<p>I know that only 13% of low income students eventually graduate from college, but what percent of low income students eventually get a PhD? I tried searching this but I could not find it. I’m just wondering.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I’d like to know this as well.</p>
<p>I think a major variable in getting a PhD is the question of, “Do I NEED a PhD in order to do the type of work I want to do?” Many college graduates do quite well with a Bachelor’s degree and see no need to go any higher, regardless of prior family income.</p>
<p>I’m not rich by any stretch at all, but I plan to go for a Masters, and then go to work after that.</p>
<p>I am low income by all standards of measure. My Dad does have money, but I do not see any of it, and have been considered an independent student for the last 3 years. I am graduating with my B.A. next year in Sociology and I am 100% sure I want to get a PhD. I just hope I will have done enough to get into a program at a good school with full funding.</p>
<p>Right, but it would still be interesting to know what % of low income students will eventually get a PhD considering only 13% of low income students eventually get a B.S. or B.A.</p>
<p>Well maybe I will do a study on that for my senior honors research project in Sociology.</p>
<p>I found this topic hilarious. By virtue of our career paths, Phd students are by definition low income. My stipend scrapes the top end of the poverty line. Postdocs make a bit less than public elementary school teachers. At least everybody is in roughly the same financial position.</p>
<p>I would like to modify the OP to this:</p>
<p>While it is a confirmed fact that only 13% of students who come from low income families eventually earn a Bachelor’s degree or higher in their lifetime, what is the percentage of students who come from low income families who eventually earn a PhD? A low income family is defined as a family who makes less than $45,000 US Dollars per year. </p>
<p>I would like to define a low-income family as one who makes less than $45,000 US Dollars per year. I would also like to change my question from “low income students” to “students coming from low income families.” The reason for this is obvious. A student who does not work and therefore has an income of $0 per year but comes from a family who makes over $200,000 in US Dollars per year still has an advantage in terms of resources than a student who has a part-time job that pays minimum wage who comes from a family that makes less than $45,000 US Dollars a year.</p>
<p>Also is it safe to assume that most international PhD students come from low income families?</p>
<p>only 13% of low income graduate from college? that seems awfully low. Where did you get this statistic from?</p>
<p>When I said 13%, I meant 13% of students who come from all income families. I don’t mean to say out of all students who attempted college only 13% of them graduate. Some students from low income schools don’t even graduate from high school.</p>
<p>13% of low income students eventually get a Bachelor’s degree or higher in their lifetime. The other 87% drop out of college or never attempted college.</p>
<p>Can you share your sources with us? </p>
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You do realize that you are declaring half of the US population as low income?</p>
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What’s your definition of low income in an international context: are we using income percentiles or absolute numbers? $45K would make you upper class in many countries, not least because of biased exchange rates.</p>
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Let’s not forget that Associate degrees are college degrees too and plenty of preparation for a variety of skilled jobs, from accounting to nursing to software engineering.</p>
<p>* By virtue of our career paths, PhD students are by definition low income. My stipend scrapes the top end of the poverty line.*</p>
<p>It’s a temporary poverty, and it’s not at all like the structural disadvantage of growing up low-income. The majority of PhD students come from middle-class backgrounds with middle-class values and upbringings; and the majority of us will return to that middle-class lifestyle in the variety of positions we take (most professors are middle-class, and the range of industry jobs we can take are mostly middle-class or upper-middle-class). This “temporarily poor” situation is not at all akin to growing up in poverty and having that disadvantage upon you your entire life.</p>
<p>Also, I’m interested to know where you go that your stipend is less than $11,000. The poverty line for a single person in the United States is between $10K and $11K. The average graduate stipend is between $20K and $30K, so the majority of doctoral students who are funded will be higher than the federal poverty line for a family of 4 - although it’s certainly not as comfortable to live in some of the higher-priced cities in the U.S.</p>
<p>As for the definition - yes, that’s the median salary in the U.S., but considering that a lot of social service organizations use 200% of the poverty line as their starting point for “low-income” that’s not that far off (that’s $44,750 for a family of four). Some say 150% (which is $33,525 for a family of four - the Department of Education uses this), and I’ve also seen 80% of the median (which is $36,000).</p>
<p>[NCCP</a> | Explanations of Terms and Data Sources](<a href=“http://www.nccp.org/tools/demographics/definitions.php]NCCP”>http://www.nccp.org/tools/demographics/definitions.php)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/incomelevels.html[/url]”>http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/incomelevels.html</a></p>
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<p>I’d say most of the international PhDs I’ve known would fall under wealthy even by US standards.</p>
<p>To add some anecdotal evidence: I’m low income and was just accepted into a Phd program strait out of undergrad.</p>
<p>Applying for PhD’s certainly favors the rich. It is so much easier to not have to worry about app fees, gre fees, and working multiple jobs while going through the process. Not to mention not having to worry about funding IN grad school.</p>
<p>There is nothing fair about coming from a low income family.</p>
<p>But I would say a PhD is definitely more accessible to disadvantaged students than medical school for example… Though this might depend on the field. I’m in biosciences. There are scholarships and fellowships available for undergraduate research and funding in grad school should be guaranteed in most programs.</p>
<p>My point is simply this: I’m sure there is a disparity between rich and poor in terms of % who go to grad school, but I bet that disparity is much greater in professional programs like medical school.</p>