Host: Ph.D. programs are known for being long, difficult, and typically not lucrative. I’m Jess Engebretson, an editor here at The Chronicle Review. In August we asked readers if they’d ever left a doctoral program for financial reasons, or thought about leaving when money was tight. A lot of you called in — some current students, some who left their Ph.D. programs years or even decades ago. The details of your stories vary, but there’s a common thread: For many, it’s financially impossible to finish a Ph.D. Here’s what you told us:
I am a Ph.D. student in the social sciences, and I think about leaving my Ph.D. program almost daily.
Just the amount of stress that financial insecurity puts on me …
As a Ph.D. student approaching 10 years now, the main reason I am not done is financial. That’s the only reason.
I began with a $4,000 stipend and then it was $6,000.
I make about $13,000. It is not enough, obviously.
Our student fees that aren’t covered by our stipend amount to two months of pay every year.
I live with a roommate. I try to be frugal. I go to food banks because I cannot afford healthy food otherwise.
If I knew that it’d be this difficult, I don’t know if I would have gone.
The student jobs that you can get on campus — they’re usually, you know, undergraduate-student jobs that pay like eight or nine dollars an hour, which is not — it’s not nothing, but it’s not very helpful.
And even though I have multiple part-time jobs on top of that, I am technically breaking my contract to do so because I’m not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week.
So you’re kind of slowly accruing debt, if you’re on a stipend, if you have any outside expenses.
To be honest, the only reason I personally could afford this Ph.D. is that I have a partner that works full time that I can rely on.
I do have a spouse who works full time.
I lean on my family to make ends meet. My parents still cover my cellphone bill and help me out with my car insurance. So I get to stay, because I’m really lucky.
How do people do Ph.D.s if they’re over the age of 19 and have any kind of responsibilities?
My mom died and I ended up taking on custody of my 10-year-old nephew. Later on, I ended up taking on my niece as well. And so I needed some extra money. Obviously my grad stipend wasn’t cutting it.
It’s very difficult to keep life from happening. Things happen that cost money, even if you’re living very frugally.
I was really desperate. So I ended up responding actually to a job ad that came through my student email. And I didn’t say anything to my adviser.
We were barely making ends meet. And when the opportunity to do adjunct work on the side came up, I took it.
So the choice became either try to fund it on my own by going into debt, because I would have lost my graduate funding, or cut down my hours, throw my family and I into poverty, and only be able to work 10 hours a week — which doesn’t make any sense when you are the sole breadwinner of a family of three. So I decided to quit the Ph.D.
I’m working-class. I was the only working-class kid in that program. I was going to go into debt. I refuse to go into debt. And considering what is happening to everybody today, that is the only rational decision to make.
Before that I even worked four jobs, trying to stay out of debt. So the best thing I can say is I was able to leave and decided to have a life instead of a degree.
I’ve been in loan repayment since the early 2000s, and I still have tens of thousands of dollars of debt to repay. And I do not have the final degree.
I attempted a couple years ago to go back. But the university indicated that I’d have to start from scratch.
Now I see my students facing similar financial crises, and I try to help them as best I can. But given the culture of academia, a lot of times my hands are really tied.
Produced by Jess Engebretson; music by Slicebeats.
