You are "fairly sure" but very wrong. Let us clarify (all of the following is about French PhD programmes).

1. The criteria for selecting a student for a PhD are publicly established by each doctoral school. They do not require any justification of income/wealth.

2. PhD students are not required to sign any contract or to be paid any salary.

2.1. Some of them have a "doctoral contract" (a new thing created in 2009 specially for PhD students), some are public servants, some have signed regular employment contracts of three years specifically for the PhD. However, a large part do not get any benefit from the doctoral school: they are either unemployed, or have a job unrelated to their PhD.

2.2. The director of the doctoral school is supposed to check that all conditions, including financial ones, are met so the student can work well.

* * *

Addendum:

- At the beginning of the 2000s, 30% of students dropping out of their PhD said it was "for financial reasons" [1].

- PhD students are almost always enrolled in a university, or in an institution related to the doctoral school. This is about 500€/year if you are lucky enough to be French, but can go up to 7000€/year if you are from outside the EU.

- Some institutions, for instance some Écoles des Mines or the École Polytechnique, still pay PhD students an "informal salary" without any employment contract [2]. This is in a grey zone, legally speaking.

* * *

[1] Philippe Moguérou, Jake Murdoch, Jean-Jacques Paul. "Les déterminants de l’abandon en thèse", 10es Journées d'études Céreq, 2003-05-23. http://web.archive.org/web/20070928014312/http://www.cereq.f...

[2] Anne Jouan. "Des doctorants étrangers travaillent encore au noir", Le Figaro, 2008-10-20. http://www.lefigaro.fr/formation/2008/10/20/01015-20081020AR...

Okay. In my doctoral school and the 3 or 4 other that I know of (because friends are there) it's not possible to register as a PhD student without an income justification (you of course don't need to provide it if you are paid by state or one of the universities/school to which the doctoral school is attached). I wasn't entirely sure if it was just a coincidence or if it was the law. Thanks for clarifying this.

BTW, just saw your webpage: hi from an Ulmite to a Cachanais ;).

Hi back, and thank you for sharing your personal story. This confirms that some doctoral school directors actually enforce this verification of financial situation.

De Normalien à Normalien, bravo pour Ulm, moi j'étais même pas admissible ;-)

The director of my doctoral school is Christian Queinnec, of Lisp fame, and yes, he really is a great person.

Sinon, j'ai pas passé le concours :-p, j'étais étudiant au département informatique là bas, entré sur dossier après deux ans de fac d'informatique à Marseille. Anyway en informatique Cachan ou à Ulm à part la première année on fait vraiment la même chose :-).

There is a cultural difference in whether PhD studies are seen as an add-on education after normal university studies, or if it is an employment as a teacher+researcher.

In Sweden it's the latter, so students are employed as PhD students and get a salary (though usually not very competitive compared to what you would make if working elsewhere).

The fact that the PhD students spend a lot of time teaching and not only educating themselves and working towards their thesis is what makes take around 5 years, rather than, say 3 years.

I'm a PhD student in Sweden. I'm expected to work 20% of my time for the University (teaching duties, conference organisation, mentoring new phd students). I'm getting payed a little bit lower than what the industry would pay. It's possible that salaries in the industry would also raise quicker. My PhD is supposed to take 4 years of research, but add in the 20% and you have 5 years.

I have very high job security and a salary that's a bit lower than a coder/consultant starting salary. Also, my work is much more interesting (to me) than what it would have been out there. It's a great deal for me, but YMMV.

> I'm getting payed a little bit lower than what the industry would pay.

You mean for a "normal" (if I may) industry job or for doing a PhD within the industry?

Because before starting my PhD, the salaries that I've been proposed by recruiters from various companies were more like the double (and sometimes more, like with Google or high frequency trading firms) of what I'm making as a PhD student (but for a way less fun job, as you say).

In Germany I get paid around 3.500 Euro brutto per Month for pursuing my PhD at my university. Same conditions as the parent post: expected duration 5 years, 20% work time dedicated to university,...

That's around ~44.000 Euros per year (including perks).

I interviewed in 4 companies before deciding to go for the PhD (all engineering jobs). The salaries varied from 45.000 to 55.000 Euros brutto per year, with one offer at 60.000 Euros.

Friends working in industry make around 50.000 Euros which matches with my experience. Making a bit less for working in _your_ PhD is a really good deal here. If you find the right PhD for you it can be very gratifying (plus you are working for yourself). OTOH my friends in industry work way less hours than I do, so if I had a family I would probably had never gone the PhD way.

Ya, it seems to be the same as in France then: PhD students here have a real work contract and a student status (which comes as anywhere with many advantages). However we have mostly 3 years long PhDs, and the teaching hours are limited.

The law actually states the minimum salary for a PhD student. It is approximately 1650€ "brut" (before social taxes) which amounts to 1350€ "net" (what you actually get each month). If you have a "mission d'enseignement" (teaching hours), which is not mandatory, then you have to be teaching for 64 hours per years (that is not counting the time you spend preparing for the course or the time spent correcting students assignments of course) and should not occupy more than 1/6 of your working time. Your salary is then 2000€ "brut", which amounts 1650€ "net".

Public PhD funding almost always stays at this level of salary. However you can be paid more than this, for instance if you are paid on a project grant money or if you are in CIFRE (which means you are paid by a company for which you have to spend a defined part of your time, this is often but not always incompatible with having a "mission d'enseignement"). But then your a lot less free to do whatever you want (since the project or the company mst of the time have strongly fixed goals).

I assume you mean staff status? Mine was great - as they cancelled my astronomical library fines.

Astronomical library fines, really? I never heard of library fines that were more than a few dozen of euros for student. Well I guess that is yet another advantage of being in France that I didn't even knew I had :-).

But no I did meant student status, which means most museums are free for instance, and discounts for many things such as public transportations, movie theaters, etc.

On my undergrad budget, 142EUR was astronomical. That was my food budget for over a month. Ah, the penniless days of yore.

Ok, yes that's quite big. I was speaking more about something between 20 and 40€, which are part of the 100 to 200€ yearly tuition fees.

I know of some people that paid for their PhD (UK) only to be "recommended" to not continue and leaving with an MPhil.

This could happen in the US as well, if I'm not mistaken. There is normally a requirement that you have to be in "good standing" during the first one or two years of your PhD when you're mostly doing course work.

Yes, I have a sneaking suspicion that an MPhil (= failed PhD in a lot of fields, so useless) is sometimes being sold as a PhD experience to people that are simply not good enough.

Same here in the Netherlands. Nearly free? How about a salary of €2000 - 2700 per month? Base salary for a policeman or school teacher is ~ €1900

> I didn't know that people were paying to do a PhD anywhere on earth.

Some universities ask for tuition fee.

Right but that's usually very low, isn't it? I mean if it's approximately a tenth of what you get paid by month and you have to pay it only once per year (which is the case for France), it doesn't really count as paying to do a PhD.

Some universities do not really fund a student. They are low but I have heard of such cases. I was surprised and I find it quite weird. I wonder if students actually take up such an option.

At least in the USA, it often depends on whether your PI is on the ball with regard to grant applications, or if they're getting hit by the current rash of funding problems and you end up bouncing between a series of loans and TA appointments.

It is the same at least in UK, Spain and Portugal for science PhDs.