> Graduate stipends almost never include room and board, as far as I know. This may be different if you're in a high-rent area (UCLA, Stanford, NYU, etc), but in general, your rent comes out of that $1300.

Nope, still gotta pay rent. Attended Columbia for grad school, had to compete in the Manhattan real estate market on < 30k a year for an apartment.

> They do currently include decent health insurance, at least.

Ehhhh, it was of the 'if I get hit by a car and I am in the hospital for two months, I won't go bankrupt' variety. Better than nothing, at least.

> They do currently include decent health insurance, at least. No dental/vision, obviously.

Probably school-dependent -- I'm aware of one that does have dental at least (I forget about vision but I think it has that too).

I can confirm dental and vision is offered to grad students at the school I went to. It wasn't included in the stipend but it is cheap.