Graduate students are the engine that keep scientific discovery alive. During the duration of
their graduate program, students typically work as research or teaching assistants and therefore
compensated with tuition remission and a salary. These salaries are often insufficient to support
an individual; many students are only able to survive because of family or spouse assistance,
secondary sources of income (prohibited on most RA/TA contracts and for international students),
fellowships, or going into debt.
This dataset was initially collected for graduate stipend negotiations within the Department of
Biology at the University of Florida; however, after
feedback on my tweet,
we decided to expand this dataset via crowd-sourcing.
Add additional Universities to our dataset via our Google Form.
This dataset is currently incomplete and we hope it will improve with time. We hope this dataset
will help others advocate for a living wage.
Did your program decide to increase salaries?
Update our database (and make my day) using this
Google Form.
We manually check every submission before adding it to our main datasheet, please allow 36 - 72 hours
for your entry to appear.
If you find any errors, please let us know
via our other Google Form.
A link to the full dataset can be found below.
This work was recently featured in
Nature
and
Science.
Department Word Cloud
Each department name is sized by how many times it appears in the live sheet.
Entries by State
The map shades states from light red to dark red based on the number of sheet entries.
Universities by Category
Each mini-chart shows the number of unique universities represented in each category value.
Salary Comparisons
Compare annual guaranteed salaries to the selected living-cost source, then place a selected university on the same spectrum.
Click any selected-university category below to turn that matching filter on or off.
Plotted points:-
Active filters limit both salary plots to universities with matching category values.
Distribution
Both distributions are binned on the same dollar scale, with dashed lines for means and a solid blue marker for the selected university.
Mean annual salary-
Selected university salary-
Mean MIT living wage-
Selected university MIT living wage-
Annual guaranteed salaryMIT living wageSelected university salarySelected university MIT living wage
Salary to Living Cost
Here we examine the relationship between guaranteed annual salary and the selected living-cost benchmark for a single adult with no children. Some institutions have multiple stipend rates depending on stage in the program, but for this comparison the starting salary is used.
Justification: These living-cost values are annual, and this dashboard also treats annual guaranteed salary as annual even when the appointment term is 9 months. If a program is only legally contracted for 9 months and summer funding is not guaranteed, many students may still be expected to continue research while outside work is discouraged, and international student visa rules can further limit outside employment.
Plot information: The selected university is highlighted with a gold star. The dashed diagonal is the 1:1 ratio between salary and the chosen living-cost source, and the dark regression line summarizes the filtered points currently shown.
Navigating the plot: Use the mouse wheel or trackpad to zoom and drag to pan. Double click to reset the view.
Briefly, the basic needs budget (or annual family budget when childchare is included) equals the sum of: (1) food cost; (2) health costs, which are equal to insurance premiums plus out of pocket health care costs; (3) housing cost (based on HUD Fair Market Rents estimates); (4) transportation cost; (5) other necessities cost (i.e., clothing, personal care, and housekeeping supplies); (6) civic engagement (based on the Consumer Price Index); & (7) broadband which is the cost of cell phone service and internet.
The living annual wage is then equal to the basic needs budget (or annual family budget) plus tax, which is equal to simply the basic needs budget*(Federal tax rate + State tax rate).
What is the EPI Family Budget?
The Economic Policy Institute Family Budget Calculator estimates local annual budgets using county and metro-level costs for housing, food, transportation, health care, other necessities, childcare, and taxes.
For this dashboard, the comparable EPI measure is the annual total for 1p0c, which corresponds to one parent with no children. We use the county-level file where possible so the EPI comparison stays geographically specific.
Why didn't you adjust for subsidized housing?
A small subset of programs have subsidized housing available. If you are a prospective student, we suggest checking program websites for high-cost areas to learn more about potential subsidized housing opportunities.
Why didn't you deduct health insurance costs from the MIT estimates?
Many programs provide some form of health insurance, but we decided not to modify the total health costs included in the MIT calculation.
Based on the information provided regarding health costs in the detailed breakdown of the MIT Living Wage calculator, it seems health insurance cost is only a chunk of the total costs in this category. For a single adult, health insurance cost is calculated at a State level, we found that this value's maximum is $1,838 and its minimum is $736 annually. Though deducting this cost from the basic needs budget may make a difference for programs very close to the 1:1 line between salary and living wage, we did not find this adjustment made much difference in the overall trends of the current dataset.
Additionally, many program's annual reported fees are also within the same cost range. Therefore, adding fees to the basic needs budget and deducting health insurance costs would likely result in only slight (<$1000) shifts in the total cost of living.
Example:
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (as of 2022)
Basic information
Annual Salary: $18,650
MIT Basic Needs Budget: $27,664
Taxes: $4,485
Living Wage: $32,148
Salary/Living: 0.580
Adjustment calculation
MIT Health Insurance Cost: $1,581.36
Annual Fees (tuition fees, health insurance deduction): $1,165.28
Calculated Adjustment: $416.08
Final adjustment
Adjusted MIT Basic Needs Budget: $27,248
Adjusted Taxes: $4,417.56
Adjusted Living Wage: $31,665.56
Adjusted Salary/Living: 0.588
How do the data collected here compare to the PhD Stipends database?
The PhD Stipends database has observations for universities and departments included in our dataset and reported for 2019-2026. This database reports overall pay as the sum of 12 month, 9 month, and 3 month reported income minus the cost of fees. Since we do not account for fees in our dataset, we adjusted the overall pay to be equal to overall pay plus fees.
Here we show the mean difference between the PhD Stipends database adjusted overall pay and our annual guaranteed salary. Positive values most likely represent summer appointments, fellowships, or other opportunities that would increase overall salaries. Negative values may represent recently increased salaries, however these may be incorrectly reported salaries or may represent master student's salary.
Preparing comparison...
How far is our salary from the MIT Living Wage?
Here we show the dollar distance between annual guaranteed salary and MIT Living Wage for each university-department entry in the current dataset. Positive values indicate salary above living wage; negative values indicate salary below living wage.
How far is our salary from the EPI Family Budget?
Here we show the dollar distance between annual guaranteed salary and the EPI Family Budget annual total for 1p0c for each university-department entry in the current dataset. Positive values indicate salary above the EPI benchmark; negative values indicate salary below it.
Data use: We encourage you to use our dataset, but please cite your source by linking this site! If you use our data, work with us and make sure to let us know if you find any errors or updates.
"The Motivation and Strategy Behind Biology PhD Stipends". 05-15-2023. Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast with Dr. Emily Roberts, Season 14, Episode 10
"Dataset indicates most universities pay biology Ph.D. stipends below living wage". 03-24-2024. The Crimson White
Dataset Description
We identified the salary and appointment term. If summer was mandatory in a department, but the term was only 9 months, we included the summer minimum in the annual guaranteed salary, which is used in all plots and calculations. We identified the Carnegie Classification for all Universities included (R1 = Very High Research Activity, R2 = High Research Activity). UF is a member of the Association of American Universities, therefore we identified if each university was a current member . UF is also a land-grant institution, which can influence federal funding, so we identified if each university was established as a land-grant institution. Additional columns include Public/Private status, source of current stipend rate (ie. url), comments, and geographic location (State and City). We used the geographic information to identify the MIT Living Wage.
Column
Description
University
Name of university.
Department
Name of department.
Salary
Salary based on appointment term.
Appointment term
Length of contracted appointment.
Summer support guaranteed
Whether summer appointment is required or included for every student.
Annual guaranteed salary
Appointment salary plus summer minimum when guaranteed.
Carnegie Classification
Research classification for each university.
AAU
Association of American Universities membership.
Land Grant
Land-grant status.
Public
Public or private status.
State / City / County
Geographic information.
MIT Living Wage
MIT Living Wage for a single adult with no children for the listed geography.
Salary/Living
Annual guaranteed salary divided by MIT Living Wage.
Graduate.Union
Whether the university has a graduate student union.
Last.Modified
Date modified since August 2022.
Citations
Glasmeier, Amy K. Living Wage Calculator. 2023. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. livingwage.mit.edu.
Thank you to Dr. Anna Savage (University of Central Florida) and the EEB Stipend Google Sheet (Dr. Andy Kern) for directing me to stipend information for numerous universities. There are many others to thank, including the many who contributed to this dataset!
Thank you to numerous faculty for their feedback on this dataset. Thanks to Mike Belitz and Caitlin Campbell for their edits. Big thanks to Dr. Jose Miguel Ponciano!
We would also like to thank Alyssa Phillips for the UC updates!
If you plan to use this data in research, please contact shellyleegaynor @ gmail.com.
We encourage you to use our dataset, but please cite your source by linking this site! If you use our data, work with us and make sure to let us know if you find any errors or updates