>> PhD students in the EU make less than students in the US! And virtually all of them in the US get full benefits.
> This is completely false.
Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say:
> With +16% in bonuses, paid vacations, paid sick days, etc. With bonus the salary is 32364-40600 Which is more than 90% of US stipends.
Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vacation, paid sick days, etc. Conference travel all around the world, at levels that EU universities can't match. As a PhD student my program basically paid for vacations in: China, 4 different EU countries, 5-6 different US states + Hawaii + Alaska, Japan, etc. There are plenty of bonuses and perks.
> The absolute highest stipends in the US ... They also do not receive anywhere near the same benefits as in UVA.
I'm at one of these places. In terms of benefits, we far outstrip the EU. The flexibility we have to spend money on travel, equipment, perks, is incomparable.
But let's take a step back. You started by saying that this problem is solved in the EU and now you backtracked to arguing about +/-10% salary. Big deal.
The EU is expensive, it pays poorly. You want to argue the US is a little worse. But your statement that this problem is solved in the EU couldn't be further from the truth.
>Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say:
I've been in it, stipends in my department were ~$18,000 per year with medical insurance and some funding for conference travel. No Vacation days, no sick days, nothing else.
>I'm at one of these places. In terms of benefits, we far outstrip the EU. The flexibility we have to spend money on travel, equipment, perks, is incomparable.
Find me Stanford's list of benefits showing they offer paid vacation.
>But let's take a step back. You started by saying that this problem is solved in the EU and now you backtracked to arguing about +/-10% salary. Big deal.
I didn't backtrack at all. You're the one ignoring the fact that Amsterdam is the same cost as Chapel Hill but offers up to 15k more in salary and much better benefits and there's an even bigger delta in cheaper Dutch cities.
So you can make up numbers all you want and pretend that conference travel is somehow better than Bonuses, PTO, Sick days and Pension plans but no one buys that.
Fun fact, your own page shows that the the minimum at Columbia is higher than the max at University of Amsterdam!
The idea that EU PhD students are paid better than US PhD students is just as absurd now, as it was when you stated it first.
> No paid time off, no sick days
There's a lot of confusion here. People look at lists like this and they assume they are comparable to their EU counterparts. In the EU the university tends to be king and sets the rules for departments. In the US departments are far more autonomous and many things are more informal. The university sets lower bounds that departments add to.
But again. You need to drop your narrow EU bureaucratic view of things. I have never applied to vacation as a grad student. Never, among my 50+ grad students so far as a single grad student applied for vacation. Not one of them has ever applied for vacation time. Grad students just tell me "Hey, I'll be gone these 3 weeks." And I say "Enjoy". That's it. Same with sick leave.
You cannot interpret US rules from the EU point of view. It's nonsense.
> I didn't backtrack at all. You're the one ignoring the fact that Amsterdam is the same cost as Chapel Hill but offers up to 15k more in salary and much better benefits and there's an even bigger delta in cheaper Dutch cities.
You have no idea about the cost of housing in UCN vs Amsterdam. Or what cheap means.
You can rent, right now, a 2 bedroom / 2 bath with a pool for $1100-1200 in Chapel Hill that's an easy walking distance to the university. That's without searching and at literally the worst time of the year to rent anything in a college town. And that's walking distance. If you want to drive to stay in a "smaller town" you can pay $800 for a 2 bedroom.
The US is far more sparsely settled than Western Europe. Cheap small towns here are far far cheaper.
> So you can make up numbers all you want and pretend that conference travel is somehow better than Bonuses, PTO, Sick days and Pension plans but no one buys that.
Your own numbers completely refute your story. And even the simplest Google search shows that perks in the US are actually far better than perks in the EU. That vacations are good, conference travel is not "business travel" in the US, that you get paid time off, etc.
But you don't want to look even at the evidence you find. You want to believe what you believe. I'm out!
>But again. You need to drop your narrow EU bureaucratic view of things. I have never applied to vacation as a grad student. Never, among my 50+ grad students so far as a single grad student applied for vacation. Not one of them has ever applied for vacation time. Grad students just tell me "Hey, I'll be gone these 3 weeks." And I say "Enjoy". That's it. Same with sick leave.
Yeah sure, as a boss, you're going to keep insisting you're One of the Good Ones whenever someone sticks up for your workers to have formal rights.
>Fun fact, your own page shows that the the minimum at Columbia is higher than the max at University of Amsterdam!
NYC is far more expensive than Amsterdam. Salary at UVA is higher than the majority of US stipends. Period. This isn't debatable. It's probably higher than stipends at almost every Public university in the US and many Private ones outside the Ivy+ group.
>Grad students just tell me "Hey, I'll be gone these 3 weeks." And I say "Enjoy". That's it. Same with sick leave.
It's unfortunate that your Stockholm syndrome has led you to beliefs like having guaranteed PTO is not as good as hoping your advisor lets you take a break.
>You have no idea about the cost of housing in UCN vs Amsterdam. Or what cheap means.
Take your pick of sources. You're just pulling numbers out of thin air.
>Your own numbers completely refute your story. And even the simplest Google search shows that perks in the US are actually far better than perks in the EU. That vacations are good, conference travel is not "business travel" in the US, that you get paid time off, etc.
Maybe get your eyes checked?
Pretty sure 40,000 is higher than 25,000 but maybe I'm wrong there.
Your idea of what constitutes perks is some kind of hellish capitalist nightmare.
> Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vacation, paid sick days, etc. Conference travel all around the world, at levels that EU universities can't match. As a PhD student my program basically paid for vacations in: China, 4 different EU countries, 5-6 different US states + Hawaii + Alaska, Japan, etc. There are plenty of bonuses and perks.
Conference travel and short-term research visits have nothing to do with vacation. They are just business travel, where you rarely have enough time to do anything interesting.
I did my PhD in Finland and finished about a decade ago. During that time, I made business trips to Australia, Chile, Colombia, Denmark (x2), Germany, Italy (x2), Turkey, and the US. I also had the time and money to travel on my own, and I visited Iceland (x2), Kenya, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, and Tanzania, in addition to 6 or 7 trips to various European countries. Some of my friends didn't travel as much, but they bought a house, because doing a PhD was a middle-class job.
Also, this branch of the discussion was not about the EU but about "much of Europe". That usually refers to the West/North European countries that remained free after WW2. Large parts of Europe suffered under communism and other totalitarian governments during the Cold War, and their standard of living is still lower because of that.
> Conference travel and short-term research visits have nothing to do with vacation. They are just business travel, where you rarely have enough time to do anything interesting.
That's the European view for sure. In the US it's perfectly normal for PhD students to take a week off at the conference destination and enjoy. While the university pays for all of the flights, and the stipend paid during the conference is enough to cover the expenses of the vacation.
> I did my PhD in Finland and finished about a decade ago. During that time, I made business trips ...
Except that I got to take 1-2 weeks off at those places after every conference. As do many US PhD students.
> Also, this branch of the discussion was not about the EU but about "much of Europe". That usually refers to the West/North European countries that remained free after WW2
Sure. The example given was that of University of Amsterdam. Where students are not better off than in the US, and in many ways are much worse off (job-wise).
Ok, I missed that. Combining business travel with vacation is better than nothing, but it severely restricts what you can do with your vacation. I did that a couple of times as well, but it was rarely worth the effort. Flights were cheap, and I usually wanted to go somewhere else. Kilimanjaro instead of NYC, Everest Base Camp instead of Istanbul, and so on.
I've lived in four countries during my academic career: Finland, Chile, UK, and US (California). The standard of living for grad students was generally the highest in Chile. Cost of living was low, and academic jobs in good universities had relatively high status, which was reflected in salaries. Finnish grad students had lower domestic purchasing power, but they could afford internationally priced things like tech and travel better. With two incomes, buying a house and having kids was also a perfectly reasonable life choice as a grad student. Life in the UK was more austere: the salaries were lower, the cost of living was higher, and the regulations were stricter.
Today in California, grad students live in poverty. Their standard of living reminds me of undergrads in Finland, except that they can't afford to rent a whole apartment. Only the ones with a decent side gig (such as consulting) can afford something resembling the lifestyle of Finnish grad students 10-15 years ago.
>Today in California, grad students live in poverty. Their standard of living reminds me of undergrads in Finland, except that they can't afford to rent a whole apartment. Only the ones with a decent side gig (such as consulting) can afford something resembling the lifestyle of Finnish grad students 10-15 years ago.
Who needs benefits like affording to live in a home when you can have Conference Travel instead! Woo!
> This is completely false.
Then you don't know the US system. As evidenced by the fact that you say:
> With +16% in bonuses, paid vacations, paid sick days, etc. With bonus the salary is 32364-40600 Which is more than 90% of US stipends.
Every PhD student at every university I've ever seen has paid vacation, paid sick days, etc. Conference travel all around the world, at levels that EU universities can't match. As a PhD student my program basically paid for vacations in: China, 4 different EU countries, 5-6 different US states + Hawaii + Alaska, Japan, etc. There are plenty of bonuses and perks.
> The absolute highest stipends in the US ... They also do not receive anywhere near the same benefits as in UVA.
I'm at one of these places. In terms of benefits, we far outstrip the EU. The flexibility we have to spend money on travel, equipment, perks, is incomparable.
But let's take a step back. You started by saying that this problem is solved in the EU and now you backtracked to arguing about +/-10% salary. Big deal.
The EU is expensive, it pays poorly. You want to argue the US is a little worse. But your statement that this problem is solved in the EU couldn't be further from the truth.