A few thoughts on the "recommended" budget for PhD students

Let’s talk about money.

We all know PhD students don’t make much. But because we don’t make much, we get certain benefits like not paying tax on our income, getting student discounts, and not accumulating interest on our student loans. All the same, managing finances during a PhD can be very difficult.

I’m very lucky to have a scholarship that pays for my tuition and provides me with a stipend. For the 2019/2020 school year, my estimated stipend is 17,009 GBP (20,650 USD at the current exchange rate). Most of the students in my program are on a stipend of a similar value.

If we assume that a PhD is normal 40 hour a week job, then I’d make 8.17 GBP/hr (9.96 USD/hr). This is just under the minimum wage in the UK for anyone above the age of 25, which is 8.21 GBP/hr (10.02 USD/hr), but well over the minimum wage for 21-24 year-olds, which is 7.70 GBP/hr (9.39 USD/hr). I’m 24 so I guess I can’t complain, but then again, there are only 5 students in my cohort who are currently 24 or younger.

Getting by on a student stipend requires some serious budgeting. Thankfully, my university is kind enough to provide an anticipated student budget on its financial services website. Based on their estimates for rent, food, household goods, insurance, personal items, leisure items, travel to and from university, and books an equipment, a student needs 20,070 GBP each year.

Wait a second…20,070 GBP?

But my stipend is only 17,009 GBP!

Where is this other 3,061 GBP supposed to come from?

Okay, let’s look at this a different way. What if we start with the absolute essentials? How much money do I have left after rent, food, travel to and from university, and household goods?

I’ve got 1,929 GBP left to spend on insurance, personal items, leisure items, books and equipment. That should be more than enough, right?

Well…maybe. As a grad student, I travel to conferences at least once a year. I’m often asked to pay the cost of registration fees, flights, or hotels up front and told that I will be reimbursed later. This can be well over 1,000 GBP and the reimbursement process can take months. If I go to two conferences in a short amount of time, I probably won’t have enough to cover the costs.

My university also prides itself in being a “global university”. Many of its students aren’t British nationals. If I want to make it home for the holidays or for an important family event, I could be dropping anywhere from 400-800 GBP on a plane ticket – and I’m from a country with fairly frequent and relatively cheap flights in and out of London.

The budget provided also makes a lot of assumptions that don’t make sense for most PhD students. They estimate rent as 210 GBP / wk. But they don’t include an estimate for utilities or WiFi. Are we supposed to assume that bills are included in that 210 GBP rent? Or are those considered “personal items”? Additionally, they budget travel to and from university as 24.00 GBP / wk. That’s not even enough to cover the cost of a Zone 1-2 travel card in London, which is 24.50 GBP / wk. Even if we suppose that is was enough to cover that cost, this means you’ve found an apartment for 210 GBP / wk with bills included within Zone 2…good luck with that! It also means that they don’t anticipate you ever travelling outside of Zone 2, which seems pretty unlikely.

Now, I understand that there are ways of getting money aside from a stipend. I can teach or work part time. However, as an overseas student, I have to worry about visa requirements (a different can of worms entirely) which severely limits the kind of work I can do and the hours I can work. Also, because I have a biology-based PhD, my schedule changes drastically from week to week - finding a time to consistently work a part time gig would be nearly impossible.

If I have a stipend, it should cover my cost of living (without the need for additional work) and it should be sufficient to cover the budget provided by my university, right?

And in all honesty, I’m fine. I follow a budget of my own design and I make my stipend work for me. I’ve been able to pay off some of the interest on my student loans back in the US using my stipend, but I doubt I’ll even be able to make much of a difference on the actual loans themselves. I won’t be able to save for retirement on my stipend. In fact, I won’t really be able to have any sort of savings.

And I’m a single student without dependents. This has to be way more difficult for non-traditional students, student who are parents, students who are caretakers for their parents, students with medical conditions, etc.

All in all, PhD students exist in this weird limbo between students and employees. We’re expected to perform like employees, but we’re not really paid like employees. It only makes this process more confusing. Sure, I’ll have a doctorate when all is said and done, but will it really be worth it?