CHE: Why I’m Planning to Leave My Ph.D. Program

[Ruralguy]

Well that is absolutely true, but that's what the opportunities are if one wants to stay in academia. There really isn't much you can do about that.

[simpleSimon]

Who Can Live on a Ph.D. Stipend?
By Eric Weiskott

Last summer I began an endless project: gathering comprehensive, up-to-date information about English Ph.D. stipends around the United States. I wanted to quantify the widespread perception that doctoral candidates are not earning stipends commensurate with their contributions to research, teaching, and service at their universities. To that end, I scrolled through program websites, emailed directors of graduate studies and graduate-school administrators, and polled current Ph.D. candidates. As the numbers rolled in, I compiled a spreadsheet to compute averages, medians, and ratios...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-can-live-on-a-ph-d-stipend

[Hibush]

Who Can Live on a Ph.D. Stipend?
By Eric Weiskott

Last summer I began an endless project: gathering comprehensive, up-to-date information about English Ph.D. stipends around the United States. I wanted to quantify the widespread perception that doctoral candidates are not earning stipends commensurate with their contributions to research, teaching, and service at their universities. To that end, I scrolled through program websites, emailed directors of graduate studies and graduate-school administrators, and polled current Ph.D. candidates. As the numbers rolled in, I compiled a spreadsheet to compute averages, medians, and ratios...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-can-live-on-a-ph-d-stipend

That article references a similar effort in biology by a acouple of grad students. https://www-nature-com/articles/d41586-022-01392-w

The biology one definitely affects graduate recruiting in my field. My school is on the higher end, but we do pay biology grad students more than English grad students as this article describes.

My threshold right now is about $30,000 as the minimum a doctoral student should accept. Schools offering less than that are simply not competitive, and need to change their approach or lose their grad program. The latter will happen because informed and prepared students will shun those programs and the program quality will decline to the point that it is unsustainable. It will not require any policy imposed from outside.

I think North Carolina and Auburn looked really bad in the comparison, and they have made changes, at least in my field. Florida appears to be shifting as well (home to one of the authors of the bio comparison). UF aspires to be a top research school, and they can't claim that with the stipends they had.

We'll see how things go in English. Publishing the data makes a real difference in institutional policy and grad student decision.