I am saying according to al2simon, she will need 16,000+rent. She gets about 24,000. The rent will be more than 8,000 a year. I’ll subsidize the difference. Just bear with me. I hate budgeting.
@Pizzagirl, regarding your retirement post, are your kids grad students? I wasn’t aware that grad students got to contribute to 401ks through their universities. (And if they aren’t, then it is a pretty off topic post – which I normally wouldn’t mention, except that you have been slamming the OP so hard for what I think is a question that doesn’t need a lot of detail – as other posters are in the same situation and may have kids in areas with different costs of living, it is helpful to see a range of answers).
Maybe this is hijacking the thread but can someone clue me in re: graduate school costs. My kids aren’t there yet but for the future possibility I’d like to understand how things work. So, I know law school, med school, MBA cost lots of money. For other graduate school programs, a lot of you are talking about stipends. I also know someone who was accepted to a graduate program and he is getting the stipend plus health insurance so basically paid to go to grad school. Away from the law, med, business school route, are most graduate students attending graduate school for free with a stipend or is this just for specific majors and/or exceptional applicants? Obviously, I’m a little clueless about the ins and outs.
None of my PhD friends are subsidized by parents in any way and all live perfectly fine on their stipends. This is true across universities and in different COL areas.
dos, as a general rule, PhD programs should be funded but the other graduate programs are all over the map with most providing no or little funding. IMO, no one should ever do an unfunded PhD program.
I don’t think she’ll need 16k just for other expenses. 500/month should be more than enough after rent and utilities.
Thanks, @romanigypsyeyes. So it sounds like Master’s degrees a lot of folks fund themselves where PhDs are/should be comped. That’s helpful info.
Assuming one is looking to teach after their PhD, sounds like getting used to living on a budget is good practice. I’ve read a lot recently about the challenging job market for profs with adjuncts and visiting being used a lot as opposed to tenured positions.
For STEM, it is common that students get tuition remission and stipends. $24,000 stipend is typical. It can be less or more. I heard $18,000 to $36,000. So yes, they get paid to go to grad school. That makes it competitive. All accepted students get the benefit, domestic or international.
Sounds like non-STEM is different? Probably due to less research money available?
I think if your DD is getting $24,000 stipend…she should be fine…with occasional help from you.
For clarity, it can be helpful to say PhD or MS students. “Grad” is too broad to make generalizations.
Even most MS students in STEM do not get funding.
dos, I am a non-STEM PhD and almost all of my friends are in the humanities like me. All funded, all doing fine.
I think if your DD is getting $24,000 stipend…she should be fine…with occasional help from you.
I think my kid would need subsidy. I know her food bill is more than 30 a week.
@doshicos, I don’t know much about humanities grad students. I assume it may not be as routine as in STEM.
My D is a history PhD - she gets tuition remission and stipend. There are also extra grants and summer funding to apply for. With careful budgeting, it is plenty for a single person to live on. D has a car (paid for) and has a one br apt. She could save money if she had a roommate, but she’d rather save in other areas so that she can live alone. She does a lot of work at home (studying, writing, grading papers, etc).
D is in her first year. We have helped her with a car repair early in the semester before she had built up any savings. And we are here for any major catastrophe. But she is now “officially” an adult. This is her career, at least for the next 6-7 years, so we expect her to pay her own way. Oh, I lied, we do pay her cell phone bill because she is still on our family plan!
Well, I’d argue that those university research departments are getting a good deal for really cheap labor! But yes, we had health insurance in the days when an HMO co-pay was $5. I never saw a bill during my entire pregnancy and childbirth with D1. Our highest rent we paid after we moved into a two-bedroom was $225! Our one-bedroom ran $175/month. It really was doable with no subsidies from either set of parents, although, like I said, I did qualify for WIC.
And I agree with @romanigypsyeyes, we didn’t know anyone in the Ph.D. programs who were being subsidized by their parents. It’s not to say parents didn’t occasionally pitch in and help out - my parents bought us a new crib when I was pregnant, etc. But no regular funds coming in. I mean, it would have been nice, but we would have felt out of place spending that money on things none of our other friends had. There really is a sense of camaraderie amongst poor graduate students. We realized we had it much better than people in other non Ph.D. graduate programs who got no stipend.
Yes, health insurance is very standard in funding packages. And post-ACA, the insurance packages all seem pretty good. (I know some pre-ACA who had very stingy insurance plans.)
My kid doesn’t eat out often, and she also doesn’t shop at Whole Foods.
This might be useful. It’s Harvard’s estimated living expense budget for Ph.D. students. If I’m understanding it correctly, after prorating up to a 12 month calendar year they estimate expenses for a single student living off-campus to be
$14,640 + travel + utilities + startup expenses + rent + income taxes.
https://www.gsas.harvard.edu/prospective_students/costs_tuition_and_fees.php
P.S. Some unsolicited advice - a bit of frugality is good for the soul of a young graduate student. They’re young, resourceful, and tough. Absent unusual circumstances, I’d be cautious with parental subsidies … it’s always easier for kids to get used to having more money to spend; it’s much harder for them to learn how to live thriftily if they don’t start that way. Besides, you wouldn’t want to deprive them of the ability to lecture their own children about their days suffering as a “starving” graduate student 
How long does it usually take to get a PhD, 4-5 years? Or does it really vary depending on the area of study?
Depends on the area of study.
For my field (history-ish), a 5 year funding package is pretty typical but the average completion time is around 6 years. If you have to learn a foreign language or build an archive, that is obviously going to expand. (My program unofficially guarantees about 7 years worth of funding but this is atypical.)
OTOH, most of my STEMy friends seem to have much more defined paths and are typically out in ~5 years.