I'm 32 years old, and returning to school to finish my undergrad with the intention of grad school afterwards. A grad school salary is a starvation wage that would be tolerable if it were just me, not so much now that I have a family. Which is fine -- I'll pay my way though grad school and study part time. Thankfully my field of interest is one where this kind of arrangement isn't so unusual.

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.

You're definitely right about it being structured to assume you followed the traditional path. That said, top schools will pay grad students about the US median salary ($35k/yr). Other schools potentially much less. Whether the US median salary is itself a starvation wage is, I suppose, another question.

I have a relative at West Virginia University who is paid $32k while doing a bio PhD. Not a top school, not terrible money given the low cost of living.

This doesn't seem quite right to me. $35k seems like a big overestimate, outside of very high CoL areas or the richer private institutions. Top-ranked public institutions will offer more like $20-25k because they can get away with it due to prestige. Lower ranked schools seemingly have to offer more to try to attract students.

Here are the current grad student salaries at UC Davis [1].

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...

You were slightly shocked because you are misunderstanding the table. Those are FTE (full-time equivalent salaries). The actual students work at most 50% time (during the 9 month academic year), so get at most half the amounts listed there.

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...

there's gotta be something weird going on here. either they are rolling "tuition" waivers into this, or they are quoting salaries for 40 hours but the actual positions are paid at 20 hours (on paper).

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 think it is FTE 40 hour salaries, based on the linked pdf.

I can confirm that $20-25k at top public schools is about right circa 10 years ago, and that $35k is currently about right at a top Ivy League (both for math).

I’m 32 and planning to attend a PhD program. I don’t have kids I am single and I’m fine living off a graduate student wage. I find research much more satisfying than what I’ve done in industry and am looking forward to the opportunity.

All I can say is, good luck.

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.

Having just finished a 10 year PhD stint, I second this advice. It is absolutely critical to have a supportive department, secure funding sources, and an advisor with whom you can work well. If any of those is not the case, it’s a recipe for a bad time.