why are econ stipends so low?

[uwecon85]

Why are econ grad stipends so low compared to engin, sciences, even some other soft sciences?

 

It seems like people in other fields are getting around 20-30ish on average while my stipend was like 10.5k

[486hunter]

A few points:

 

(1) 20-30k is high, even for the hard sciences. 10.5k is a nice stipend but it's probably on the low end for econ. So the difference is not as large as you suggest.

 

(2) Hard science departments are much more profitable for a university than social science departments. In addition, hard science graduates are, on average, a little bit more marketable in the non-academic sector compared to similarly credentials Econ graduates (there are exceptions, I know).

[uwecon85]

1) 20-30k high? for engin? LOL NO. My friend is getting nearly 30k as a CS grad. I got 10.5 teaching 4 sections of 24 [removed by mod] UGs who didn't give a [removed by mod] about econ. [removed by mod] per hour pay if you ask me (although i only worked maybe 7 hours per week on it).

2) Economics is mostly useless. I know this. However, those who enter a graduate program in econ are usually majors in math, cs, engin, stat, etc. They can be making a lot of money if they didn't go to grad school. Those who finish graduate school in econ make tons of money compared to those who finish in hard sciences (except physics guys who sell out for quant jobs). The average transfer pricing or consulting gig is like 100k+

[uwecon85]

The Chronicle: Stipends for Graduate Assistants, 2003-4

[uwecon85]

I guess econ depts use econ to make sure econ grads get w = mpl or whatever they teach at the ug level. actually no. cause the mpl of teaching 100 UG students (many in business) should be higher. it's probably some absurd game where for some subset of players taking a low wage is a signal of how badly they want to suffer for the phd.

[jeeves0923]

At top institutions, econ stipends far exceed the 10.5 number. I believe this year we had:

37 at Stanford

36 at Yale

26 at Princeton

28? at Harvard

23 at Berkeley

20 at NWU

20+ at Chicago

 

... This is pretty good.

Even given all of the schools with lower stipends, the process is still extremely competitive. Perhaps hard sciences and engineering people have a low supply and the institutions have a high demand for those students. Seems pretty straightforward to me...

[unitroot]

uwecon85,

 

I don't think that you can base your inference on econ stipends vs other specialties just based on your experiences at one university. Specially, if it'ss UW. It is a special case.

 

First, UW's econ department seems to be specially stingy. They offer something like 12K or sometimes less per year. This is not comparable to what students get paid at other schools. I have friends who are PhD students at big public universities in the midwest and southwest. They typically get paid between 15 and 18K per year. Most of them live in small college towns with reasonable living costs. In the light of this, UW's funding of its economics students is outrageously bad.

 

Next, UW is basically "almost" the top university in computer science. If you rank the top computer science departments in the united states, it would look like this:

 

Tier 1:

 

Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, CMU

 

Tier 2: University of Washington, UIUC, Cornell, Caltech

 

Tier 3: everything else

 

(this might be crude, but that's how my CS friends rank them based on their preferences).

 

Basically, UW's computer science department, unlike their economics department, competes with the top or almost-top CS departments for the best students. And therefore, their CS stipends tend to be good. UW is also a good place to study engineering overall. If UW had a top 10 economics department, then I bet it would have to offer much better stipends.

 

Next, the opportunity costs are different. The opportunity cost of attending graduate school for CS and engineering students is much higher. Most of the stuff that they spent 4-5 years studying in college is directly applicable in well defined areas in business, whereas 9 out of 10 economics students have not taken much courses that are directly applicable to most jobs out there. And so, the employment opportunities of economics undergraduates tend to be good, but nowhere as good as of those who did CS or engineering in school. Those UW CS graduate students (at least the US citizens) could probably get a well paid job at the top companies like Microsoft or Google or very promising startups, if they only bothered to take that route.

[C152dude]

deleted

[zwicker]

All of my offers were between $14500 and $23000. I can't complain.

[486hunter]

1) 20-30k high? for engin? LOL NO. My friend is getting nearly 30k as a CS grad. I got 10.5 teaching 4 sections of 24 [removed by mod] UGs who didn't give a [removed by mod] about econ. [removed by mod] per hour pay if you ask me (although i only worked maybe 7 hours per week on it).

2) Economics is mostly useless. I know this. However, those who enter a graduate program in econ are usually majors in math, cs, engin, stat, etc. They can be making a lot of money if they didn't go to grad school. Those who finish graduate school in econ make tons of money compared to those who finish in hard sciences (except physics guys who sell out for quant jobs). The average transfer pricing or consulting gig is like 100k+

 

I know that a number of hard science grads get stipends in the 30k range. And I don't doubt that your friend is one of them. I'm just saying that this is not the norm across the entire spectrum. On average, I would guess that the difference bwteen econ and the hard sciences is likely

[econphilomath]

Your stipend is the result of supply and demand. You can blame demand (for econ phd students) if you want but inevitably you have to concede that your location on the distribution of econ students (supply) plays a crucial part in your dilemma also. If you were a star student you could be in sunny California with a 37k stipend and on-campus subsidized housing if you wanted to.

 

Given that the market deemed you are not a star, you have to dish out the cash, push through grad school and impress everyone at the job market. If you think that is a low probability event, and/or you are not willing to make the pay/effort then you will quit. But note that given scarce resources it seems socially optimal for this to be so and that stipends be focalized for those students who have the ex-ante higher probability of generating valuable research and the externalities that accompany it. (assuming among other things -adcoms know enough to eliminate a reasonable amount of uncertainty and students are sorted well enough and -only a limited amount of students will generate meaningful research in each cohort of applicants)

 

Conclusion: better get to work on that job market paper or you will be doing a whole bunch of UG teaching for the rest of your life....:)

[Mr.Keen]

I heard ASU's stipend is in the 24k neighborhood, and so is University of New Mexico's. So it's not only about the rankings, it seems you got the greatest lower bound of the stipend set... tough break.

[TruDog]

At Wisconsin, all TA stipends are controlled by a union contract with the Teaching Assistants' Association. As a result, all TAs (to the best of my knowledge) get the same stipend, regardless of department. There is a lot more flexibility with the pay in research positions, as they are not all covered by the contract.

[Chicunomics]

At top institutions, econ stipends far exceed the 10.5 number. I believe this year we had:

37 at Stanford

36 at Yale

26 at Princeton

28? at Harvard

23 at Berkeley

20 at NWU

20+ at Chicago

 

... This is pretty good.

Even given all of the schools with lower stipends, the process is still extremely competitive. Perhaps hard sciences and engineering people have a low supply and the institutions have a high demand for those students. Seems pretty straightforward to me...

 

I'll add to that:

 

NYU: 22-7K/year + 1st year housing subsidies

Columbia: 25K/year + housing

Princeton: 28K/year for everyone

MIT: 27K/year if they were kind enough to give funding

Northwestern: > 20K/year, if you were lucky

Penn: up to 27K if you were lucky

Wisconsin: up to 20K first year, 13-15K thereafter if you were lucky

 

So that basically rounds out the top...12?

 

Some of these (Wisconsin, Penn in particular) are upper bounds...as is the Stanford number above. Also, some are fixed every year for 5 years (MIT, more or less Yale, Northwestern, though 5th year is less) others are only guaranteed in writing for 4 years (Princeton, NYU). Hopefully that's useful to...someone...

[asianecon]

I think Yale gives 39K if you go to Math Camp in the first year =) This is probably unheard of even for other departments.

 

A friend of mine who's going to MIT as an OR PhD is actually worried about not having enough for visa purposes. Though I'm not exactly sure how much she'll be getting, I'm guessing it's in the 17-22K range. In my case, except for UChicago, all of the schools offered >= 30K for 4/5 years even if only one of them is a biz school (Chicago GSB..which actually gives the lowest among these >= 30K offers).

 

Hence, IMHO, econ depts are actually quite rich (or at least generous beyond their means!) compared to other hard sciences which typically have smaller class sizes (imagine Yale giving out 36K fellowship to more than 20 people!)

[asianecon]

I got 10.5 teaching 4 sections of 24 retarded UGs who didn't give a shit about econ. Shit per hour pay if you ask me (although i only worked maybe 7 hours per week on it).

 

Hmm...10.5K/10 months / 4 weeks / 7 hrs = $37.5/hr

 

My current RA job pays me slightly more than $15/hr so don't complain =)

[uwecon85]

Wisc is not 20K first year (unless they changed it). I know a guy on fellowship and he did not get 20K. You start out around 11ish at Wisc if you're a first time TA. It goes up with experience and status (disertator). I don't think you'll ever get up to 15k but maybe close in your final years.

 

I'm not sure the pay grade of RAs. You can get more money via summer or grading positions but these are quite rare. If you worked year round with 50% appointments you could get around that 15ish you talk about. Most people don't because they can't. I was at 44%ish and it was pretty low even for Madison if you ask me. I probably worked more than 7 but there were no meetings and I didn't go to lectures. 7 hours was probably just the sections, grading, and office hours. It's more if you add in proctoring, review sections and answering stupid emails. Most TAs work more because the profs require meetings, lectures, etc.

[jenizaro]

Your stipend is the result of supply and demand. You can blame demand (for econ phd students) if you want but inevitably you have to concede that your location on the distribution of econ students (supply) plays a crucial part in your dilemma also. If you were a star student you could be in sunny California with a 37k stipend and on-campus subsidized housing if you wanted to.

 

Given that the market deemed you are not a star, you have to dish out the cash, push through grad school and impress everyone at the job market. If you think that is a low probability event, and/or you are not willing to make the pay/effort then you will quit. But note that given scarce resources it seems socially optimal for this to be so and that stipends be focalized for those students who have the ex-ante higher probability of generating valuable research and the externalities that accompany it. (assuming among other things -adcoms know enough to eliminate a reasonable amount of uncertainty and students are sorted well enough and -only a limited amount of students will generate meaningful research in each cohort of applicants)

 

Conclusion: better get to work on that job market paper or you will be doing a whole bunch of UG teaching for the rest of your life....:)

 

This has to be one the most arrogant and attack-the-man-not-the-argument kind of post I've seen in this forum.

 

And BTW it seems the OP is not at UWash but at UWisc, so I think that his/her position in the "supply distribution of econ students" is not as bad. Not that this fact really matters to entitle the OP to have an opinion.

[jeeves0923]

Of course the OP can have an opinion, but bottom line, he accepted the offer he has. If it were 'too low', he wouldn't accept it, right? Either there weren't other options or going to this particular institution was worth taking the low stipend.

[asianecon]

That stipends in econ depts are low relative to others is more of a statement of fact rather than opinion so most of the posts here tend to present data that say otherwise. Moreover, if one argues that econ stipends are low compared to others based on the lower end of the stipend distribution (even within school), then since not everyone is funded, pushing this argument would allow someone to claim that almost all programs have inhumane stipends since they give you $0 and in fact, some even make you pay for tuition.

 

 

And btw, I think econphilomath's post makes perfect sense (this is my opinion). It may sound harsh but this is probably the reality we face.

[asianeconomist]

Your stipend is the result of supply and demand. You can blame demand (for econ phd students) if you want but inevitably you have to concede that your location on the distribution of econ students (supply) plays a crucial part in your dilemma also. If you were a star student you could be in sunny California with a 37k stipend and on-campus subsidized housing if you wanted to.

 

Given that the market deemed you are not a star, you have to dish out the cash, push through grad school and impress everyone at the job market. If you think that is a low probability event, and/or you are not willing to make the pay/effort then you will quit. But note that given scarce resources it seems socially optimal for this to be so and that stipends be focalized for those students who have the ex-ante higher probability of generating valuable research and the externalities that accompany it. (assuming among other things -adcoms know enough to eliminate a reasonable amount of uncertainty and students are sorted well enough and -only a limited amount of students will generate meaningful research in each cohort of applicants)

 

Conclusion: better get to work on that job market paper or you will be doing a whole bunch of UG teaching for the rest of your life....:)

 

This expose could form the basis of your job market paper (oh sorry, you hate golf papers !) :D

 

Bad joke.

[jenizaro]

That stipends in econ depts are low relative to others is more of a statement of fact rather than opinion so most of the posts here tend to present data that say otherwise.

 

I will not enter the discussion about whether a statement of truth not shared by everyone is or isn't an opinion. But, semantics apart, I wasn't referring to "most posts", but to EPM's post, WHICH BTW wasn't about presenting counterfactual evidence but about saying "haven't you been such an slacker before, you would enjoy a better deal now".

 

Moreover, if one argues that econ stipends are low compared to others based on the lower end of the stipend distribution (even within school), then since not everyone is funded, pushing this argument would allow someone to claim that almost all programs have inhumane stipends since they give you $0 and in fact, some even make you pay for tuition.

 

This same argument applies to those people "who argue that econ stipends are high compared to others based in the higher end of the stipend distribution" (Stanford, Yale anyone?).

[jeeves0923]

I don't think the argument is being made that econ stipends are definitely higher than others. Alternatively, it is being made that evidence presented so far does not support the claim that econ stipends are unusually low. Maybe there is more data that would make either of those claims credible, but right now I have no reason to believe that econ stipends in general are less than those of other departments.

[jenizaro]

Outliers (of either kind) are not good evidence to support or refute any claim.

 

BTW, I don't really know if econ stipends are really less than in other departments. I think in average they're sort of equivalent but with wild variations, even within the same ranking tier.

[YoungEconomist]

Of course the OP can have an opinion, but bottom line, he accepted the offer he has. If it were 'too low', he wouldn't accept it, right? Either there weren't other options or going to this particular institution was worth taking the low stipend.

 

LOL!

 

Only an economist would make a statement like this. I find myself saying similar things to my friends and family at times (I think they get a little irritated).

 

This reminds me of something I heard Walter Williams (economist at George Mason) say in one of his columns.

 

Then there’s the claim that this or that price is unreasonable. I used to have conversations about this claim with Mrs. Williams early on in our 44-year marriage. She’d return from shopping complaining that stores were charging unreasonable prices. Having aired her complaints, she’d ask me to go out and unload a car trunk loaded with groceries and other items. Having completed the chore, I’d resume our conversation, saying, “Honey, I thought you said the prices were unreasonable. Are you an unreasonable person? Only an unreasonable person would pay unreasonable prices.”