How much does a graduate student need to live on?

Wow… that is ridiculous. Twice the cost of most other schools. Just checked, looks like Michigan State is $2,293 per year. So it isn’t a location/state issue.

I wonder how many students buy the plan. The large majority of undergrads come from families making 100k+ and it would seem that many (most?) of them would be adequately covered under a parents’ plan.

Low-income, in-state students qualify for subsidized plans with their families which would cost WAY less than that 4k. If their parents don’t claim them as dependents then they would more than likely qualify for Medicaid because it would be based just on their income.

I just looked up my kids’ school insurance cost. One was a little more than I thought @ $2800. The other is $1700. These are both small LACs. I would have thought a school as big as UMich would be even lower considering the sheer number of students and buying power/larger pool.

I think I paid about $1k plus for decent student under health insurance for S when he was aging off H’s family policy. The term was 12 months and it included Rx. It wasn’t as good as H’s. It was pre-ACA–2010. It did have excellent catastropic coverage. Fortunately, we never made any claims under it and S was able to re-qualify under H’d policy under after a year, until he aged out at 26.

The annual plan for an under age 25 is a bit less than $2000. This is UW Madison. No difference apparent between under grad and grad.

Income isn’t necessarily the deciding factor in whether you have adequate health insurance to get a waiver. OOS students often don’t have very good out of network coverage, for example, so may need to puchase it.

I was just giving that as a reason for why many students might not be purchasing the insurance… not necessarily that it would apply to all of them :slight_smile:

U of M does have a health fee included in student fees which covers visits to UHS and a wide range of other services. I’m not sure how that factors in to whether or not OOS students have to or may buy U of M’s insurance.

Fascinating thread. My D is now weighing the pros and cons of starting a PhD program (she has the master’s.) She’s currently earning a very nice salary, so she’s trying to decide whether foregoing said nice salary for 4-5 years, plus whatever she’d lose as part of her matched 401K, bonsues & stocks would be eventually compensated with higher PhD earnings. Given that only 1 out of 5 STEM PhDs get tenure-track jobs, and that having a PhD might make her overqualified for a lot of tech industry jobs, it’s really a tough call. She’s currently living in NYC, has grad school interviews in cheaper cities, but would have to buy a car if she leaves NY. She’s a young lady with some expensive tastes (she’ll deny it, but she totally has a shoe fetish, plus tends to eat out a lot!) so grad school will mean a major lifestyle change…

^ If she is interested in a tech industry job outside of biotech [ i.e in .S.V.] she probably does NOT need a PhD.
If she wants to be a college prof, she MUST have a PhD, but yes the chances of getting tenure are not like they were in the “good old days” . Adjunct profs are a dime a dozen.

In the little world I am in, I have rarely worked with anyone with PhD.

For biotechies… For many biotech R&D (especially R!) leadership positions, a PhD is a must. But don’t count on getting that PhD in 5-6 years and getting back into industry right after that. She will likely have to do 1-2 years of postdoc after grad school. She will also have to look strategically for labs and PIs that have industry connection. Some academicians are too focused on pure science and despise industry. Consequentially, graduates from those labs have a hard time finding industrial positions.

“In the little world I am in, I have rarely worked with anyone with PhD.”

Me neither. It’s certainly not seen as anything worth paying extra for or evidence of greater smarts or anything. It’s just kind of a curiosity on a resume. it may be different in different fields.

My H is in research for a tech/media company and he hires PhD’s exclusively for researcher level positions. His current group includes PhDs in Industrial psychology, ethnographics, user experience and user-centered design.

@megpmom, how many PhDs does he hire vs. Master’s degrees? Do you know?

@menloparkmom, @oldfort, @BunsenBurner, @Pizzagirl – thanks for your insights. Daughter is aware of all these aspects of a PhD. She was especially thoughtful after several of the PhDs in her lab told her, “If I had to do it over, I’d get an MBA after my Master’s, and not the PhD.”

My husband was a university professor and Dean for years before leaving academics, so we’re familiar how it differs today from “the good old days.” But we’re not familiar with the world of pharma/biotech R&D, where my daughter currently works. We don’t plan to advise her, per se, (she seems pretty well informed - and this has to be her decision) but it’s good to hear what in-the-know people think about this choice.

In pharma/biotech, there are usually two career tracks: science leadership ladder and executive ladder. If you look at the profiles of bigger biotech companies on Yahoo Stocks, you will see that many C-level execs do not have a “Ph.D.” after their names: CEOs, COOs, VPs of Marketing, etc. However, there are not many examples of CSOs, VPs of R&D, etc. without an MD or a PhD. The main trick is to make the jump between the ladders, which probably means your D will need to get away from the bench and go into marketing, sales, compliance, QA, etc. Then an MBA will be quite helpful for her to begin her climb to the top. She does not have to quit her job to get an MBA; there are many excellent night MBA programs, like the one offered by my local flagship. There are tech management MBA programs as well that hold classes on weekends and certain weeknights. I am sure she can find excellent options in NYC! With her science background, subjects like microeconomics, statistics, linear programming, supply chain management, end even accounting will be a piece of cake. :slight_smile:

One more point: assuming she is currently at the bench, the sooner she makes the lateral move into a non-bench position, the better. Even entry-level positions require some relevant, e.g., marketing, experience, but if no suitable candidates are found, the preference will be given to a recent college grad without marketing experience over someone who has spent years at the bench. The assumption is that it is easier to train a recent college grad.

That was really, really helpful, Bunsen. Great food for thought. Thanks. (Copy & pasting it into an email do D.)

Is CEOs COOs VPs of marketing considered to be better than CSOs or VPs of R&D?

No, just different career tracks. Sometimes, there is overlap and duplication of functions, especially in smaller companies.

Eons ago, there was a biotech career consultant who ran a website with a wealth of advice. Sadly, I can no longer find it. I hope he retired…

Biospace became more commercialized, too, but some of the canned stuff they link to could be helpful:

http://www.biospace.com/resources.aspx