The pandemic has upended the economy and the economy was already something of a mess. We don't know what the future of work looks like and people are pretty bad at predicting the future under the best of circumstances.

Things like professional masters degrees (incl. some engineering degrees) are likely to cost money, but in the sciences both MS and PhD should be fully funded at reputable universities -- either through TAing, your advisers grants, or if you're lucky, fellowships.

But I'm mainly responding with this because a lot of "perks" of schooling like this are structured assuming you followed a traditional path -- namely, you're 18-24, single, no dependents, not much in the way of actual, adult responsibilities. The more you deviate from that the more inaccessible grad school and school in general become.

A "Teaching Assistant" (AKA a grad student is TAing) is paid $45,138.00 per year, and a grad student who is currently paid out of grants earns between $42,729.00 for "Graduate Student Researcher - Step I" and $83,727.00 for "Graduate Student Researcher - Step X". I was slightly shocked, but this is the official salary scale. Granted, very few grad students are likely compensated at the upper end of that range, but still.

UC Berkeley [2] and UC San Diego [3] appear to be quite similar, so this is would seem to be somewhat representative of the UC system overall.

My own institution would seem to be actually lagging behind somewhat compared to this.

In any case, graduate student compensation has increased significantly in absolute terms over the past decade or two.

[1] https://grad.ucdavis.edu/resources/student-employment/salary...

[2] https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/1819...

[3] https://grad.ucsd.edu/financial/employment/student-pay-rates...

I remember being a Graduate student in math at UC Berkeley in the late 90s, and getting just over $13K/year - it sucked (and grad students were striking back then)! So I also took out many student loans, which worked out for me because my salary once I got a real job was enough to pay them back very quickly (as I was used to living on so little money). I was a grad student at NAU in Flagstaff before that and got under $9K/academic year...

as a more typical example, the University of Illinois offers somehwere around $22k to CS grad students (and it's one of the strongest CS programs in the world), and $20k to math.

https://cs.illinois.edu/about/awards/graduate-fellowships-aw...

https://math.illinois.edu/admissions/graduate-admissions/fin...

I discourage everyone from doing a PhD, but it sounds like you've made your mind up.

Be very careful with your choice of advisor and department, and if it isn't working, be ready to walk away--sounds like you have a career to go back to.

But ability to arrange to do so without incurring new debt is very much a personal matter and depends on many variables, such as marital status, existing dependents, current debt load, existing health issues, etc.

It's preparation to become either a professor at a university or an independent researcher at an industrial/government research lab. It won't increase your lifetime earnings or job prospects, but it does open up doors to jobs whose primary allure is intellectual freedom rather than material reward.

If you don't go one of those two routes after a CS PhD, then a CS PhD has rather high negative expected value except in a few special circumstances (e.g., BS from NoName Branch Cappus to PhD from mit/cmu/stanford. But that's not the typical case for non-immigrants.)

How do?

Grants.

Going to school where college is cheap and/or cost of living is low.

Testing out of classes.

Taking a job where your employer will pay for your education.

Living with relatives while attending school on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Different people work this out different ways. The exact details will vary tremendously.

I have done all of the above at various times. I have nearly six years of college and only ever took out one student loan for a boot camp style summer program where I completed a year-long certificate program in eight weeks.

But who is getting 30k anyways? If that is the stipend of one grad student, you need to double it to get the household of two grad students, and then it is over the median household income. The median income is not poverty

Typical grad stipends outside of top-5 schools are closer to $20K.

$30K is damn close to an upper bound. That's what the tippy-top schools pay the top 1% of students. The few schools that go higher -- AFAIK in CS only NYC+Boston+CA -- are in markets where a single bedroom in a shared house runs $1K+/mo. And in that sort of rental market the federal poverty guideline is rote bullshit.

$16K is perfectly normal for the vast majority of folks who aren't at top 5 programs in the most in-demand field.

> But who is getting 30k anyways? If that is the stipend of one grad student, you need to double it to get the household of two grad students

Yeah but then you subtract child care and someone might as well stay home because it's literally costing them money to work.

I am doing a PhD in Germany and get 54k €

The wage is regulated, everyone who has worked full-time at the university for a few years will earn the same. Although most grad students will earn much less, because most only have a part time position, and finish their thesis sooner.

In the first year without a full-time position, I was getting 20k €

>Yeah but then you subtract child care and someone might as well stay home because it's literally costing them money to work.

In Germany, child care costs between nothing and 500€/month depending on the city (e.g. in Hamburg it is free for 30h/week)

I'm all for people focussing on the humanities in their college career, but most should also be looking at a minor that gives them more concrete job prospects. Or reverse it, and minor in the humanity subject of choice.