trying to publish work arising from the dissertation that they wrote, um, that kind of book. How much money would they think they might make in the first year, let’s say? Are we talking two figures, three figures, four figures, five? Like where, what is the order of magnitude there in royalties?

Laura (19:41): Uh, uh, so it’s, um, it’s really hard to generalize, I’ll say. Um, but, so, uh, maybe some other numbers will kind of help this. So let’s say your book, um, retails for, I’m gonna say $20 just for simplicity’s sake, but most academic monographs are gonna be priced a bit higher than that. Um, but let’s say it’s $20, the way that the publisher calculates the royalty, you are likely going to see a dollar or less from each sale of that book. Um, let’s say there’s a, um, sometimes publishers have, um, a library version, a library edition that is, is actually priced at a hundred dollars. Um, ’cause they know only libraries are gonna buy it. They’re not trying to sell that to like your average academic reader, but they are gonna sell it to a library that’s gonna, you know, let dozens of people read it. Um, so they’re gonna sell that for a hundred dollars and the author might see $5. Again, it depends on the, the royalty structure that’s set up in the contract, but so you might see $5 from the sale of that book. So, you know, most academic monographs that begin as dissertations, they’re, you know, they’re gonna sell to a few hundred people realistically. Um, so, you know, let’s say a hundred libraries buy your book, that would be great. That’s a lot of libraries. Um, buying just, you know, a new monograph. Um, so let’s say like very optimistically, you’re getting $5 a copy that’s 500 bucks, right? Um, you know, let’s say 200 individuals buy your book, that was, you’re getting a a dollar a copy on there’s another 200 bucks, so that’s what, $700, right? And you’d be having a good year if you got $700 in your first year, um, you know, you’d be doing, you know, well for an academic monograph. So, uh, yeah, it’s not, not a lot of money.

Emily (22:02): Okay. I’m so glad we know like the order of magnitude, that’s exactly what I wanted. Uh, do you mind me asking, what about a book like yours that’s more, those this practical kind of guide? I know the, uh, what you wrote is part of a series from, uh, Princeton University Press, right? So like, can I have an example either of your book or, or similar books like that?

Laura (22:21): Yeah, yeah. So, um, and I do wanna say all of those numbers were just hypothetical and made up. So it’s not to say like the typical book sells makes $700 in royalties that I’m just, you know, putting it out there. Um, so yeah, so for a book like mine, which is sort of, um, positioned as, um, not, it’s not an academic monograph, you know, it’s not research based in that way. It’s going to be used by many more people than somebody who might just wanna read, um, a very specific, you know, narrow piece of research because it, you know, scientists could read it, humanity scholars, social science, people at all stages of their careers. You know, people who are, um, just finishing a dissertation and wanna publish their first book, people who wanna publish a second or third book, people who are mentoring those people, people who work at publishers, you know, so just have a much broader audience. So, um, the sales expectations for that are much higher, um, and have that it has played out that way, you know, compared to my dissertation book. Um, so I’m gonna try, I’m gonna try and think of, um, the numbers of sales. I think the first year it sold about 6,000 copies, I wanna say I don’t have the royalty statement right in front of me. Um, and the second year it, uh, I don’t think it sold quite that many, but it stayed up there. It was like four to 5,000 I wanna say. Um, and I’ve just gone into the third year, so I don’t have the, the numbers for that yet. So, so that’s a much higher number. And so that has led to, you know, higher royalties. It’s still not by any means the majority of my income. It’s still sort of supplemental income, but it is in the thousands of dollars as opposed to the hundreds.

Emily (24:16): Yes. Very, very good. Thank you so much for doing all this. Yeah. Like, um, order of magnitude and just like level setting and I, I really appreciate that

Commercial

24:25 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Costs Associated with Publishing

Emily (25:16): I wanna talk more now about, um, not how the authors are making money, but the costs associated with publishing. You mentioned earlier that a publisher could be investing tens of thousands of dollars for each book that they’re putting out there. So can you tell us like, what, where are those costs coming from? Obviously I understand printing the book and so forth and there’s labor. What, what are the different maybe phases, uh, different types of people who have their hands on the book, what their different jobs are? And then I, I read in your book sometimes the publisher is gonna pay for these costs, but then also sometimes the author might pay some of the costs of, of this process. So can you kind of break that down as well?

Laura (25:52): Yeah, so, so the costs that the publisher is going to incur, you know, the, it’s the editorial labor, the editor that you’re emailing back and forth with the person who is, um, sending your manuscript to peer reviewers, wrangling those peer reviewers, then getting the reports. Then, um, you know, inside the publisher they’re making, um, presentations and pitches for your book that you might not even be aware of as the author, but the editor is doing all of that labor to get the publisher on board to say they wanna publish your book, all of that. Um, and that, that doesn’t even include like giving you feedback on the manuscript itself. Some acquisitions editors are able to do a little bit of that, um, but most don’t really have the time to give that kind of attention to the manuscript. Their, their role is more of a project manager, um, and, and an advocate for the project within the press. Um, so that happens within the press. Um, then, you know, there’s, uh, the, the production, so designing a cover, um, type setting the manuscript, so it looks like a book that can be printed on pages. There’s some design that goes into that as well. Um, most scholarly publishers do engage their own copy editors and proofreaders, um, where they would, you know, make sure the final version is like stylistically correct and grammatically and all of that. Um, uh, and then there’s the marketing and the publicity and, and all of that that goes to like making sure people know about the book and wanna buy the book. Um, and that’s not even getting into the, like the physical production of the book, which in my understanding is beyond the tens of thousands of dollars, the tens of thousands of dollars is just to get to that first proof electronically that they can then use to print the book and ship the copies and all of that. Um, so, so yeah, there’s a lot that’s going on there that is heavy on labor and so that just, um, incurs costs. Um, and of course none of that is what the author is also investing. So if you want deep feedback on your manuscript, that often doesn’t come from the publisher. It would come from a freelance developmental editor, um, somebody like myself, uh, or you know, my freelance colleagues. Um, and that money would come out of the author’s pocket usually. Um, and that could cost thousands of dollars, um, depending on sort of the level of feedback you’re looking for and how experienced of an editor you want and all of that. Um, there are also some costs associated with, um, the, you know, if you want images in your book, um, do you need to purchase the permission to reprint those images from whoever owns the rights? Um, if you want tables and diagrams, those have to be professionally drawn. Um, you might have a mockup, but then somebody’s going to have to draw that and make it look good enough to be in the book. So you might pay somebody to do that. Your publisher might hire someone to do that or have someone internal do that. They might pass that cost along to you. Um, since that’s sort of a choice you’ve made to include that in your book. Um, if you are citing, um, copyright protected material, you often need permission depending on how you’re using it. Um, that’s another thing the author is often expected to cover. Um, and then open access costs. Some publishers, you know, have, uh, infrastructure in place and they cover the cost of the open access. And when I say they cover the cost, they’re getting a grant or a subsidy or something to be able to do that. Um, um, but some will ask the author to pay a subvention, um, to, in order to make it possible to give the book away for free, essentially, thus, you know, reducing the revenue that might be expected from the book. Um, so, so i, I don’t know if that even covers everything that you asked about, but those are some of the costs that go into making a book and some of which are born by the author, some by the publisher.

Emily (30:07): Well, for example, in one of the later chapters of your book, you mentioned creating the index and you recommended yes, getting a professional to do that. That was something I was like, I never would’ve thought that was something that really would require like to do it. Well, it would require a professional. And so, and again, that’s a kind of cost I think you mentioned would probably be on the author most likely. Yes. So I was just kind wondering in general. Yeah, I mean you answered that very well. Thank you so much because it’s a little bit mind blowing just as a reader to understand all the different, um, people and elements that go into the production of a book.

Laura (30:39): Yeah, yeah. So the index thing, indexing thing is a great point. So yes, while presses often do cover a copy editor and a proof, not a proofreader, they’ll cover a copy editor. They will ask the author to proofread the proofs, the typeset proofs, and then the author might decide they wanna hire a professional proofreader or they might just do it themselves to make sure there’s no errors. Um, but the index is almost never covered by the publisher. It is something you can negotiate sometimes, again, if you have like an attractive project and they’re the publisher’s trying to get you to sign with them, um, sometimes they will cover it or um, charge it against your royalties. Um, but often you do, the author does need to provide the index, which again, you can DIY it and you get what you pay for kind of, um, or you can pay a professional indexer, which could cost a thousand dollars or more. Um, yeah, so it’s an investment the author makes in hoping it just makes her a better book product that people will use and cite and all those things we want for our books.

Emily (31:41): And I believe I also read in your book that sometimes this is what an advance is used for. Like the author might try to negotiate for an advance knowing that those are, there are cost coming down the line that they can use in advance to cover. It’s very different from the way I think of an advance, like in a, you know, larger household name publisher kind of situation. Um, and maybe that’s like just naive of me just not understanding much about the publication process. So I am getting the impression that we’re not making a living off of these books <laugh> maybe until you’ve published one every year for your entire career, maybe that layered by then you would have enough. Um, so given that, um, if authors are not really making that much money, you know, maybe hundreds or few thousands of dollars, um, per year directly from their books, how are they able to use those books to leverage into their careers, to earning more money, advancing their career in other ways? How does the books serve them in a, a less direct monetary way?

Laura (32:37): Yeah, I love this question because this is really what it’s about for scholarly books. It’s the book itself is an investment of labor, of time, of possibly money, um, that you’re hoping will pay off in some other arena, not necessarily directly through, you know, your royalties or in advance. And I do wanna say there’s a little sidebar, like commercial publishing is not that much more lucrative. Yes, we know about the celebrities who get the six figure advances or more, um, but most people who are writers who are just, you know, writing trade books also have another job. Like they’re not making their complete income off of writing their books. Much like academics who, you know, often if they’re writing academic books have an academic position, um, where they’re making some a salary, you know, that is their main source of income. And so the investment of writing an ac academic book is often for that job. It’s, you might need to write a book in order to um, you know, pass your three year review or go up for tenure. Um, a book might be an expectation in your field, so you’re not writing the book ’cause you’re gonna make money on the book, you’re writing the book because you hope you can keep your job, um, as a part of having published that book. Um, and you know, I’ve worked with authors who already have tenure but are wanna go up for full professor, which is a significant, um, raise, uh, in income, you know, in their salary and they can use the book toward that. So they see the investment of the book as paying off indirectly in that other way. Um, there’s also, um, you know, other sort of financial opportunities that could come from having written a book. So if you are invited to give talks based on your research, um, you know, giving talks at universities doesn’t always pay that much. It sort of depends on how in demand you are and, and how much funding those universities have to pay speakers. But if you have research that is applicable in industry or policy, um, or places that have kind of other kinds of funding, you can command more money than you ever would make from the book itself, um, in speaker’s fees, um, or consulting fees or things like that. So, um, you can sort of think of the book as a strategic investment in your reputation and your platform that then would allow you to command higher fees in other venues.

Emily (35:14): Yeah, I spoke with, uh, an author recently, actually, she was self-published, um, who described her book as like a business card, like going out into the world in front of her and opportunities come back to her because people are reading and using the book, right? So it’s not necessarily about that money that’s made directly. That’s nice, that helps. But as you said, there’s much more opportunity could be depending on, on the subject of the book on the backend through these other mechanisms. Um, but yeah, thank you for giving us that like wider picture of like why people would go through this process, which clearly is very time consuming and, and very full of labor and, and not, um, immediately seeing much ROI financially from it. Um, yeah, that’s great. Yeah.

Laura (35:55): Yeah. And I’ll say, uh, you know, many scholars, intellectuals, you know, they just have an intrinsic desire to share their knowledge and what they have found and what they’ve spent these years studying and discovering and concluding. Um, so I would say the majority of people I work with are, the money’s a bonus, you know, but what they’re really trying to do is just like, get the work out there. Um, and the book is the way they do that.

Emily (36:20): I’m wondering, do you ever work with people who are not academics? Like I sometimes hear people describe themselves as like independent scholars or something like that. Like are, would they still be a type of author who would publish with Yes. Scholarly process?

Laura (36:33): Yes, absolutely. I do work with many, um, independent scholars, people who have know, retired from academic careers or, um, just decided not to pursue one for whatever reason. Um, I would say, and those are the people who are sort of the most, I intrinsically motivated to share the work, um, because yeah, like what’s the gain for them? They’re not really getting paid to write the book, getting paid much. Um, and, and any payoff from it would come like later down the road. So, um, I, you know, I have many clients who are in that position. I will say it’s, it’s, you may have a bit less to invest in the book, you know, if you don’t have funding from a university, uh, you know, a research grant or something like that. Um, so, uh, yet you, everyone has to sort of make their own calculation of what it’s worth to them to invest in the book upfront.

Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer’s Contact Information

Emily (37:29): I see. Well, Laura, this interview has been so insightful. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and letting us know, um, all that you’ve learned and all that you’ve experienced through this publishing process. Would you please let people know how they can get in touch with you if they’d like to follow up?

Laura (37:44): Yeah, so I have a weekly newsletter, um, that’s probably the, the easiest place to find me. It’s the manuscript works newsletter. If you go to newsletter.manuscriptworks.com, um, you can get that, that shares lots of knowledge about scholarly book publishing and also some, you know, brief announcements of programs that I offer and um, ways that I support authors. Um, yeah, so that’s probably the best place to find me, but, uh, my more general home on the internet is just manuscriptworks.com.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (38:14): Excellent. And I’d like to conclude with the question that I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for an early career PhD grad student, someone recently out of grad school or a postdoc? And that could be something that we’ve touched on in the course of this interview, or it could be something completely new

Laura (38:30): To understand the publishing ecosystem and where the money flows in and where it flows out and how much is gonna flow to you and be realistic about how that all works. Um, so I would not expect, I would not treat a book as, uh, a direct financial investment. You know, it may be a financial drain in many ways, but you think about the sort of broader context and, and what it might do for you.

Emily (38:54): Very good. I really think we’ve either done that in this interview or given people a really good head start on that process in the course of the interview. So Laura, again, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for agreeing to come on and um, I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Laura (39:06): Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Outtro

Emily (39:13): 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.

Why and How I Started Personal Finance for PhDs

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In this episode, Emily narrates the origin story of her business, Personal Finance for PhDs, which started as a personal interest when she graduated from college. She also shares why she has devoted her career to financial education for PhDs and the behind-the-scenes business operations. This episode is for you if you are an avid follower of Personal Finance for PhDs, a personal finance enthusiast, or interested in solopreneurship yourself.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Why and How I Started Personal Finance for PhDs

Teaser

00:00 Emily: You are so smart, so talented, so capable, so visionary—you are such an extraordinary group of people—that I want you to be able to experience personal wellness and satisfaction and live out your values and have a wildly impactful life. I don’t want you to feel hamstrung by money. I want you to be free to apply your incredible energy to your professional pursuits and personal lives and not be stressed or distracted or held back by your finances.

Introduction

00:33 Emily:  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.

01:01 Emily: This is Season 17, Episode 1, and today is a solo episode for me on Personal Finance for PhDs. I’ve been asked more and more in recent years how and why I started the business, so I’m taking this opportunity to tell you the origin story of Personal Finance for PhDs, why I’ve chosen financial education for PhDs as my career, and what my day-to-day work looks like. This episode is for you if you are an avid follower of Personal Finance for PhDs, a personal finance enthusiast, or interested in solopreneurship yourself. These action items are for you if you switched onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac last fall and are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary.

01:50 Emily: Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on page 8 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2023 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is January 16, 2024.

02:12 Emily: Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at tax time, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives.

02:48 Emily: If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes 1.75 hours of video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PF for PhDs dot com slash Q E tax. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s17e1/. Without further ado, here’s my solo episode behind the scenes of Personal Finance for PhDs.

03:38 Emily: I’ve noticed that in the past half-year or so that I’ve been getting more frequent questions about how I got started with my business, whether it’s my full-time job, and just generally why I do this. I realized that while I’ve answered these questions and told these stories numerous times over the years, I’ve never put it together coherently on my website or on this podcast, so that’s what I’m taking this episode to do. In this episode, you’ll hear the origin story of Personal Finance for PhDs, why I’m so passionate about equipping PhDs with skills and knowledge around money, and how I run my business currently. I hope you’ll enjoy this behind-the-scenes look!

Origin

03:38 Emily: My interest in personal finance goes back to my first post-college position, which was as a postbaccalaureate fellow at the National Institutes of Health. I frankly was quite privileged to not have to have given money much thought prior to that point, although in retrospect I absolutely should have. I grew up in the DC area in a middle class family, and my parents really never taught me overtly or explicitly about money beyond going with me to open a checking account when I got to college. When I started my postbac fellowship in 2007, it was the first time I had a full-time non-temporary job, so to speak. My annual stipend was $24,000. Since I had grown up outside of DC on the Virginia side and was now moving back to the same area to work on the Maryland side, I knew that $24,000 was really, really a small amount of money to try to live on in a fairly high cost of living area. I decided at that point to start learning about personal finance. I read a few books, and the one that made the biggest impression on me was Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties by Beth Kobliner. I think my baseline motivation was that I wanted to be responsible with the salary I was receiving. I wanted to do all the right “adulting” things financially, although I don’t believe that word was in popular use yet. The main actions I took following my initial reading were to track my expenses, which I did in Excel; open my first credit card; and start investing for retirement. I didn’t really let the fact of my low income or status as a trainee stop me from following the advice I was reading. Somehow, I didn’t absorb from the books the importance of having an emergency fund, and I kept absolutely no cash savings on hand. I essentially lived paycheck-to-paycheck with the exception of my Roth IRA, to which I was contributing $200 per month, exactly 10% of my stipend income.

06:04 Emily: I started my PhD in biomedical engineering at Duke in 2008, and shortly after was when the financial system and economy really started going downhill and we entered the housing market crash and Great Recession. I felt very secure in my position, so I didn’t have fear or anxiety around the continuity of my income. I again was paid a $24,000 annual stipend, but that effectively felt like a raise since Durham was a moderate cost-of-living city. During those first couple of years of grad school, I kept living pretty much paycheck to paycheck aside from my Roth IRA contributions, and I kept reading personal finance books. In 2010, I got married. My husband was also a grad student at Duke at the time. In 2011, I started reading and commenting on personal finance blogs, and I started my own personal finance blog. This was the heyday of the personal finance blogosphere, and participating in that became a serious hobby for me. I posted three times per week, mostly short essays or musings on personal finance tactics or strategy and updates on how we were spending our money. My blog was always small in terms of readership. What I observed in Google Analytics, however, was that my posts about grad student-specific topics actually had sustained traffic from search engines, specifically my posts about taxes and IRAs. I didn’t know a lot about those topics at that point, but I knew my own experiences and what I had read on the IRS website, so I was simply sharing that. But the insight I gained was that grad students were searching for these topics, and there weren’t many good sources of information, because my little blog was actually ranking well enough in search that people were visiting it. Also in that period, I attended any and all financially-related seminars that Duke hosted. I want to say first that I appreciated and still appreciate that Duke was making any kind of effort at all to provide financial education to its graduate students, but the content of the programming wasn’t exactly what was needed, in my opinion.

07:58 Emily: I remember a couple of seminars in particular from around that time. The first seminar was when a local wealth management firm sent a couple of representatives over to give a talk on investing. I attended with high hopes that they would discuss how to invest in IRAs. Instead, they talked about utilizing 401(k)s while repaying gigantic student loan debts. These advisors were clearly speaking to the professional students in the room, the future doctors and lawyers, about how they could invest post-graduation, while completely overlooking the PhD students who actually had the cash flow to be able to invest in the present. The second seminar was on tax return preparation by a local CPA. While I did glean some useful insights, my overall impression was that the person wasn’t speaking to the specific situation that the stipend-receiving graduate students in the room were facing, spending way too much time on general background information and the less-relevant higher education tax benefits and no time at all on how to deal with Duke’s confusing reporting of fellowship income. Basically, they were speaking from their experience preparing tax returns for the parents of college students, not to the audience’s experience of receiving a Form 1099-MISC but not a Form 1098-T.

09:11 Emily: In 2012, Duke started a personal finance initiative called Personal Finance @ Duke, and I volunteered as the grad student representative on the planning committee. Basically, I was there to make sure that some PhD student-specific educational programming was offered, and later on to help orient the speakers to the financial peculiarities of our population and the types of questions the audience would have. However, despite our best efforts with that tax firm, for example, we were never able to get the speakers to really meet the unusual concerns of our audience. That was when I started thinking, “I could teach this material better than these professionals are. I’m less qualified, but I know this audience better.” Fast-forward to the summer of 2014 when my husband and I both successfully defended our PhDs. My husband decided to stay on as a postdoc in his PhD advisor’s lab to get a couple more papers out the door. My advisor moved from Duke to Columbia, so there was no opportunity for me to stay on in a similar way, and in fact my defense date had been rushed due to my advisor’s schedule. The last six months of my PhD were incredibly busy, so on the other side of my defense I became happily ‘funemployed,’ as I called it, for the next year. Basically, I gave myself some time to explore and figure out what I wanted to do for my career, since I didn’t want to stay in research any longer. I explored a few career tracks through a short-term fellowship and contractor work, but nothing was exciting me as much as personal finance was. My blog had made a small amount of money in 2014, so I decided to use it to attend FinCon, the financial bloggers conference, in October. What I learned from that conference was that I had no interest in turning my blog into a full-fledged business. However, I attended a session on public speaking, which was the first time I was exposed to the concept of professional public speaking. I learned that there are three strata of public speakers. At the bottom, there are people who speak for free to promote a product or service that their business offers. That’s what those financial advisors and CPAs were doing at Duke. At the top, there are celebrities and politicians who command enormous speaking fees because of their fame and prestige. And in the middle, there are the professional public speakers who receive modest speaking fees in exchange for sharing their professional expertise or personal story. The person who ran that conference session actually spoke on personal finance in K-12 schools, so that was a little indicator to me that schools might host such speakers.

11:34 Emily: The final piece of the puzzle that would become Personal Finance for PhDs was that, with my abundant free time that fall, I volunteered to give my own seminar for Personal Finance @ Duke. Basically, I wanted to teach everything that I had learned about personal finance from books and the blogosphere specifically that would be relevant and actionable for current stipend-receiving graduate students. I had the best time creating the slides, delivering, and answering questions! I knew I wanted, somehow, to make that my career. At that point, I had identified what I consider the three core aspects of my business: 1) The people I serve are my peers on the PhD track, from undergrads applying to PhD programs through to PhDs in their first or so “Real Jobs;” 2) I help these people with their personal finances; 3) I do so through teaching or one-to-many communication. What took a little more time to figure out was exactly who would pay me for this teaching. While I have tried at different times, I am deeply uncomfortable trying to sell anything to my audience directly, particularly the graduate students. Through trial and error and learning from my peers in Dr. Jen Polk’s community, Self-Employed PhD, I identified that my clients, the people who are in a position to pay me for this work, are those who provide professional development programming to graduate students and postdocs, primarily. Mostly they are staff members who work in graduate schools, medical schools, postdoc offices, etc., but I also occasionally work with graduate student groups as well.

Commercial

13:07 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Mission

14:00 Emily: I just gave you the narrative of how I came to start Personal Finance for PhDs, but I haven’t really told you why I cared so much about my personal finances while in graduate school and why I decided to devote my career to helping my peers in this area as well. This is the first time I’ve tried to articulate this mission, so forgive me if it’s a little rough going. There are a couple of foundational truths that I learned about personal finance early on that made it a very compelling area of interest for me. 1) How you use your money is an expression of your unique life values. 2) Having money gives you options. Let’s explore those a little further each in turn.

14:39 Emily: 1. How you use your money is an expression of your unique life values. The more closely aligned your use of money is with your individual values, the more satisfaction you will derive from that money. Money is not the only way you can express your values, but it is a very useful tool. With graduate students and postdocs, and really anyone with a lower income, it’s very difficult to align your use of your money with your values because such a large fraction of it goes toward your basic living expenses. When the vast majority of your income goes toward housing, food, and transportation, you have very limited agency to express your values and derive satisfaction from how you use your money. I find the puzzle of optimizing your use of money within the constraints of life as a graduate student or postdoc very compelling.

15:26 Emily: 2. Having money gives you options. This is an expansion on the first point. When you have money, whether that is in the form of savings, investments, or income in excess of your expenses, you have a greater ability to make choices in your life. You can extract yourself from toxic professional or personal relationships. You can choose where and how you live. You can add a child or a pet to your household or materially support other family members. You can give to causes that you believe in. How can a low-earning young professional generate this kind of financial agency?

16:03 Emily: This probably won’t be a shock to anyone listening, but after my first year or so of graduate school, I didn’t find my research to be consistently fulfilling and it felt very out of my control. I didn’t have consistent or predictable success. I only have this perspective from the many years that have elapsed since I finished my PhD, but I think my interest in and let’s face it at times fixation with my personal finances was a response to those feelings of failure and helplessness in my professional life. Improving my personal finances was something that was much more within my control. I could set and achieve process-based goals and oftentimes effect positive, measurable outcomes. So my interest in personal finance was a form of escapism. Yet, there were downstream benefits of this attention and effort, and I think they can be replicated without the large time and energy investment I underwent. My husband and I experienced what I consider to be great financial success during our seven years of PhD training. We took our combined net worth from a negative number in 2007 to over $100,000 in 2014. That’s an excellent outcome, right there in black and white. What I didn’t appreciate until that point, though, was how having that nest egg and the skills and experiences it took to build it actually could help us in our professional lives. For me, the first thing was that I could be funemployed for that first year after I finished my PhD without sinking our household. My husband’s income went up a bit when he transitioned to being a postdoc, plus I brought in income in fits and starts from my various experiments, so we were still making it month to month. But I felt a lot less pressure about needing to commit to a career and increase my income because I knew we had that nest egg working for us. That money gave me time to explore and eventually find my calling.

17:50 Emily: My husband actually had a similar experience when he finished his postdoc in 2015. He had always thought he would continue in academia or work for a large company—something stable. He came across a job listing for a role that seemed tailor-made for his research expertise and interests. The hiccup was that the job was at a start-up. We didn’t know much about that world, but we knew that he would be paid a bit less in salary and there was a higher possibility of job loss in comparison with being hired by an established company. Again, our nest egg gave him the confidence to take a professional risk and accept that role that he was so well-suited for. I had known from the beginning that your career affects your finances via the income and benefits provided to you. But this is how I learned that your finances can also affect your career. We didn’t know when we started saving and budgeting and everything that those small actions, compounded over time, would end up freeing us professionally to this high degree. This agency and confidence is what I want for all of you, the PhDs and PhDs-to-be. You are so smart, so talented, so capable, so visionary—you are such an extraordinary group of people—that I want you to be able to experience personal wellness and satisfaction and live out your values and have a wildly impactful life. I don’t want you to feel hamstrung by money. I want you to be free to apply your incredible energy to your professional pursuits and personal lives and not be stressed or distracted or held back by your finances. I will feel satisfied if I can, through my teaching, play a tiny role in enabling that success in your life by giving you financial best practices and mindsets and so forth. I don’t want you to have to go through all the self-education and experimentation that I did to get to that point. I’m delighted to interpret and refine general personal finance education for the unique circumstances of a PhD’s life.

19:45 Emily: I’ve been describing working on my own personal finances and teaching you how to work on yours, but it’s become more and more apparent to me over the years that this personal responsibility is only part of the equation. While I still consider that to be core to my teaching, it’s foolish to gloss over the responsibility that universities and funding agencies play in each PhD’s finances by setting the pay rates for assistantships, fellowships, grants, etc. and constructing benefits packages. For graduate students and postdocs to flourish and succeed in their roles, not to mention their lives, they must be paid a living wage and in fact significantly more than a living wage. Of course, personal responsibility is a requirement, but a higher income also confers the benefits I spoke of earlier. It’s obvious to me that graduate students and postdocs must be paid fairly to fulfill their potential and produce the wonderful research and become the wonderful scholars as is expected of them. In fact, by underpaying its trainees, the academic system is undermining itself and driving talented people into other sectors. Related to this issue is one of equity and the hidden curriculum that I often refer to in this podcast. Academia is more diverse and is endeavoring to become more diverse with respect to race, gender, socioeconomic class, etc. than it was in the past, but that means that more and more trainees lack access to the innate resources that their predecessors had, whether that is familial financial support, certain types of financial acumen, or insight into how academia functions, financially. If you are a first-generation college student, your parents are not necessarily able to help you decide how to manage your student loans during graduate school. If you come from a family that has never saved for retirement, you have no one to clue you in about IRAs. If your parents always had simple tax returns that they prepared with software, you don’t have easy access to a CPA to ask questions about your fellowship income. And if you’re an international student or postdoc, you’ve got to figure out how to navigate the US banking and credit systems on top of everything else. I believe universities have a responsibility to teach or at least offer to teach about these nuanced, academia-specific financial topics so that all graduate students and postdocs have access to this information that is critical to their personal wellness—in addition to paying them decently. So that’s my internal motivation for doing what I do. I want all PhDs, regardless of background, to experience personal and professional freedom and fulfillment, similar to what I have, and I believe that money is a crucial tool to master in that process. You have so much to offer the world, and I want the world to benefit from the work you do that is your true calling, all without compromising your personal wellness.

Operations

22:30 Emily: In this final section of this episode, I’d like to give you some details on how I run my business. For example, I am often asked if it’s a side hustle or my full-time job. Personal Finance for PhDs is my sole professional pursuit at this time. I would describe it as a lifestyle business. That is a pejorative term to some people, but I don’t see it in that negative light. I’ll go through now what I do for work, when I work, where I work, and with whom I work.

What I do for work

23:00 Emily: There are two main avenues by which I offer financial education, paid and free. The free financial education includes this podcast, articles on my website, and social media posts. The paid financial education is my work with universities, and, to a much lesser extent, the products I sell to individuals. The educational services and products I provide to university clients include live seminars and webinars and pre-recorded workshops. At this point, the only products I offer to individuals are my pre-recorded tax workshops and membership to the Personal Finance for PhDs Community. What might be interesting to learn about solopreneurship is that only a tiny percentage of my work time is spent actually delivering my revenue-generating financial education. The great majority of my own time as well as my assistants’ time goes to marketing and networking, communicating with clients, preparing presentation materials and rehearsing, and professional development.

When I work

24:00 Emily: I work around my children’s school schedule. In a regular 5-day school week, I’ll work about 20 hours, typically exclusively while they are in school. This gives me a bit of personal time during their school day as well as work time. I take off all of the academic year holidays and vacations that they have, such as Thanksgiving, winter, and spring breaks, federal holidays, etc. Over the summer, when we’re not on vacation, we generally put the kids in day camp so I have those weeks to work as well, maybe with a few extra days off here and there. The exception to this rule is when I travel, when I’m typically working much longer hours. I like this balance personally as well as for our family. I find I’m able to accomplish what I set out to professionally in those limited hours by being very judicious about what I take on, and I also get to spend a lot of time with my children and facilitating their relationships and development. In recent years, I’ve become a student of time management and productivity, and I try to conform my schedule and work habits to the principles I’ve learned. I theme each one of my work days so that I know what I need to do and what I don’t need to do on each day. Mondays are for creating paid content, Tuesdays are for client check-ins, Wednesdays are for business operations, Thursdays are for catch-up, and Fridays are for creating free content. That’s not to say that I don’t do other types of work on those days, only that they have to wait until my tasks related to the theme of the day are complete. I learned this strategy from the podcast Productivity Straight Talk. I only open my schedule for appointments between about 10 AM and 2 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I only record podcast episodes on Fridays in that same window. I’ve become a bit of a devotee of Cal Newport recently, so I try to follow his time block planning method, reserve time for deep work, and not let my work bleed into my personal time.

Where I work

25:48 Emily: I set up the business from the start to be location independent, meaning that I can operate the business no matter where I live. I have always worked primarily from home. Pre-pandemic, I spoke mostly in person, so I would travel to university campuses to do so. Since the pandemic started, my deliverables have transitioned primarily to live webinars and pre-recorded workshops, and I travel only very occasionally to speak in person or attend conferences. While working remotely is very convenient and easy, I desperately miss connecting with audiences and clients in person, and I don’t believe webinars are as effective as in-person seminars. I’m hoping that more clients will shift away from webinars toward either live, in-person seminars or pre-recorded workshops.

With whom I work

26:33 Emily: I call myself a solopreneur. The tax structure for Personal Finance for PhDs is a sole proprietorship, and the legal structure is a single-member LLC. My business doesn’t have any employees, only myself as the owner. I work with two contractors on a part-time and ongoing basis; you hear their names if you listen through to the end of each of the podcast episodes. Dr. Lourdes Bobbio does all the editing on the video and audio files for this podcast and my workshops, and Dr. Jill Hoffman prepares the podcast show notes, assists with delivering the pre-recorded workshops, and does other miscellaneous administrative work. I also work with other professional service providers as needed, such as CPAs and lawyers. That’s all I have to say on the matter of my business for the time being! If you have questions for me, I would be happy to try to address them in a follow-up social post, as I know solopreneurship is a path of interest for many PhDs. Please email me at [email protected]. And if you’ve been inspired by this episode to support my mission, the best way you can do so is by hiring me, if you’re in a leadership position at your university, or recommending me to a professional development-type staff member or student group leader at your university. Thank you in advance for making the effort!

Outtro

27:51 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.

Financial Advice from PhD Career Development and Financial Wellness Professionals

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In this episode, Emily shares the microinterviews she recorded at two higher education conferences this past summer. The conference attendees, virtually all of whom work at universities and most of whom have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What piece of financial advice are you glad you followed or do you wish you had followed as a grad student or postdoc?” Listen through the episode for excellent financial strategies that have stood the test of time for the interviewees.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Financial Advice from PhD Career Development and Financial Wellness Professionals

Teaser

00:00 Beth H: So thinking back to grad school, the things I’m glad that I did is is really just stick to the fundamentals of looking at what my income was and make sure I was budgeting it, saving. I was investing in my Roth IRA and now 20 years later, has made all the difference. Even the $50 a month I found back then is setting me up for financial success now.

Introduction

00:30 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.

01:01 Emily: This is Season 15, Episode 6, and today I’m sharing the microinterviews I recorded at two higher education conferences this past summer. The conference attendees, virtually all of whom work at universities and most of whom have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What piece of financial advice are you glad you followed or do you wish you had followed as a grad student or postdoc?” Listen through the episode for excellent financial strategies that have stood the test of time for these interviewees.

01:36 Emily: The two conferences I attended were the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting or GCC and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Alliance Summit or HEFWA Summit. GCC is primarily attended by university staff members working with PhD students and postdocs in career and professional development. The HEFWA Summit is attended by university staff members working in financial wellness and financial aid across undergraduate and graduate populations. These two conferences were excellent networking opportunities for me on top of the built-in professional development. However, there are plenty of universities who were not represented at these conferences. Would you please consider recommending my financial education seminars and workshops at your university? My most popularly requested events for the upcoming academic year are How to Survive and Thrive Financially in Graduate School or Your Postdoc, How to Not Hate Your Fellowship During Tax Season, and Up-Level Your Cash Flow as a Graduate Student or Postdoc. Please direct an appropriate potential host within your graduate school, postdoc office, grad student association, etc. to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ where they can learn more. Thank you in advance!

03:00 Emily: You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s15e6/. Without further ado, here are the microinterviews recorded at GCC and the HEFWA Summit.

What piece of financial advice are you glad you followed or do you wish you had followed as a grad student or postdoc?

Tax Implications: Kaylee Steen, University of Michigan Medical School

03:19 Kaylee S: My name is Kaylee Steen. I work at the University of Michigan Medical School. The piece of advice that I would have financial advice for postdocs would be that if you are on a training grant, you need to be aware of the tax implications and the fact that they they’re not going to withhold your your paycheck for tax purposes. And so that will change or make your W-2 non-existent. And that can be really complicated. So make sure that you talk with your training grant administrator about the implications for taxes and any other kind of financial implications.

Value as a Student: Stevie Eberle, Stanford University School of Medicine

03:57 Stevie E: Stevie Eberle, executive director and assistant dean of BioSci Careers at Stanford University School of Medicine. During graduate school and postdoc training, I really wish I had understood my value that as a student I actually had value and I had the right to say no or to ask for more. That being said, as soon as I learned my value, I, I ran with it. And I have taken every opportunity to actually ask for more or to reject offers that don’t offer either enough or anything to. Examples were recently with an event that I was planning where it was a DEI related event and they were going they wanted me to do this for free. It was a 300 person event and I said no until they offered me something and I ended up getting a very nice package out of it. Another example was when I was I wanted a promotion and everybody around me had this and I had had the same title except for me. And everybody was making a certain amount of money except for me. And I had all the data and they were not listening to me and they told me, You love it here. Let’s face it, you’re not leaving. And I said, Oh, that is not true. I love it here if I’m being paid equitably. So I found something else. And then they were surprised. And then I miraculously got a promotion and more money. So what I was saying is I wish I’d known, but as soon as I knew I ran with it. 

Retirement Savings: Alicia Roy, Gladstone Institutes

05:39 Alicia R: My name is Alicia Roy. I work at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco and I received a piece of advice that came from a cohort member’s parent telling them to open a Roth IRA immediately, which I had also heard from my parent. But hearing it from multiple places really helps. And the two of us did it together. We sat down with our laptops next to each other and we’re like, How? How does this work? Where do we go? And I think that really helped me actually open that account and actually make that happen for me. And I’m really glad that I did that along, for now. Now is actually a pretty long time ago. At the time I was like, Is it already too late? And I now have colleagues. I’m in my mid thirties and I have colleagues who still haven’t opened one and I’ve had one for over five years now and that already makes me feel a lot better about the future.

Financial Habits: Melissa Bostrom, Duke University

06:32 Melissa B: My name is Melissa Bostrom, and I’m the assistant dean for graduate student professional development at Duke University. What piece of financial advice am I glad I followed during graduate school? Well, I really kept myself to a budget and really watched my expenses and made sure that I saved money for surprise expenses, emergency expenses like car repairs and also conference presentation opportunities. And I feel like those and a little bit of buffer in my budget really helped me take advantage of opportunities when they arose. And some of them are very positive and others car repairs not so positive.

Housing: Yasmine Farley, UC San Diego

07:10 Yasmine F: So hello, my name is Yasmine Farley. I am a senior associate director at UC San Diego. And the piece of financial advice that I guess I’m glad I followed or wish I would have followed while I was in grad school. When it comes to I’m glad I followed was being flexible in my housing arrangements and making sure that I was getting the cheapest option. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I first moved for my Ph.D. program. And so then being willing to chat around with colleagues, classmates and move in with one and then looking for others each year really helped to cut costs for me. And what I wish I had followed during grad school is to not take out as many loans. I had a full ride. However, I took out loans so that I could live and pay for rent and food and gas. But I wish I would have taken out the bare minimum so that I wouldn’t be saddled with all the debt that I have now.

Socializing: Anonymous #1

08:18 Anonymous #1: One piece of financial advice for graduate school and actually for life, but that I developed with my spouse when he was doing his Ph.D. Was that be very thoughtful about who you are socializing with and what kind of approaches to finances they have, what kind of class background do they have, and genuinely try to find people who are spending less money than you, you know, for their socializing, for their life and hang out with them and get to be friends with them, use them as models for how to budget and save money and most of all, not spend money. So stay away. Stay away from the free spenders or the or the loose spenders and stick with the people who spend very little to not at all, especially around socializing.

Retirement Savings: Maggie Nettesheim Hoffmann, Humanities without Walls Consortium

09:20 Maggie NH: Hi, Emily. My name is Maggie Nettesheim Hoffmann. I’m the associate director of Career diversity for the Humanities Without Walls Consortium. Which is a grant for a Mellon funded, grant funded project at space at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But I am located at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I think what I wish I had done while I was a grad student was to continue to think about my investments after leaving a career that I left, that I had spent about six years in before starting graduate school. So as I shared with you earlier, I used to work in wealth management for Financial Advisor based at what was then an affiliate of MetLife and no longer exists. And I worked in that role during the Great Recession from about how I was in that role from about 2005 to 2011 when I started graduate school. And right like I was completely in that world thinking about investments, watching people have to make really challenging decisions just to save their homes. Right. Seeing people pull out money from their 401k plans before they hit hit the age that you’re supposed to raise when you can start drawing contributions from your 401K. And they did that in order to continue to make their mortgage payments. Right? So I was I was there and watched people go through those decisions to save themselves and their families, or at least to protect themselves and their families after in some cases losing their jobs for up to two years, which was not an uncommon phenomenon during the recession. But then I started grad school and right like every little bit of money that I made through my stipend and my assistantship I had to use to meet my material needs, as opposed to continuing to think about how do I put a little bit of that into savings or how do I put a little bit of that into my existing 401K or what I now have A 403b plan since I work in higher ed. So I wish I had continued to do that because now I’m kind of faced with all three. I’ve got about 25 years before retirement and I don’t know that my investment savings are going to be where I need them to be when I retire in my mid to late sixties. Right? And so that’s I think the advice I would give to students or even faculty who might be listening to your podcasts. You have to be thinking about what, how much income are you going to need to draw from your retirement accounts when you get to 65, especially for our generations who might see cutbacks in things like Medicare or Social Security, how much money are you going to need to live when you’re retired and you might not? Right. So I think that’s that’s what I wish I had done.

Retirement Savings: Delaney Dann, Scripps Research Institute

11:58 Delaney D: Hi, my name is Dr. Delaney Dann, I work at the Scripps Research Institute. My piece of financial advice is as much as possible. Maxed out your Roth IRA during grad school and your postdoc.

Retirement Savings: Eric Vaughn, University of Rochester

12:13 Eric V: Hi, this is Eric Vaughn from the University of Rochester. My piece of financial advice would be start investing early so you can retire earlier.

Financial Habits: Penny Baga, Vanderbilt University

12:25 Penny B: Hi there. My name is Penny Baga from Vanderbilt University, and I encourage everybody to spend less than what they make.

Funding/Income: Elizabeth Harrington Lambert, Vanderbilt University

12:34 Elizabeth HL: So I’m Elizabeth Harrington Lambert from Vanderbilt University. And I think the absolute best piece of advice that I can give you is apply for funding before you need it. And don’t apply for 20 awards, but apply for three or four. Give yourself a plan B, a plan C and a plan D.

Funding/Income: Jessy Ayestas, University of Kansas

12:53 Jessy Ayestas: So, hello, I’m Jessy Ayestas. I am awards and outreach coordinator at the University of Kansas and also Fulbright scholar. So my piece of advice for any anybody thinking of attending grad school would be to consider applying for fellowships for scholarships, for grants. That will definitely facilitate at least the first years of your graduate education. And if the support that you receive is for a timeframe that is smaller than the time that you will be in grad school, then definitely try and think about the options that you will have and what opportunities may be available at your institution to continue being funded until you complete your program.

Financial Habits: Lindsey Cauthen, Baylor College of Medicine

13:35 Lindsey C: Lindsey Cauthen. Baylor College of Medicine. And I’m the head of career development. So I think the piece of financial advice that I’m glad I followed was really thinking about exactly how you spend your money each month and being very, very intentional about the way that you spend it and accountable. Right. So when I was in grad school, I had my own place and I was able to go on vacation and I was able to manage my money well, and that was because honestly, I had parents that taught me how to do so. So I had the proverbial envelope system and everything had a place. I think what I also did was I bought life insurance back in that time. That was really, really good life insurance. And I’m so glad I did that. And I did a little bit of investing and I didn’t have any debt coming out of undergrad. So that made a huge difference. And I didn’t come out of grad school with any debt either. So that’s made a big difference at this point.

Funding/Income: Colleen Gleeson, University of Texas at Austin

14:41 Colleen G: I’m Colleen Gleeson. I am the assistant director for advanced Degree Employer Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin So when I did my master’s program, I didn’t really get any funding, and I just thought that was the end of that. But now, having worked with worked with master students on the other side, I’ve seen how current master students have asked, researched and just pushed to actually to get more funding and to advocate for themselves and to identify additional funding resources. So I wish that someone had told me to be more persistent because there is there are funds out there. You just have to you just have to put the time and the research into it.

Funding/Income: Derek Attig, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

15:22 Derek A: I’m Derek Attig I work in the Graduate college at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. And as a graduate student, I’m really glad that I saw that opportunity is to get income. Even small amounts of income from a variety of places, because it gave me a lot of skills as also as well as just consistent, reliable money coming in.

Retirement Savings: Peter Myers, Washington University in Saint Louis

15:47 Peter M: My name is Peter Myers. I’m at Washington University in Saint Louis. The piece of advice that I’m glad I took as a postdoc is to put everything I can into a Roth IRA.

Employment: Kelly Graham, New York University

16:01 Kelly G: Hi, my name is Kelly Graham and I am from New York University. One of the best pieces of financial advice that I ever got and that I followed was that to go work at the university that you want to get your degree from because then you can go for free. Most universities offer tuition remission, so identify the university I wanted to go to. I got a full time job. I went to school for free and I built my resume at the same time.

Funding/Income: Erin Brown, UCLA

16:29 Erin B: Hi. So I’m Erin Brown. I am the associate director of Graduate Career Services at UCLA. And I guess the piece of financial advice that I wish that I had followed when I went to graduate school is I should have done my research and I should have applied for every extramural grant or fellowship that I could have found. I think it would have made my life so much easier after graduate school. I think that what I did was I used my savings to finance graduate school, and that money would have been really helpful when I left graduate school because I feel like I ate up all of the savings that I had while I was in grad school.

Funding/Income: Baron Haber, UC Santa Barbara

17:11 Baron H: my name is Baron Haber I’m the assistant director of Professional Development for Graduate Division at University of California, Santa Barbara. So one piece of financial advice that I wish I would have followed during graduate school better is I wish I would have had a calendar that was alerting me to deadlines for fellowships and other extramural funding opportunities. Like I always found out about them like two days before the deadline and then, like, talk myself out of trying to throw together an application. So I think I could have taken more advantage of applying for those opportunities if I had been more organized and kind of like known to be anticipating these things. And also that if I would have just had like standard statements prepared for those sorts of things a little bit earlier on in my career by the time I figured out I should be doing those things, I was like beyond the university requirements for that. So

Funding/Income: Shawn Warner, UC Santa Barbara

18:06 Shawn W: My name is Shawn Warner. I’m the director of Professional development for the Graduate Division at UC Santa Barbara. And one piece of advice I’m very glad I followed was when I was considering applying to grad school, I talked with someone who was about to finish their grad program, and they said, Do not do a study program unless you are paid to do so. And so I was unfortunately applying to grad school in 2009 during the recession, and I applied lots of places and I only got a financial funding offer from one. Thankfully, that was my number one pick and that’s where I went and I’m very glad I followed that piece of advice.

Financial Habits: Katy Peplin, Thrive PhD

18:50 Katy P: Hi, I’m Katy Peplin from Thrive PHD. You can find me at thrive dash PhD dot com. I work with graduate students all around the world on being a scholar and a human and the piece of financial advice that I am so glad that I followed during grad school was. Pay attention to your finances. I know so many people got sort of caught unawares by tax bills that they didn’t have, like living expenses that they weren’t prepared to handle. And I was really grateful that I kept an eye on. My budget is activating and nerve wracking as that could be sometimes when I was low on summer funding and always took extra jobs to make sure that I felt as secure as I could because I knew I wouldn’t be able to study if I was panicked about where I was going to eat next week

Financial Habits: Roshni, Johns Hopkins University

19:36 Roshni: Roshni from Johns Hopkins University. And I’m answering the question what piece of financial advice did I wish I had followed during grad school or post-doc? And that would be to not be afraid about talking about money. Culturally, it’s not the norm from where I grew up. And so if I knew to get over some of the intimidation around money, I may have made more empowered and more informed decisions.

Commercial

20:04 Emily: These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac and are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on page 8 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2023 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 15, 2023. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at time tax, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives. If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes 1.75 hours of video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PF for PhDs dot com slash Q E tax. Now back to our interview.

Retirement Savings: Sonali Majumdar, Princeton University

22:11 Sonali M: Hi, everyone. I am Sonali Majumdar at the Graduate Career Consortium Annual meeting. I’m Assistant Dean for Professional Development at Princeton University. And I just wanted to say in terms of, like, what I wish I had done as a graduate student and postdoc in terms of financial decisions, I wish I had created a Roth IRA and started my investment portfolio early. That’s the best way to. It. Also incentivizes and motivates you to save and invest, and I wish I had done that sooner. So that’s my little advice.

Financial Literacy: Diane Safer, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

22:48 Diane S: So, hi, I’m Diane Safer, the director of career professional development for graduate students and postdocs at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. And I think the idea of just welcoming new post-docs and graduate students to the idea of financial literacy right from the start so that they understand, considering especially that postdocs are international and don’t know about saving for retirement and how to live on a paycheck, that’s not a lot in New York

Housing: Kathryn Sawyer Vidrine, University of Notre Dame

23:16 Kathryn SV: I’m Kathryn Sawyer Vidrine from Notre Dame, and I wish that when I was starting graduate school in South Bend that I had just gone and bought a house instead of dithering about it because I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick around.

Housing: Tom Meyers, University of Notre Dame

23:32 Tom M: So my name is Tom Meyers. I’m also from the University of Notre Dame. And to Kathryn’s point, one thing I do with graduate students now is when I get incoming graduate students, I tell them, you can rent an apartment that’s a studio for 1100 dollars a month across campus, or you can drive five miles and pay a mortgage of 858.77 every month.

Retirement Savings: Karin Lawton-Dunn, Iowa State University

23:51 Karin L-D: Hi, I am Karin Lawton-Dunn at Iowa State University. And this question is, what piece of financial advice do are you glad to follow during your graduate program? And that was a long time ago for me. But I did have a I did work three years professionally before. And my colleague, we came back to grad school and she cashed out her 401K and I left mine in and I’m getting closer and closer to retirement and I’m very thankful I left that in. So I do not cash out 401Ks.

Retirement Savings: Megan Brock

24:22 Megan B: Okay, so I’m Dr. Megan Brock, and I think that I wish I would have I would to really look into the retirement plans that people offer you, because as a new grad moving into the field. I’m in the state of Georgia, you pick a program and you’re in it. There’s no switching up. The only way that you leave is if you leave the system. So where everybody else has something that they can if they want to purchase a home, they could pull out there for a1k or whatever type of retirement plan. Well, I’m a teacher retirement system and then I’m, you know, my pension, so to speak, is invested for ten years. All my friends can go out, purchase a home and have that saved up because that’s like kind of and of course, it’s for retirement. But, you know, a house is an investment, right? I can’t do that. I didn’t think about it. I was like, Oh, it’s easy to click the button and now you’re in. And now there’s no way that I can kind of help myself. The first generation, everything first, you know, the first person in my family to be able to do this is like, I can’t I can’t leverage that kind of like professional benefit of having retirement savings accounts. I didn’t select that option. So, yeah, I would say like, you know, just ask people about their options. The pros and cons, pause, don’t feel rushed. Because it will seem like you have to fill your paperwork out by a certain deadline, but you can always ask for those types of extensions. You can always ask to meet with, like whoever the H.R. officer is. You can always ask for that, you know, more time to get it sort of position for whatever school system that you’re going to be with. And so that’s my biggest like, dang, I wish I would have known that other that other than like living within my means. But like, the biggest thing is like, this is a marathon, not a sprint. And it we have to be prepared to be the people who can honestly retire at 50 and 60, like enjoy the rest of our life if we plan accordingly and not just like pick something that’s the easiest option. So that’s my piece of advice.

Retirement Savings: Christine Krieger, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

26:13 Christine K: Hi, I’m Christine Krieger. I’m with the training office, with NIDDK and my question is, what piece of financial advice are you glad you followed or do you wish you had followed during graduate school or as opposed to. So the advice I wish I had followed was that you are always welcome to follow your dreams. Just open a Roth. From the very beginning.

Funding/Income: Katie Homar

26:40 Katie H: So I’m Katie Homar, and my advice is take advantage of small travel grants from student organizations and campus offices to travel to conferences and grow your professional network.

Financial Habits: Mabel Perez-Oquendo, MD Anderson

26:52 Mabel P-K: Hi. My name is Mabel Perez-Oquendo. I am a current admin public fellow at MD Anderson. So one piece of advice that I wish I knew when I was doing my graduate school is to have saving accounts. And this is because, like, unexpected things happens. And also we want to have some like personal work life balance and we want to like travel and we want to take vacations. But if we don’t have that saving account, how we can accomplish that goal. So I wish that someone told me, Hey, you shall save part of your salary to go out and have fun and travel when you feel overwhelmed. So that is my piece of advice.

Negotiation: Hecmarie Meléndez-Fernández, West Virginia University

27:35 Hecmarie M-F: Hi, my name is Hecmarie Meléndez-Fernández, and I’m a recent Ph.D. grad at West Virginia University. And the one piece of financial advice I wish I had followed was to negotiate your benefits package for your job. There’s always room for negotiation. So.

Housing: Amanda Figuera, University of Washington Tacoma

27:55 Amanda F: My name is Amanda Figuera. I’m the senior director of Student Transitions and Success at the University of Washington Tacoma. And during graduate school we got creative with housing arrangements, and so I shared a one bedroom condo with a roommate who was doing lab work. And so we had like a hoteling bedroom almost in the living room. And that was one way that we were able to afford the cost of living in Seattle.

Employment: Mallorie Smith, Mississippi State University

28:19 Mallorie S: My name is Mallorie Smith. I’m the financial wellness program coordinator at Mississippi State University. And one piece of financial advice that I’m glad I followed as a grad student was that I sought out employment with my school that I wanted to attend first. And because of that, I got free classes two free classes this semester, and I was able to get my MBA that way. And now I’m about to get my Ph.D. in the same way for free. So all I’m paying for is textbooks, and I know where to find that cheap.

Moving: Helen Colby, Indiana University

28:49 Helen C: Hey, I am Helen Colby. I’m an assistant professor of marketing at Indiana University School of Business, and I am the chair of the Heck for Research Committee. And the piece of financial advice that I didn’t get in grad school that I wish I had gotten was to plan for that post-graduation move because I was in grad school in New Jersey and I got a postdoc in Los Angeles. And I realized about three months before I actually started the job that I was going to have to pay to move all my stuff across the country and put a down payment and pay first month’s rent and live for a month because I got paid monthly as a postdoc. But I didn’t get my first paycheck until I had been working for a month. And I was already a little strapped because I was in grad school and my husband’s in law school, I wouldn’t have any money. And then to move, that was very complicated. So we worked it out by being broke and side hustles and the one credit card we had that had a $1,000 limit on it. But if I had thought about having to move as opposed to just this is great, I’m going to have a better job that pays more. Not a lot more, but more. I would have planned for that better and at the very least spread my side hustling across more.

Financial Habits: Matt Hertenstein, DePaul University

30:04 Matt H: Hi, my name is Matt Hertenstein, a college professor at DePaul University, received my Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley in 2002 the piece of advice that I wish I had followed in graduate school would be. Even then, I had a little bit to save, and I wish I had done a little bit better job at putting that away into a retirement account and started the snowball. Then rather than waiting a little bit

Debt: Eric Monday, University of Kentucky

30:35 Eric M: Eric Monday Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration at the University of Kentucky. I think the financial advice that’s most helpful when I think back to my grad experience is a professor told me do not take on an extreme amount of debt. You know, figure out a way, even if it takes you a little bit longer, don’t take on a lot of debt. So that’s the advice that helped me the most.

Debt: Byron Kerr, Texas State University

31:01 Byron T: Hi, I’m Dr. Byron Kerr with Financial aid and scholarships at Texas State University, and I received my Ph.D. from Florida State University in Tallahassee working on my Ph.D. I had developed a lot of debt over the years, like a credit card debt, and to get out from underneath that, I reached out to a nonprofit credit agency that helped negotiate with the credit card companies to help me get that debt that paid off.

Financial Habits: Anna Sheufelt, Duke University

31:23 Anna S: My name is Anna Sheufelt. I work at Duke University, overseeing the educational programing and outreach for the Office of Student Loans and Personal Finance. The piece of financial advice that I wish I would have followed when I was in graduate school, I would be to spend less and save more. It sounds pretty simple take to managing money, but I really wish I would have built up that financial foundation because once I increase my knowledge of other things I could be doing with my money, I would have been in a position to just act. And I sort of had to continue with that foundation of, Nope, I have to save first because I didn’t do a good enough job when I was in my master’s program.

Financial Assistance Programs: Gilbert, University of Texas at Austin

32:04 Gilbert: My name is Gilbert. Financial advice I wish I would have followed was maybe just looking more into assistance programs or basic needs programs here in the city of Austin, especially coming from an area that where the cost of living was pretty low. And we went to a city that has one of the highest cost of links in the nation. I wish I would have looked more into like rental assistance programs, and Austin has a couple of them that will help people with low income cover partial or full rental cost and also just any assistance with regards to just basic needs like food and Internet subsidies. That would have helped me focus more on my graduate program. Also, it’s in Edwards and working at U.T. and not have to worry about budgeting too much and sacrificing like someone’s and some needs to continue going to grad school and living here in Austin.

Financial Literacy: Anne Xiong, UC Berkeley 

33:02 Anne X: So, yeah, my name is Anne Xiong. I am the program manager for Financial Wellness Program at U.C. Berkeley. Answering this question, it is what piece of finish or otherwise are you glad you followed or do you wish you had followed during grad school? So yeah, there’s a reason is kind of related to the reason why I’m very passionate about financial wellness education because I didn’t have any. So I wish I had have someone that taught me more about money management so I can start to pay more attention to manage my finances. When I was in college, in grad school, I just felt like if I had someone provide me with more guidance, I probably will and was less staff and more resources. And then when I started my first job, I probably will just have a better start. So. Yeah.

Mindset: Kirby Williams, Advantage Publications

33:59 Kirby W: So I’m Kirby Williams, and I am the owner of Advantage Publications. We do financial education, Learning Materials. So I, I didn’t realize until just now why my father always said that if you would pay for high school in college and we would have no loans and that wasn’t very important to him. But that if we want to wanted to go to grad school, that that would be on us to pay for. And I think he really wanted us to see the return on our investment. But, you know, it’s a whole different feeling when you have to pay the bills for it. And he didn’t want us to stress about that for college, which is a wonderful gift that he gave us. You know, you didn’t have to stress about that. Um, but at some point you have to grow up and you do stress about it, and you should stress about it because it’s your career and it’s your life. And if you’re not going for something that gives you joy, then all the career and, you know, stress and the money, stress and the time is wasted.

Financial Habits: Becky Sparks, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

35:02 Becky S: My name is Becky Sparks. I’m with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and my advice that I wish I had followed is to save as much as you can while you’re in grad school. I know that’s a very difficult thing to try to do, but your future self will thank you and take it from me who did not take that advice. You will definitely be glad that you did Absolutely

Funding/Income: Robert

35:27 Robert: Yeah. So my name is Robert. I had a lot of helpful advice from people in my department and also people at the university who were able to direct me to different ways to apply for different fellowships and other kinds of opportunities to help me pursue my research in ways that I didn’t really know where there. So that was looking beyond the department, looking for other opportunities for external scholarships, external fellowships, and then finding those two and finally get me to complete my research in the end with that funding.

Student Loans: Sara, Baylor University

36:00 Sara: Hi, I’m Sara. I am at Baylor University. And then my big piece of advice that I followed after leaving my graduate program and currently is I utilize public service student loan forgiveness. And I think a lot of grad students who are either going into academia or the government or any type of nonprofit or education work often don’t know that they can really lower that Student loan monthly repayment if they go down an income driven repayment plan and then utilize. Public service student loan forgiveness. So definitely check that out as we’re going into student loan repayment.

Financial Habits and Retirement Savings: Beth Hunsaker, University of Utah

36:47 Beth H: My name is Beth Hunsaker with the University of Utah’s Financial Wellness Center. I’m the associate director, So thinking back to grad school, the things I’m glad that I did is is really just stick to the fundamentals of looking at what my income was and make sure I was budgeting it, saving. I was investing in my Roth IRA and now 20 years later, has made all the difference. Even the $50 a month I found back then is setting me up for financial success now.

Tax Implications: Ben Raines, Ohio State University

37:19 Ben R: So Ben Raines Program Coordinator for financial education and a student life at Ohio State University. So I was lucky to have a graduate tuition stipend as part of my one at the university. And I’m glad that I went through and thought about how much $25,000 taxable income would affect my income over the course of a year. And while that was unpleasant, I was at least prepared to have my take home income go down $800 a month for six months of the year.

Funding/Income: Michael Dedmon, National Endowment for Financial Education

37:47 Michael D: My name is Michael Dedmon. I’m the research director at the National Endowment for Financial Education and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Syracuse University. Graduate students approach the Ph.D. journey and get a different range of support from their institution, depending on sort of where it’s ranked, the kind of resources they have, and then where they hope to place their graduate students. I know that for me, I was a teaching at a pretty teaching heavy department where almost all of the financial support was really, really tied to doing that teaching. I wish that I would have realized earlier on the importance of seeking out external sources of funding, and I wish that I would have advocated more for myself. I wish they would have advocated more for fellow graduate students with the graduate school and with my department to provide those resources because of how critical they are, because it’s very difficult to do your work, to finish your degree, and to produce the knowledge that the university wants if you don’t get that additional support. But also the process of achieving and getting that support is really critical. And so I think the universities like the country over, especially the ones that are outside of the top ten that don’t have right, those kinds of resources need to think better about how to support graduate students in getting resources to specifically support their research.

Employment: Gilbert Rogers, University of Oregon

39:01 Gilbert R: My name is Gilbert Rogers, Senior assistant director of financial Wellness at the University of Oregon. So the piece of advice I wish I would have followed during grad school or during my doctoral studies was to seek out an employer that would pay for that. I didn’t know I would land in higher education. I was currently still working in corporate finance, and that’s where I first kind of caught wind of all the loans and loan debt. So I didn’t have zero debt until my doctoral degree. So that’s a piece of advice I work out.

Outtro

39:37 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.

University-Level Policy Ideas to Improve the Financial Lives of Graduate Students and Postdocs

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In this episode, Emily shares the microinterviews she recorded at two higher education conferences this past summer. The conference attendees, virtually all of whom work at universities and most of whom have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What policy at your current university or one you worked at or attended in the past would you change to improve the financial lives of the PhD students and/or postdocs?” Listen through the episode for numerous ideas for policy change to advocate for at your university.

Links mentioned in the Episode

University-Level Policy Ideas to Improve the Financial Lives of Graduate Students and Postdocs

Teaser

00:00 Michael D: And the reproduction of knowledge requires financial security. And when you’re in a situation where you’re not getting paid a living wage, it’s very, very difficult to achieve that financial security. So for me, that’s definitely the major policy change that I would love graduate programs across the country to adopt.

Introduction

00:19 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.

00:50 Emily: This is Season 15, Episode 5, and today I’m sharing the microinterviews I recorded at two higher education conferences this past summer. The conference attendees, virtually all of whom work at universities and most of whom have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What policy at your current university or one you worked at or attended in the past would you change to improve the financial lives of the PhD students and/or postdocs?” Listen through the episode for numerous ideas for policy change to advocate for at your university. The two conferences I attended were the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting or GCC and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Alliance Summit or HEFWA Summit. GCC is primarily attended by university staff members working with PhD students and postdocs in career and professional development. The HEFWA Summit is attended by university staff members working in financial wellness and financial aid across undergraduate and graduate populations. These two conferences were excellent networking opportunities for me on top of the built-in professional development. However, there are plenty of universities who were not represented at these conferences.

02:10 Emily: Would you please consider recommending my financial education seminars and workshops at your university? My most popularly requested events for the upcoming academic year are How to Survive and Thrive Financially in Graduate School or Your Postdoc, How to Not Hate Your Fellowship During Tax Season, and Up-Level Your Cash Flow as a Graduate Student or Postdoc. Please direct an appropriate potential host within your graduate school, postdoc office, grad student association, etc. to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ where they can learn more. Thank you in advance!

02:53 Emily: You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s15e5/. Without further ado, here are the microinterviews recorded at GCC and the HEFWA Summit.

What policy at your current university or one you worked at or attended in the past would you change to improve the financial lives of the PhD students and/or postdocs?

Understanding Financial Priorities of International Students: Karin Lawton-Dunn, Iowa State University

03:11 Karin L-D: Okay. So I’m Karin Lawton-Dunn and I’m at Iowa State University. And what policy would you change when you’re current or former university campus to improve financial life for graduate students or postdocs? Since I work primarily with international students, I think I would try to change the understanding of faculty and staff of all of the different priorities that international students have with their money, and so that, you know, they really will go without food, without meals, so that they’re able to send some money home to their families that are also in need and struggling with food and housing. And I think that we need to be understanding of that and not punishing them for doing that.

Fee Exemption: Laura Farrell-Wortman, University of Arizona Cancer Center

03:53 Laura F-W: I’m Laura Farrell-Wortman. I’m the assistant director for academic programs with the University of Arizona Cancer Center. So I think that the policy that I would change would be to exempt PhD students from required fees, because I think that it really is, you know, important revenue generation for the university. But it does feel a little bit like kind of like the company store right where you are getting the money for working there, but that you’re turning right around and giving the money back to the university so it doesn’t feel like it’s a really sustainable system. And I would I would be interested to see what kind of revenue generation they’re actually getting from the PhD students and whether or not that could be found in an alternative means.

Postdoc Stipends and Benefits: Kaylee Steen, University of Michigan Medical School

04:41 Kaylee S: My name is Kaylee Steen. I work at the University of Michigan Medical School, and my advice for changing a policy at our institution that we’re actually implementing is ensuring that all postdocs at least make the minimum NIH stipend for their years of experience at the university. I think is really key. And another policy that we have not implemented would be that postdocs receive the same retirement benefits as are the rest of our staff, with the 2 to 1 matching.

Postdoc Benefits: Chris Smith, Virginia Tech

05:19 Chris S: My name’s Chris Smith. I manage the Office of Post-Doc Affairs at Virginia Tech. And one policy I’d like to see change really across the landscape is treating postdocs more like employees with employee benefits, especially retirement matching. Some institutions do that. We are one of them, but a lot of them don’t. And I think it’s important for them to kind of set them up for success.

Postdoc Training and Benefits: Weiwei Xu, Tulane School of Medicine

05:40 WeiWei X: My name is Weiwei Xu. I’m the academic and career advisor for a biomedical sciences graduate program within the Tulane School of Medicine. I think we can actually provide postdocs with more training programs as well as social benefits and retirement benefits so that they feel more supported by the school and by their training programs.

Cost of Living Adjustments: Beth Hunsaker, University of Utah

06:05 Beth H: My name is Beth Hunsaker with the University of Utah’s Financial Wellness Center. I’m the associate director, and the policy that I would want to see changed is to have cost of living adjustments, how much it costs to have rent. When that’s over half of what their stipend is and they’re not able to go and work somewhere else does doesn’t work for their families.

Consistent Funding and Transparency: Chris Hamm, University at Buffalo

06:28 Chris H: My name is Chris Hamm from the University at Buffalo. And the first prompt it was asking about what policy would you change in your current or previous campus approved financial life for grad students? And for me, just working with graduate students, noticing the opportunities for GA TA and RA positions, we do have, you know, minimum amount of financing for those positions that are agreed upon. But I think it’s not consistent across the board for each of different departments. And also true, since it’s a larger university, it’s very siloed as far as what information’s available to graduate students. So I think being able to have that be a little bit more transparent, giving them the opportunity to be more competitive, get themselves these positions and also make them aware of it, because a lot of times it’s only specifically in departments and I think it’s a really great opportunity because that’s something that I did when I was in grad school as well to help fund my education and get my experiences.

Postdoc Benefits: Alexandra Schnoes, Science Communication Lab

07:22 Alexandra S: Hi, I’m Alexandra Schnoes. I am the director for professional development at the Science Communication Lab. One of the things that I think about a lot is, is how postdocs at different institutions are often under these weird sort of employment categories. They’re often in different employment categories at the same institution. They often don’t have access to things, even though they’re considered employees are also considered trainees. So they also often don’t have access to things like sometimes even health care. But potentially child care support or retirement accounts. And and all of these things are ridiculous. These are these are people with Ph.Ds who are acting as professionals and and they should be able to be treated like you know, the employees that they actually are, as opposed to some weird, crazy, you know, none of the above, which means they get none of the benefits and all of the work of being a postdoc sometimes for years on end, doing amazing work, making the university home. But then they’ve sacrificed finances, potentially health care, retirement accounts, the ability to have children, all of this, all of these are things that policies could actually help address.

Child Care: Kathryn Sawyer Vidrine, University of Notre Dame

08:57 Kathryn SV: So this is Kathryn Sawyer Vidrine from Notre Dame and if I were to change one policy to make life easier on graduate students and post-docs, it would be to provide childcare for children under two years old because there is almost none in our area. 

Postdoc Benefits: Peter Myers, Washington University in Saint Louis

09:16 Peter M: My name is Peter Myers. I’m at Washington University in Saint Louis. The one policy that I would change for postdocs would be to make them all employees of the university.

Wages/Stipends: Elizabeth Eikmann, Washington University in Saint Louis

09:30 Elizabeth E: My name is Elizabeth Eikmann. I am the program coordinator for Postdoctoral Community Engagement at Washington University in Saint Louis, and I was a graduate student at Saint Louis University. And if I could change one policy for my former university’s campus to improve the financial life of the grad students there, it would be immediate graduate assistantship raises. The wages currently are not even living wage wages. Graduate assistants there are paid only nine months out of the year instead of 12. So not only implementing a raise but also instituting a year round salary, which also includes year round access to health insurance, which is not currently a policy there on campus.

Retirement Benefits: Maggie Nettesheim Hoffmann, Humanities Without Walls Consortium

10:24 Maggie NH: My name is Maggie Nettesheim Hoffmann. I’m the associate director of Career diversity for the Humanities Without Walls Consortium. Which is a grant for a Mellon funded, grant funded project at space at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But I am located at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So I think the policy advice that I would give and more systemically across, you know, higher education across the nation would be to recommend to universities that you consider one of the benefits for graduate students enrolled in your schools to give them access to starting their own 403b plans while they’re working on their master’s degrees or their PhDs, and making that a real benefit of, you know, if you’re at a public university that has you know, that regard, students are organized, making that a part of your union contract negotiations, aiming at private institutions, right? I mean, it’s not a heavy cost to the institution at all just to give them a framework or structure to start investing into those for all three plants. So that would be one of the policies that I would advocate as a shift in our higher ed, higher education ecosphere. Yeah.

Financial Education: Brady Krien, University of Iowa

11:32 Brady K: So my name is Brady Krien and I work at the University of Iowa, and the policy that I would change on our campus is to actually give us greater latitude to provide resources and information about finances for graduate students, and particularly related to the tax implications of fellowships that they win and how they need to prepare in advance to deal with those.

Financial Education: Yazzmynn Martinez, University of Colorado, Boulder

11:58 Yazzmynn M: Hi, everyone. My name is Yazzmynn Martinez. I am a events education and emergency response coordinator at the University of Colorado Boulder. I work at the Basic Needs center and one policy that I would change about the university campus to improve the financial life of our graduate and postdoc students is to provide a more formal education on basic needs in general so that can include how to get housing before they start college and also how to like budget with groceries and other expenses. And I would also advocate to increase the stipend just because oftentimes that’s not even enough for students to cover their living expenses.

Transparency: Katy Peplin, Thrive PhD

12:45 Katy P: Hi, I’m Katy Peplin from Thrive PHD. You can find me at thrive dash PhD dot com. I work with graduate students all around the world on being a scholar and a human. What policy would be useful. I think that the biggest policy that universities can put in place is transparency. I know so many students who have been caught in between different policies where they weren’t aware that certain things applied to them when they actually did or they lost out on money because things were well communicated. And I know that it’s extra work for universities to make some of those things transparent. But the more information that’s readily and easily accessible, the less grad students have to depend on their departments or their advisors who might not be well informed to let them. Know about opportunities. So transparency.

Commercial

13:31 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.

Wages/Stipends: Sasha Goldman, Boston University

15:38 Sasha G: I am Sasha Goldman. I am the director of PCE resources at Boston University. And if I could change a policy on my current university campus to improve the financial life of the graduate students and postdocs, I would give everyone 12 months of funding and everyone more money.

Fellowship Payment: Joseph Gonzales, University of Miami

15:56 Joseph G: My name is Joseph Gonzales and I’m the senior director in the Office of Science and Assistance at the University of Miami. And the policy that I would change and this isn’t specifically related to my current campus. It’s based on my experience at different campuses. It’s how people pay like to pay fellowships, and especially when there’s a research component to it, they tend not to use the employment side of it where it would be there would be tax withholdings, because I believe sometimes faculty think that it’s a way to sidestep tax. The tax requirement when they don’t realize that it’s actually basically pushing it down the line for the student to deal with later and sometimes that often students don’t realize that there is a tax liability too, that comes with their financial aid. And by the time they’ve found out they haven’t saved money for that liability. So puts them in this financial crunch, sort of once their taxes are had been filed or they don’t claim it, and then it just gets pushed further down the line. So I would like faculty and universities in general to have said you’re trying to help other people. I don’t know if it’s more of a process that is that are aligned because it changes from one university to the other and how these are handled.

Wages/Stipends: Alex Embree, University of Missouri

17:39 Alex E: My name is Alex Embree. I’m the program manager at the Office for Financial Success for the University of Missouri. And the policy that I would want to have changed is that graduate student payment is in accordance with the value that they bring to the university when they are operating in a teaching capacity or grant. They need to be paid accordingly.

Time to Degree Transparency: Robbie Pearson, Southern Methodist University

18:03 Robbie P: My name is Robbie Pearson, and I’m the director of graduate and postdoctoral graduate career development and post-doc affairs at SMU in Dallas, Texas. And in terms of policies that I would be interested in revising around graduate education to improve the financial life of grad students and postdocs, I’m really interested in time to degree. I would like to see more transparency around how long it takes to earn a doctoral degree, and I’d like to see policies and initiatives around making sure that that’s a reasonable amount of time. Right. So in some fields it could take eight, nine, ten years to earn a doctoral degree or longer. And, you know, there’s some case that that’s important for the intellectual development of the scholar and for the research that they’re contributing to. But I also want to balance that against the reality that graduate students should be thinking of their time in grad student in grad school as an investment, not only into the intellectual development and into their field, but also into their financial futures. So getting them into the workforce in a reasonable amount of time is a really good thing. From my perspective.

Financial Education and Wages/Stipends: Stevie Eberle, Stanford University School of Medicine

19:03 Steve E: Stevie Eberle, executive director and assistant dean of biosecurity at Stanford University School of Medicine. So what policy would you change in your current or former university campus to improve the financial life of graduate students and postdocs? I would. We have an entry level class that all incoming graduate students have to take. And then there is a kind of an intro group that postdocs attend. And I really do wish we had financial training and planning built into the trainings, especially in the Bay Area because it’s so expensive and you you can’t quite understand it until you’re there. So I really would like somebody who can very directly explain the market and directly explain how to navigate it and have the resources to develop that. That being said, I think it is the administration’s responsibility to also help build better structures for that which we are working on, I will say. So we have subsidized housing in that type of thing, but subsidized housing is still very expensive. So I would like to have better pay, better caps, better minimum salaries and better coaching for faculty on how to treat something else. And often treat students and postdocs as more respectfully and more like adults and give them better tools for negotiation. Because I do think sometimes faculty just don’t know that. Sometimes they do, and that’s the problem, but sometimes they don’t. So I’d like to do better education on equitable offers and help better develop those kind of baseline expectations for parents and for this.

Cost Transparency: Derek Attig, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

20:57 Derek A: I’m Derek Attig. I work in the Graduate college at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. And I’d like to see it be consistent that tuition and fees and the total cost of graduate education is completely transparent to people before they apply and when they’re making the decision to attend so they can understand the costs and weigh that against outcomes they hope to achieve.

Wages/Stipends: Michael Dedmon, National Endowment for Financial Education

21:25 Michael D: My name is Michael Dedmon. I’m the research director at the National Endowment for Financial Education and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Syracuse University. I can definitely say for me that the single policy change that I would love for my graduate program, which is still sort of considering to adopt, is to raise wages and raise stipends for for graduate students. My department recently unionized, even though I’m an advanced graduate student and no longer in the bargaining unit. It’s something that’s very, very close to my heart that I think is very important. It’s beneficial for universities in terms of recruitment and retention. It reduces time to degree. It reduces attrition. We all know the benefits of it, in addition to the fact that the work that the students put in is what makes the universities work. They’re teaching students, they’re producing research, they’re publishing papers. It’s a beneficial situation for everybody. And the reproduction of knowledge requires financial security. And when you’re in a situation where you’re not getting paid a living wage, it’s very, very difficult to achieve that financial security. So for me, that’s definitely the major policy change that I would love graduate programs across the country to adopt.

Wages/Stipends: Byron Kerr, Texas State University

22:30 Byron K: Hi, I’m Dr. Byron Kerr with Financial aid and scholarships at Texas State University, and I received my Ph.D. from Florida State University in Tallahassee and what I would like to see changed on college campuses is back in the day. At any rate, my stipend check for my for my Ph.D. always came in a month after the payment deadline. So I always generated a $100 late fee every single semester. So I was always costing me money to be employed.

Housing: Anna Sheufelt, Duke University

22:58 Anna S: My name is Anna Sheufelt I work at Duke University, overseeing the educational programing and outreach for the Office of Student Loans and Personal Finance. A policy change that I would love to see come to. My campus is guaranteed housing for our international masters and graduate students. These are folks who have some of the largest complexities going on in their lives and also some of the greatest financial constraints with the international student status.

Wages/Stipends and Tuition: Annie Maxfield, University of Texas at Austin

23:28 Annie M: My name is Annie Maxfield. And I am at UT Austin in Texas. Career engagement and I would say the biggest financial policy problem is that tuition has continually become higher and higher over the years. Yet graduates students stipends are not increasing at that rate. And so we know the university is taking in more funds. However, the distribution of those funds is inequitable in terms of how graduate student labor is actually compensated.

Child Care: Phil Schuman, Indiana University

24:03 Phil S: So my name is Phil Schuman. I’m from Indiana University. One thing I do expect to see for a lot of grad students throughout higher ed is more access to child care and whether or not that’s temporary or permanent or whatever. But just the ability for grad students to be able to focus on their studies, their academics when they have child, if you have childcare issues come up, just because we’ve seen a lot of childcare and daycare cost issues and closing on campus. But I think it’s one thing, it’s a huge barrier that could potentially prevent grad students from getting over that hurdle. 

Fellowship Transparency and Experiential Learning for International Students: Sonali Majumdar, Princeton University

24:34 Sonali M:  Yeah. Hi, everyone. I am Sonali Majumdar and Assistant Dean for Professional Development in the Grad Futures program of the Graduate School of Princeton University. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about what kind of inclusive policies university campuses could have to support their international graduate students. And most of population on their financial wellness. And there are two things that come to mind. One is transparency on what kind of research fellowships are open to international graduate students and postdocs. And a lot of the universities do have research, Discovery Fellowship. Discovery databases like David Hopkins has a public dashboard that like lists all sorts of fellowships at the Graduate and closed off level by citizenship accessibility as well. And the other thing is experiential learning. What can we do to make experiential learning more accessible to international population? One pathway that does work is our internships and our fellowships that are funded by the institution that the students are working on, and that relates to work policies of how much academic hours on top of academic hours are. Students are available to work at university offices or other units on internships. And so there is definitely some interesting new programs that are helping out in this arena. And I hope more universities would eventually think about accessibility for their international population. On experiential learning. Thank you.

Financial Education: Matt Hertenstein, DePaul University

26:05 Matt H: Hi, my name is Matt Hertenstein, a college professor at DePaul University, received my Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley in 2000. It may have changed since I graduated, but the policy I would change was to actually teach some financial literacy advice and financial wellness to Ph.Ds and make that a priority during orientation and make sure that people actually knew that that was available to help them.

Health Insurance: Alex Yen, Boston University

26:33 Alex Y: Hi, my name is Alex Yen I am a postdoc at Boston University in the Professional Development and Postdoctoral Affairs office. The policy that I would change or wish could change is that I hope that more universities will allow graduate students who take time off to keep their student health insurance during that time off. So that way they can take care of their mental health while they are recovering or taking some time away.

Outtro

27:14 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.