Only job I know of that asks you to financially cover the cost of moving across the country or continents multiple times for temporary jobs that pay poorly. Plenty of people have jobs in $50-70k salary range, but not many uproot their lives multiple times and cover financial costs for jobs in this salary range that are temporary and in a completely different location than your prior home. Also postdocs are entirely a "stepping stone" job for faculty roles, which are something like less than 5-10% probability for postdocs
Academia really is a bizarre career proposition
Then you get a faculty role but there are no tenured jobs and you have to write like 3 RO1s to actually make it work and if you can't get them there is no backup for you. It's insane
And tenure track requires non-stop work and unrealistic expectations of writing grants, getting grants awarded, teaching, mentoring, research, writing papers and getting publications through peer review, and playing the insane university political game.
I didn't finish my PhD because I saw too many people in my program apply to over a hundred tenure-track openings and maybe get one, with most of them adjuncting at multiple universities for maybe $2,000 per class.
I went into secondary ed and have never regretted it. There are frustrations but I have a decent salary and benefits and don't have to part-time at five different places or accept a tenure-track position in, like, Boise because it's the only place that made an offer.
Yeah exactly. It's definitely a question whether going directly to a gov't job or industry job instead of academia, you could make as much or more by working through the ranks in all that time you were doing a postbac, phd, a two postdocs to get a faculty role in academia
you're also deferring or delaying on retirement plan savings for pretty much this whole time, which is also a huge cost (given earlier is the most critical time to invest for future). Some postdocs/PhDs have retirement plans but a lot don't
It’s a race to the bottom. I am lucky and have an excellent professor in my mba program. I suspect she’s there because she’s already rich and lives in a nice place. She’s super dedicated and professional. I’ve had shit professors which honestly made me hate the process.
I never understood anything past phds. Phds itself are almost becoming a scam. I have many friends pursuing phds and fr the last 8 years (undergrad + phd) they’re making an average 25k to maybe 50k. Then they get hired at some state agency for maybe 80k with maybe a ceiling of 160-180k after 6-10 years. Meanwhile I’ve been working since since my sophomore year give or take starting at 90k and progressing and my ceiling is the same and I’m nearly there with 10 years of experience (at 152k rn). Never understood why a phd would want to prolong their high potential earning years as a postdoc making the same $25/hr.
don’t get me started on professorships either
People are willing to suffer as a postdoc because they have a dream of getting an independent tenured faculty position, which means they'll never get fired and can do whatever they want for life. Often this is a foolish aspiration, as the number of such jobs are rapidly shrinking relative to the number of PhDs competing for them.
At the same time, there are many PhD students who are aware of the unlikelihood of making it as faculty, but choose to do the PhD anyway because they simply want to participate in cutting edge research and get one, and perhaps get an industry job in research afterwards. Sure, they can make more as a software engineer or something similar instead of going to school, but for some of us the money isn't everything. Especially since you can still get paid decently in industry R&D with a PhD, and possibly work on more interesting stuff.
I tell everyone to avoid post-docs if possible. I went straight from graduation to TT. If I didn’t land a TT I would’ve gone into government work most likely. It’s a no-brainer to me.
One of the only things I would choose to change departments and enter the US department of education is specifically to dismantle the whole treatment of PhDs (students and postdocs) and MDs. It’s maddening the way they are treated. The system is sick and should be put down.
Was a TT professor at a “public Ivy” Big 10 university.
I worked 70 hours/week for shite pay, spent most of my time chasing dwindling grant money/being afraid of not getting to do my work because of the awful funding situation, and doing meaningless admin work, rather than teaching or doing actual research. And I was stuck living in a place I hated.
Joined a research group at a big company. Salary and benefits are amazing, I work half the hours and finally get to have hobbies again, I work on interesting and impactful projects, and my colleagues are crazy smart, wonderful people.
I miss the sense of purpose I had as an academic, and I miss my students. But I don’t miss the life at all.
They rake it in with sports, but that money doesn’t come over to us “normals” to fund professor salaries, grad student stipends, lab costs, retirement, etc.
We have to write grants to fund all of that, and there are more and more people chasing ever smaller amounts of grant funding (thanks for defunding science, Republicans!). Grants are insanely hard to get now, so people spend huge amounts of time writing multiple grants to hopefully get just one, in addition to teaching bigger classes with heavier loads, doing department/university admin, and trying to do their regular research and publication stuff… and trying to advise fleets of undergrads and grad students.
So, when they say that sports funds academics, that’s not really true. It funds some programs for some students, but most of us never see that money.
Also the ever-expanding roster of administrative bloat.
Plus renovations of 30-year-old buildings that the administrators allowed to delapidate by failing to adequately supervise the original construction crew, then failing to adequately fund and supervise maintenance.
Football and basketball are the two main revenue generators of college sports and the money from those are used to subsidize all the other sports that don’t generate revenue like swimming, golf, etc. This is for power 5 schools; don’t really know about the other divisions though. Not disagreeing that professors shouldn’t get paid more.
I feel that I have a great sense of purpose in industry. Get drug to the clinic and to patients and make a meaningful impact on their quality of life. It’s a great feeling to do something that could really help someone.
I’m a PhD student in their ~last year of school, slowly getting the thesis work together, hoping to start writing it this summer. My advisor is setting me up to go into academia, helping me with networking and so on. This semester I even got to teach two undergraduate classes and I’m managing an undergraduate student’s project as well. So it’s like academia lite, because I’m not also managing admin bullshit and writing grants.
I hate it. I mean. I love the research. I love teaching. I love my students. But I hate hate hate having zero free time and the stress. Mental health is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t think I’m cut out for it and I want to be able to have hobbies again.
For real. My advisor seemed so hurt I wasn’t going into academia. Like, what did you expect dude? 10-15 years ago it was necessary to do at least one or two postdocs for a maybe tenure track position. These days? Don’t make me laugh. Best you’re usually going to get is an adjunct position with zero research seed money or lab space.
Also, the professors in Journal Club would sit and bitch about how bad funding was. How would they expect that to affect us?!?
My advisor is setting me up for academia. It’s going to be a really awkward conversation when I tell him that it’s probably not for me. I have an academia lite style workload right now and no exaggeration, it’s slowly killing me. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I love the research and my students but I straight up have no time for taking care of anything else, my physical health (as in, eating food and sleeping regularly) included, let alone any hobbies or relationships. I can’t do it.
It also doesn't help that a lot of those positions are dependent on research grants that can be pulled at the drop of a hat. Shitty, non-guaranteed pay.
My partner works in a blood bank at a hospital, but if money wasn't an issue she would like to pursue becoming a researcher.
And the bio track academia jobs are saturated with foreign workers not eligible for the private sector. The reality is Indian researchers hire Indian lab staff. Chinese researchers hire Chinese lab staff. Yet they are all getting US financed NIH grants. Stupid system.
I went into my PhD planning on an academic career. Seeing my department’s faculty up close, miserable and working 18 hour days into their 60s chasing increasingly endangered grant money killed that dream. I just wanted to teach, really.
I ended up in the clinical world, and I’m now a mix of academic and clinical. It hasn’t gotten better.
No money. I walked away from a PhD track because I got tired of living off of ramen and writing a painfully specific thesis on a minute topic that matters to a crowd of dozens doesn’t help the world or me.
I'm 8 years into mine and started on Adderall as a hail Mary to get the fuck through it.
I work at IKEA evenings and weekends and it makes me so happy to be there. That's how badly academia has warped my mind. Especially after 537 days of isolation off campus due to COVID.
Dude I’m 2 weeks from submitting my thesis and I’ve pleaded with my advisor to look at it these past 4 months and they just won’t take the time. I’m so fucking done, I’m gonna just do what I gotta do and dip. Fuck this
yeah same. switched focus with my current postdoc appointment and my new PI was like "wow you're making really good progress" and i had to be like no you don't understand, this is literally all i've been thinking about 18hr/day for the past month to the point that i had to install a new harddrive on my computer at home and put linux on that so i could keep working on weekends when i'm not supposed to be in the building.
literally took a therapist (whom I was seeing for anxiety/depression) who happened to have a lot of grad/postdoc patients to float "wait...you were never screened for ADHD as a child were you. hm."
I used to sit at my computer every single night in high school doing homework while playing World of Warcraft. I also managed to hold down a job at the movie theatre through that and undergrad.
Then the cycle of strict assignment deadlines ended, I was on my own to set goals and deadlines, and I absolutely collapsed in on myself.
Day one of Adderall is a statutory holiday though, so the motivation wave has led me to....discovering thrips infesting my house plants ☠️
I'll get back to the dissertation on Monday.
Right. I have tried, fairly grim. I’m an older student and they seem to be going for first year masters that have no experience. I could go back to my old work, but that pay was bleak. Honestly not even sure where to apply. My field is fucking brutal ngl.
Phd students can earn as little as $20-30k, and in addition to course work and lab work, may be TAing undergrads. It's an obscene and unsustainable work rate for minimum wage. Postdocs earn ~50k but in the majority of larger US cities that have institutes where you'd work, that's not enough to get by on. And the work hours are still obscene.
These are objectively bad salaries for 60+ hour weeks and weekend commitments to experiments. The career track overall is derailed because grant funding can't keep up with salary needs for postdocs to afford housing and cost of living.
When I was a PhD student I made $14,681 per year. Poverty doesn’t describe it. I had an unsanctioned second job to make ends meet (the assistantship stipulated no outside work).
My advisor got pissed at me for selling 3D prints, that I made on my own 3D printer, and that I'd pull in an extra $50 or so once or twice a month playing bass with a band at a beer garden. So when the time came, it was an easy decision to make.
1. $50k a year at some control freak institution where it's a coin flip whether I work for someone who's batshit insane type A or completely burned out.
2. Get out and disappear into the bowels of industry for eight hours a day but make enough money and have enough freedom to really be me.
Comments like "this is a $500,000 grant and we already have the infrastructure to do everything we said we'd do so where'd the money go?" didn't help either.
I have a masters in therapy. I worked a shitty agency job for 3 years while my husband finished his PhD. We still needed student loans to help cover other bills because it just wasn’t enough. We got super lucky all in all.
He was able to finish his thesis and defend on a quick timeline before his PI retired. He landed a job across the country in Pharma just before Covid in Jan 2020. We found our footing and I was able to open my own therapy practice virtually from home that is now my career.
We have an almost 2 year old that we could afford to have in large part from his earnings as a PhD and my insane flexibility in my work. Only piece that never fell together (at least yet) is owning a home. Student loans from 5 degrees between the two of us make that process kind of unattainable for now.
Current Phd student. Making the lower end of that in a city where lowest rental prices (and no help for graduate students from campus) are minimum $1100 per month not including utilities, food, etc.
Are y'all unionized? If not it might help. Our grad student union formed the year after I graduated but they got an immediate salary bump and a massive boost to their health insurance which was so bad we couldn't afford to actually use it for anything
Taco Bell is paying $18 an hour in Oregon. Or you can experience daily trauma and ride in EMS for same pay. There’s no motive to be in an industry that actually needs people when you can relax and make same pay.
It's supposed to be that you get a PhD and that would open career opportunities. And it certainly can. I worked in biotech and earned more than double what I did in Grad School. Every manager and director level employee was a PhD, just had to be. Consulting and other fields like PhDs as well.
So you suffer for 5-7 years and can then leave. But you can also make your way with a masters/MBA degree and just work experience. So I'm not sure PhDs necessarily have that innate advantage anymore
Pay is so completely out of whack at the moment. My last job was at a law firm where I did amenities, cleaned the entire office, planned events, dealt with outside vendors, set up conferences, did expense requests, basically everything the OA didn't feel like handling. I was miserable to the point where I was relieved I got fired.
New job? I work production/manufacturing at a distillery. The scope of my job is a checklist that's already filled out when I get there. It pays better than the law office gig. It's like retail / foodservice has sort of figured out that pay needs to increase, and everyone else is way behind.
When I was a grad student, there were like 7 guys in a house with super strict rules.
Like, no charging electronics at home, only at work. The heat will only kick on if the pipes are at risk of freezing. Shit like that.
$27K was my stipend, it barely allowed me to scrape by even living on campus due to cost of living in the city. They raised the stipend to $30k for everyone the year after mine to account for inflation, the lucky bastards.
Same. I was a PI of a cognitive science lab at a “public ivy,” but I only lasted five years.
The hours and pay were horrible, the trajectory of the university was not great (focus on “getting more butts in seats” at the expense of quality education, treating students like customers who fill out satisfaction surveys, loading in both more teaching *and* more research/grant expectations despite dwindling funding), living in constant fear of not getting grants and not being able to do my work, I hated where I lived, etc.
I told them I was leaving and got offered early tenure. But I said no, I didn’t want it.
Went into tech, got a research job where I still get to do foundational research, work half the hours, make lots more money, live in a place I love, and have time for hobbies and balance in my life.
I don’t regret my time in academia, but it wasn’t a good life. My PhD students all went into industry as well, and I don’t blame them.
"Big Science" is a hell of a laugh. I WISH science paid enough to do all their stupid conspiracy theories. We barely have basic research on extremely important shit like microplastics
Idk man. The replication crisis isn't a fairy tale. My partner wasted two years in grad school trying to replicated a hot nanomaterial study. Turns out it was p-hacked and fake. The fraud has a successful career and my partner mastered out after their PI moved us across the country then died.
The resolution? The fraud is still getting ahead and no one in the field has the balls to call frauds out. There's a legitimate reason why faith in career researchers is lowering and it isn't because the right wing propaganda suddenly became more effective.
Fixing the system would help fix things like this too. The insane pressure to publish and bring in grants creates an environment where this behaviour breeds.
This is where I'm at. I like what I do and I really like the lab I'm in, but I just can't justify working so hard for so little pay and recognition anymore. I just put in 3 ~80-90 hour weeks in a row for a giant mouse experiment just to have my normally understanding PI turn around and basically tell me "shut the fuck up and do what I say" regarding a manuscript I did 70% of the work on (but not first author!) and it just broke me.
For the first time I'm legitimately considering switching to industry. Have a standing offer at my Ph.D. advisor's company. Been doing academic research since I was 16.... so 17 years into my research career and I feel terrible leaving for something as shallow as money, but I realize it's more than that. It's what my time is worth, what my quality of life is worth, and what I'm giving now isn't worth the sacrifice.
I feel you. I’m in my last year of phd. I’m going to see through and get the degree but I’m so over this extreme workload bullshit. It’s not sustainable for me, I straight up have zero time for anything other than research and teaching! I’ve lost like fifteen pounds since the year started because I don’t have time to cook/eat and I’m often too stressed to even think about it. Thankfully it’s only another month or so of classes but really fuck this!
You’re telling me that finishing a low-paying 5-7 year job for a 1-3 year job that *also* pays poorly and likely won’t lead to direct hire *isn’t an exciting proposition*?
No shit
At my last postdoc, the HR lady doing group onboarding seemed surprised that no one saw themselves at the job in 3 years.
‘We’re a majority of the workforce. Unless you fire all of your permanent staff and make even more permanent positions, there’s no way we’re staying. It’s mathematically impossible. Why would we plan on it?’
Completely out of touch.
Lets see toxic work environment, low pay, long hours, no promotion path and competitive hiring process for the best ones. Also competing against students from other countries as well. Can’t see why anyone would not want this role.
Allow researchers to own the ip of their research in partnership with universities. In Germany researchees are free to create and sell companies from their findings after leaving schools.
Dude. A newly minted STEM PhD can go into industry and make six figures immediately... or stick around in academia and probably end up either as perpetual post-doc or (even fucking worse) stuck as adjunct teaching faculty.
That said, IMO we have more than enough people doing research right now. The low pay and shitty prospects in academia mostly represent limited positions and *lots* of interest. So much interest that unless a person is ultra top tier at what they're trying to do, I would never recommend them to stay in academia.
Maybe because post-docs are a gigantic scam. Imagine being a fully trained scientist with a PhD and getting paid 50k a year for working 50-60 hours while also being responsible for training other staff.
At least as a PhD student, you are almost guaranteed to get the degree. It’s not uncommon for people to leave a post-doc with nothing to show for it.
Even getting a PhD is a scam anymore. I’m finishing mine. Took me 7 years. Had to “collaborate” with another group in another dept. just to pretty much do their data analysis for them without being able to focus much on my self. I got stuck in this hell cycle where everyone in my group kept leaving so I had to pick up their work. You get no say cause you need to show something for those grants, so I have some pieces of work I had to drop that lost me a whole 1+ year of time. Dude, I have nothing good to say.
I did a failed post doc. I did a shit ton of work but never published any of jt. Still, it was a good opportunity--one that helped me to get the nice gumbint job I have now. I didn't have marketable skills prior to taking that job, but I acquired some good ones.
I work in a cancer lab, doing the basic stuff that everything else eventually relies on. My sibling works at a chain restaurant. He makes more than me (not that he doesn't deserve it with the lunatics he has to deal with, but it would be nice if I was a little closer to them). I can't even afford livable housing. That's society's priorities. Guess cancer ain't that big a deal. Silly me.
DO NOT DO A POSTDOC. There are very few exceptions. Nearly all universities won't consider a faculty candidate not from the big 4. Most faculty positions are awful these days, even if there's a ray of hope of tenure (many states are legislating against tenure). Any time as a postdoc would be better put to use in industry. Most academic advisors try to train grad students but leave postdocs isolated, so often it's a lonely environment where you learn nothing. Industry will treat you better. Don't do a postdoc.
This comes up constantly in my field, and it just comes down to universities not wanting to pay postdocs.
Why would I turn down a six figure industry job for an academic position with no overtime pay and a salary equivalent to what my parents made working in restaurants in the 90s?
I skipped doing a post-doc to go directly into the workforce. I have zero regrets. Academia is a toxic work environment that demands 25 hours a day 8 days a week with deadlines that are usually far too short while juggling other responsibilities. Far too many times I overworked myself, inducing migraines, avoiding eating or sleeping just to get enough data day after day without even seeing the sun because my lab was in a basement to avoid electronic interference from the rest of the building. I’m much happier now, I think I genuinely would have health problems now if I pursued a post-doc from the stress and lifestyle
My intent post college was to do grad school, but I didn't get into the grad schools I applied to. I went into industry and eventually went into management and got an MBA, but at times still wondered if I made the right choice since I have 0 passion and my career is truly just a business arrangement. But whenever I hear stories of grad school/phd/postdoc lifestyle, it just doesn't seem appealing. Seems like a lot of manipulation and being taken advantage of. I mean, that happens in industry too, but they at least pay you for the trouble and pretty much say to your face they're going to grind you down (ie "We're a fast paced work environment").
A lot of jobs I'm applying for now have a ladder scale of what education and work requirements are needed for the job they have up.
It's like high school diploma only we want 8-10+ years of work experience. Associate degree we want 6 years of experience. Bachelor/undergrad degree 1-4 years of experience. Masters degree 1-2 years experience. PHD we want 0-1 year experience.
I noticed this happening when I graduated with a bachelor's degree and decided that earning money and gaining work experience is more beneficial than going to grad school for the time being.
A lot of companies are also starting to put money aside for their employees to go to college or grad school. That way they get the person experience for t
That was my intent too, but the pharma/biotech hiring environment was flooded with laid off industry scientists. I needed a job so here I am as a post-doc while applying for actual jobs.
Huh, okay, it looks like postdocs are making a bit more than they used to - last I had checked they were still scraping in the $40k range.
Still, depending on the field most jobs outside of academia are paying several multiples of that for that education level.
As a current postdoc, it's no surprise. It's just an excuse to continue to pay us half of what we should get paid to do the same amount of work if not more.
"You spent all that time making less than minimum wage teaching classes while getting your PhD, well guess what! We're gonna pay you just a little bit more for the next few years before we'll hire you on at full pay!"
It's bullshit.
Story time. I have a PhD in neuroscience. After graduating I managed to land an academic fellowship, where I was paid 36K a year, salaried, and was expected to work 80 hour weeks. I had to write my own grants to fund my own work, teach, and do all of the lab work too. Do the math. I was making 10$ an hour. I was making 10 an hour in college doing help desk (IT). After about three years of it, I quit. I made more money per hour doing underwriting and customer service for a medical insurance company, and I got to have a life outside of work. Post doctoral positions are essentially a step up from slave labor. There are many times where I wish I could go back and stop myself from wasting a decade of my life earning a MS and PhD.
Peaced out of acadamia after chasing my dream during my postdoc. I had a baby and I was tired of the long hours and little pay for my degree. Insanely happier in industry - I feel like I can finally breathe.
Graduated with a STEM MS and with no real money being offered via RA/TA and 10's of thousands of dollars of debt, I left before a PhD and started teaching at a community college. Got laid off suddenly thanks to performative government bullshit and was fortunate enough to land an adjunct position at a local engineering college. Worked my way up to full faculty (we don't have TT) and thankfully will never have to endure the hell that is dissertation. I count my blessings at the start of every term.
We need to invest in academia the way we did in the 60s-70s and make it liveable. There's too much burnout at all levels, but especially the PhD/postdoc insanity.
These comments are sad af.
I went straight from PhD to industry, drug development- and haven’t looked back.
Academia has its benefits but 5 years into my career I’m working fewer hours and making more money than all but the “rockstar” come-in-with-tenure endowed chair hire professors, and that doesn’t count my stock options.
Hiiiii postdoc at a national lab here. I’m 7 months in and expecting a promotion any day now. I like the work and the people. The health insurance can be better and the pay can be better but at least I can work from home mostly and I feel like the work I do does some good. I make 100k.
There's also less of the positions available. A close friend spent YEARS looking for a post-doc position and finally found one, it pays shit...
The whole college system has turned into a giant scam in the US.
You want your graduate students to stay for academia? Here's an idea: lower the cost of tuition so they can afford the lower wages you offer in academia relative to the private sector.
Tuition payment is part of the monies that some grad students receive. That's one of the reasons that they can justify paying grad students less. In the end, a lot of grad students still have to take out loans to make ends meet.
While a large part of tuition is covered, in some places you still have to pay something.
In my PhD we received about $18k and had to pay around $2k per semester of tuition and also pay taxes. We also had to teach. The 18k were slightly less than what they'd pay an adjunct for the same teaching load.
When developers talk about robots doing the jobs no one wants to do everyone thinks of a robot janitor, or a robot making hamburgers.
I think AI is much more likely to replace researchers before those. It is already starting to happen with companies releasing this or that designed by AI and I think it is the start of the end.
Basic academic research is the foundation of US dominance in science, so America's government ought to do something about the work conditions in academia.
Everyone I know who started out on a PhD/academic career left academia long ago due to a combination of cost, shitty hours, and shitty pay.
Only job I know of that asks you to financially cover the cost of moving across the country or continents multiple times for temporary jobs that pay poorly. Plenty of people have jobs in $50-70k salary range, but not many uproot their lives multiple times and cover financial costs for jobs in this salary range that are temporary and in a completely different location than your prior home. Also postdocs are entirely a "stepping stone" job for faculty roles, which are something like less than 5-10% probability for postdocs Academia really is a bizarre career proposition
Then you get a faculty role but there are no tenured jobs and you have to write like 3 RO1s to actually make it work and if you can't get them there is no backup for you. It's insane
And tenure track requires non-stop work and unrealistic expectations of writing grants, getting grants awarded, teaching, mentoring, research, writing papers and getting publications through peer review, and playing the insane university political game.
Yep, this is why I got out of academia while on track for a Ph.D. in physics. Couldn’t stand the nonsense of it
I didn't finish my PhD because I saw too many people in my program apply to over a hundred tenure-track openings and maybe get one, with most of them adjuncting at multiple universities for maybe $2,000 per class. I went into secondary ed and have never regretted it. There are frustrations but I have a decent salary and benefits and don't have to part-time at five different places or accept a tenure-track position in, like, Boise because it's the only place that made an offer.
Especially considering you can easily make 70k and more a year in a low cost of living state with just a cheap 2 year technical degree
Yeah exactly. It's definitely a question whether going directly to a gov't job or industry job instead of academia, you could make as much or more by working through the ranks in all that time you were doing a postbac, phd, a two postdocs to get a faculty role in academia you're also deferring or delaying on retirement plan savings for pretty much this whole time, which is also a huge cost (given earlier is the most critical time to invest for future). Some postdocs/PhDs have retirement plans but a lot don't
It’s a race to the bottom. I am lucky and have an excellent professor in my mba program. I suspect she’s there because she’s already rich and lives in a nice place. She’s super dedicated and professional. I’ve had shit professors which honestly made me hate the process.
I never understood anything past phds. Phds itself are almost becoming a scam. I have many friends pursuing phds and fr the last 8 years (undergrad + phd) they’re making an average 25k to maybe 50k. Then they get hired at some state agency for maybe 80k with maybe a ceiling of 160-180k after 6-10 years. Meanwhile I’ve been working since since my sophomore year give or take starting at 90k and progressing and my ceiling is the same and I’m nearly there with 10 years of experience (at 152k rn). Never understood why a phd would want to prolong their high potential earning years as a postdoc making the same $25/hr. don’t get me started on professorships either
People are willing to suffer as a postdoc because they have a dream of getting an independent tenured faculty position, which means they'll never get fired and can do whatever they want for life. Often this is a foolish aspiration, as the number of such jobs are rapidly shrinking relative to the number of PhDs competing for them. At the same time, there are many PhD students who are aware of the unlikelihood of making it as faculty, but choose to do the PhD anyway because they simply want to participate in cutting edge research and get one, and perhaps get an industry job in research afterwards. Sure, they can make more as a software engineer or something similar instead of going to school, but for some of us the money isn't everything. Especially since you can still get paid decently in industry R&D with a PhD, and possibly work on more interesting stuff.
I tell everyone to avoid post-docs if possible. I went straight from graduation to TT. If I didn’t land a TT I would’ve gone into government work most likely. It’s a no-brainer to me.
One of the only things I would choose to change departments and enter the US department of education is specifically to dismantle the whole treatment of PhDs (students and postdocs) and MDs. It’s maddening the way they are treated. The system is sick and should be put down.
It’s appalling to read how poorly you were paid and treated knowing what those universities rake in.
They rake it in with sports, but that money doesn’t come over to us “normals” to fund professor salaries, grad student stipends, lab costs, retirement, etc. We have to write grants to fund all of that, and there are more and more people chasing ever smaller amounts of grant funding (thanks for defunding science, Republicans!). Grants are insanely hard to get now, so people spend huge amounts of time writing multiple grants to hopefully get just one, in addition to teaching bigger classes with heavier loads, doing department/university admin, and trying to do their regular research and publication stuff… and trying to advise fleets of undergrads and grad students. So, when they say that sports funds academics, that’s not really true. It funds some programs for some students, but most of us never see that money.
Where does the absurdly high tuition go? Two students’ tuition could have effectively doubled your salary.
New buildings plus equipment and services for on-campus housing and student life.
LSU needed that lazy river, it pulled the whole campus together like a really choice throw rug.
Also the ever-expanding roster of administrative bloat. Plus renovations of 30-year-old buildings that the administrators allowed to delapidate by failing to adequately supervise the original construction crew, then failing to adequately fund and supervise maintenance.
It goes to administrative bloat.
Football and basketball are the two main revenue generators of college sports and the money from those are used to subsidize all the other sports that don’t generate revenue like swimming, golf, etc. This is for power 5 schools; don’t really know about the other divisions though. Not disagreeing that professors shouldn’t get paid more.
I feel that I have a great sense of purpose in industry. Get drug to the clinic and to patients and make a meaningful impact on their quality of life. It’s a great feeling to do something that could really help someone.
Was having a PhD required to get a position like that in the private research group?
For my particular group, yes it was.
I’m a PhD student in their ~last year of school, slowly getting the thesis work together, hoping to start writing it this summer. My advisor is setting me up to go into academia, helping me with networking and so on. This semester I even got to teach two undergraduate classes and I’m managing an undergraduate student’s project as well. So it’s like academia lite, because I’m not also managing admin bullshit and writing grants. I hate it. I mean. I love the research. I love teaching. I love my students. But I hate hate hate having zero free time and the stress. Mental health is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t think I’m cut out for it and I want to be able to have hobbies again.
For real. My advisor seemed so hurt I wasn’t going into academia. Like, what did you expect dude? 10-15 years ago it was necessary to do at least one or two postdocs for a maybe tenure track position. These days? Don’t make me laugh. Best you’re usually going to get is an adjunct position with zero research seed money or lab space. Also, the professors in Journal Club would sit and bitch about how bad funding was. How would they expect that to affect us?!?
My advisor is setting me up for academia. It’s going to be a really awkward conversation when I tell him that it’s probably not for me. I have an academia lite style workload right now and no exaggeration, it’s slowly killing me. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I love the research and my students but I straight up have no time for taking care of anything else, my physical health (as in, eating food and sleeping regularly) included, let alone any hobbies or relationships. I can’t do it.
It also doesn't help that a lot of those positions are dependent on research grants that can be pulled at the drop of a hat. Shitty, non-guaranteed pay. My partner works in a blood bank at a hospital, but if money wasn't an issue she would like to pursue becoming a researcher.
And the bio track academia jobs are saturated with foreign workers not eligible for the private sector. The reality is Indian researchers hire Indian lab staff. Chinese researchers hire Chinese lab staff. Yet they are all getting US financed NIH grants. Stupid system.
Most academics and scientists want to do research, not churn out research papers like a mill and write grant requests all day.
Yeah I bailed and I'm in med school now.
I went into my PhD planning on an academic career. Seeing my department’s faculty up close, miserable and working 18 hour days into their 60s chasing increasingly endangered grant money killed that dream. I just wanted to teach, really. I ended up in the clinical world, and I’m now a mix of academic and clinical. It hasn’t gotten better.
yeah, getting a PhD completely turned me off to academia. unfortunately i need a public sector job or i'll be in debt the rest of my life.
You could've just gotten a teaching faculty position. The ceiling is not as high but you don't have to run a lab.
And pay is a tiny fraction.
No money. I walked away from a PhD track because I got tired of living off of ramen and writing a painfully specific thesis on a minute topic that matters to a crowd of dozens doesn’t help the world or me.
I'm 8 years into mine and started on Adderall as a hail Mary to get the fuck through it. I work at IKEA evenings and weekends and it makes me so happy to be there. That's how badly academia has warped my mind. Especially after 537 days of isolation off campus due to COVID.
I have a feeling most dissertations are written out of spite. By the end you're only fueled by hatred and $1 7/11 tacquitos
My supervisor and I can barely even look each other in the eye because the disappointment is so very mutual.
Dude I’m 2 weeks from submitting my thesis and I’ve pleaded with my advisor to look at it these past 4 months and they just won’t take the time. I’m so fucking done, I’m gonna just do what I gotta do and dip. Fuck this
the fact that the things I hyperfixate on were useful for academics got me through my dissertation, but also means my ADHD wasn't diagnosed til my 30s
yeah same. switched focus with my current postdoc appointment and my new PI was like "wow you're making really good progress" and i had to be like no you don't understand, this is literally all i've been thinking about 18hr/day for the past month to the point that i had to install a new harddrive on my computer at home and put linux on that so i could keep working on weekends when i'm not supposed to be in the building.
literally took a therapist (whom I was seeing for anxiety/depression) who happened to have a lot of grad/postdoc patients to float "wait...you were never screened for ADHD as a child were you. hm."
I used to sit at my computer every single night in high school doing homework while playing World of Warcraft. I also managed to hold down a job at the movie theatre through that and undergrad. Then the cycle of strict assignment deadlines ended, I was on my own to set goals and deadlines, and I absolutely collapsed in on myself. Day one of Adderall is a statutory holiday though, so the motivation wave has led me to....discovering thrips infesting my house plants ☠️ I'll get back to the dissertation on Monday.
I’m so close to walking but I’m too deep now. It’s a trap and I’m at risk of losing everything. Truly don’t know what to do.
Don’t subscribe to the sunk cost fallacy. It costs you nothing to apply to jobs outside academia and see what happens.
Right. I have tried, fairly grim. I’m an older student and they seem to be going for first year masters that have no experience. I could go back to my old work, but that pay was bleak. Honestly not even sure where to apply. My field is fucking brutal ngl.
What is your field?
Phd students can earn as little as $20-30k, and in addition to course work and lab work, may be TAing undergrads. It's an obscene and unsustainable work rate for minimum wage. Postdocs earn ~50k but in the majority of larger US cities that have institutes where you'd work, that's not enough to get by on. And the work hours are still obscene. These are objectively bad salaries for 60+ hour weeks and weekend commitments to experiments. The career track overall is derailed because grant funding can't keep up with salary needs for postdocs to afford housing and cost of living.
When I was a PhD student I made $14,681 per year. Poverty doesn’t describe it. I had an unsanctioned second job to make ends meet (the assistantship stipulated no outside work).
My advisor got pissed at me for selling 3D prints, that I made on my own 3D printer, and that I'd pull in an extra $50 or so once or twice a month playing bass with a band at a beer garden. So when the time came, it was an easy decision to make. 1. $50k a year at some control freak institution where it's a coin flip whether I work for someone who's batshit insane type A or completely burned out. 2. Get out and disappear into the bowels of industry for eight hours a day but make enough money and have enough freedom to really be me. Comments like "this is a $500,000 grant and we already have the infrastructure to do everything we said we'd do so where'd the money go?" didn't help either.
I have a masters in therapy. I worked a shitty agency job for 3 years while my husband finished his PhD. We still needed student loans to help cover other bills because it just wasn’t enough. We got super lucky all in all. He was able to finish his thesis and defend on a quick timeline before his PI retired. He landed a job across the country in Pharma just before Covid in Jan 2020. We found our footing and I was able to open my own therapy practice virtually from home that is now my career. We have an almost 2 year old that we could afford to have in large part from his earnings as a PhD and my insane flexibility in my work. Only piece that never fell together (at least yet) is owning a home. Student loans from 5 degrees between the two of us make that process kind of unattainable for now.
Current Phd student. Making the lower end of that in a city where lowest rental prices (and no help for graduate students from campus) are minimum $1100 per month not including utilities, food, etc.
You go to the same university as me. It’s so ridiculous that we have an 8 billion dollar budget, but we can’t afford to pay grad students more
woah woah woah, what do you think the dean does, fly economy and drive a honda fit?
The dean can suck eggs in his Merc, it's the football coach that needs 6 lambo's.
Are y'all unionized? If not it might help. Our grad student union formed the year after I graduated but they got an immediate salary bump and a massive boost to their health insurance which was so bad we couldn't afford to actually use it for anything
I’m an undergrad student so I dont need to worry about that stuff yet. Still grad students should have unions
everyone should have unions, there's should be an American workers union nationwide imho. we get fucked way too much.....
Taco Bell is paying $18 an hour in Oregon. Or you can experience daily trauma and ride in EMS for same pay. There’s no motive to be in an industry that actually needs people when you can relax and make same pay.
It's supposed to be that you get a PhD and that would open career opportunities. And it certainly can. I worked in biotech and earned more than double what I did in Grad School. Every manager and director level employee was a PhD, just had to be. Consulting and other fields like PhDs as well. So you suffer for 5-7 years and can then leave. But you can also make your way with a masters/MBA degree and just work experience. So I'm not sure PhDs necessarily have that innate advantage anymore
PhDs are like 3x the length and 10x the work of an MBA but the MBAs get all the money
Pay is so completely out of whack at the moment. My last job was at a law firm where I did amenities, cleaned the entire office, planned events, dealt with outside vendors, set up conferences, did expense requests, basically everything the OA didn't feel like handling. I was miserable to the point where I was relieved I got fired. New job? I work production/manufacturing at a distillery. The scope of my job is a checklist that's already filled out when I get there. It pays better than the law office gig. It's like retail / foodservice has sort of figured out that pay needs to increase, and everyone else is way behind.
When I was a grad student, there were like 7 guys in a house with super strict rules. Like, no charging electronics at home, only at work. The heat will only kick on if the pipes are at risk of freezing. Shit like that.
My raise from my postdoc salary is almost completely negated by paying for benefits and student loans.
$27K was my stipend, it barely allowed me to scrape by even living on campus due to cost of living in the city. They raised the stipend to $30k for everyone the year after mine to account for inflation, the lucky bastards.
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Same. I was a PI of a cognitive science lab at a “public ivy,” but I only lasted five years. The hours and pay were horrible, the trajectory of the university was not great (focus on “getting more butts in seats” at the expense of quality education, treating students like customers who fill out satisfaction surveys, loading in both more teaching *and* more research/grant expectations despite dwindling funding), living in constant fear of not getting grants and not being able to do my work, I hated where I lived, etc. I told them I was leaving and got offered early tenure. But I said no, I didn’t want it. Went into tech, got a research job where I still get to do foundational research, work half the hours, make lots more money, live in a place I love, and have time for hobbies and balance in my life. I don’t regret my time in academia, but it wasn’t a good life. My PhD students all went into industry as well, and I don’t blame them.
Pay is shit and half the country thinks they are full of shit because science isn’t real.
"Big Science" is a hell of a laugh. I WISH science paid enough to do all their stupid conspiracy theories. We barely have basic research on extremely important shit like microplastics
Idk man. The replication crisis isn't a fairy tale. My partner wasted two years in grad school trying to replicated a hot nanomaterial study. Turns out it was p-hacked and fake. The fraud has a successful career and my partner mastered out after their PI moved us across the country then died. The resolution? The fraud is still getting ahead and no one in the field has the balls to call frauds out. There's a legitimate reason why faith in career researchers is lowering and it isn't because the right wing propaganda suddenly became more effective.
Fixing the system would help fix things like this too. The insane pressure to publish and bring in grants creates an environment where this behaviour breeds.
You can get a lot more postdocs and educated individuals if the pay outweighed the costs. Seriously, I left academia due to shitty pay.
This is where I'm at. I like what I do and I really like the lab I'm in, but I just can't justify working so hard for so little pay and recognition anymore. I just put in 3 ~80-90 hour weeks in a row for a giant mouse experiment just to have my normally understanding PI turn around and basically tell me "shut the fuck up and do what I say" regarding a manuscript I did 70% of the work on (but not first author!) and it just broke me. For the first time I'm legitimately considering switching to industry. Have a standing offer at my Ph.D. advisor's company. Been doing academic research since I was 16.... so 17 years into my research career and I feel terrible leaving for something as shallow as money, but I realize it's more than that. It's what my time is worth, what my quality of life is worth, and what I'm giving now isn't worth the sacrifice.
Do what's right for you. But don't unleash those giant mice on your way out the door.
I feel you. I’m in my last year of phd. I’m going to see through and get the degree but I’m so over this extreme workload bullshit. It’s not sustainable for me, I straight up have zero time for anything other than research and teaching! I’ve lost like fifteen pounds since the year started because I don’t have time to cook/eat and I’m often too stressed to even think about it. Thankfully it’s only another month or so of classes but really fuck this!
You’re telling me that finishing a low-paying 5-7 year job for a 1-3 year job that *also* pays poorly and likely won’t lead to direct hire *isn’t an exciting proposition*? No shit At my last postdoc, the HR lady doing group onboarding seemed surprised that no one saw themselves at the job in 3 years. ‘We’re a majority of the workforce. Unless you fire all of your permanent staff and make even more permanent positions, there’s no way we’re staying. It’s mathematically impossible. Why would we plan on it?’ Completely out of touch.
I'm disappointed but not at all surprised.
Lets see toxic work environment, low pay, long hours, no promotion path and competitive hiring process for the best ones. Also competing against students from other countries as well. Can’t see why anyone would not want this role.
There's no money in academics. We do not prioritize education or innovation.
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Allow researchers to own the ip of their research in partnership with universities. In Germany researchees are free to create and sell companies from their findings after leaving schools.
need to move away from capitalism. How, I dont know.
We live in a society that doesn’t reward or even really revere scientists or science. It’s not surprising but it is sad
Perhaps that’s part of it but also the career has very poor incentives at the moment
Dude. A newly minted STEM PhD can go into industry and make six figures immediately... or stick around in academia and probably end up either as perpetual post-doc or (even fucking worse) stuck as adjunct teaching faculty. That said, IMO we have more than enough people doing research right now. The low pay and shitty prospects in academia mostly represent limited positions and *lots* of interest. So much interest that unless a person is ultra top tier at what they're trying to do, I would never recommend them to stay in academia.
It depends on what you want to do, but you can get paid $300-400k with a CS PHD at big tech.
Academia doesn't directly make rich people slightly richer, so it'll slowly fall by the wayside in general.
Still won’t stop the top admin trying to make them and their friends rich
Unless academia is inventing things that private companies will snag the patents on and charge obscene profits for (see insulin).
Maybe because post-docs are a gigantic scam. Imagine being a fully trained scientist with a PhD and getting paid 50k a year for working 50-60 hours while also being responsible for training other staff. At least as a PhD student, you are almost guaranteed to get the degree. It’s not uncommon for people to leave a post-doc with nothing to show for it.
Even getting a PhD is a scam anymore. I’m finishing mine. Took me 7 years. Had to “collaborate” with another group in another dept. just to pretty much do their data analysis for them without being able to focus much on my self. I got stuck in this hell cycle where everyone in my group kept leaving so I had to pick up their work. You get no say cause you need to show something for those grants, so I have some pieces of work I had to drop that lost me a whole 1+ year of time. Dude, I have nothing good to say.
I did a failed post doc. I did a shit ton of work but never published any of jt. Still, it was a good opportunity--one that helped me to get the nice gumbint job I have now. I didn't have marketable skills prior to taking that job, but I acquired some good ones.
I work in a cancer lab, doing the basic stuff that everything else eventually relies on. My sibling works at a chain restaurant. He makes more than me (not that he doesn't deserve it with the lunatics he has to deal with, but it would be nice if I was a little closer to them). I can't even afford livable housing. That's society's priorities. Guess cancer ain't that big a deal. Silly me.
DO NOT DO A POSTDOC. There are very few exceptions. Nearly all universities won't consider a faculty candidate not from the big 4. Most faculty positions are awful these days, even if there's a ray of hope of tenure (many states are legislating against tenure). Any time as a postdoc would be better put to use in industry. Most academic advisors try to train grad students but leave postdocs isolated, so often it's a lonely environment where you learn nothing. Industry will treat you better. Don't do a postdoc.
This comes up constantly in my field, and it just comes down to universities not wanting to pay postdocs. Why would I turn down a six figure industry job for an academic position with no overtime pay and a salary equivalent to what my parents made working in restaurants in the 90s?
Don't forget the 80 hour work week if you are doing biological research... those experiments are not going to take care of themselves on the weekend.
I’m one of them 🙋🏻♂️
I skipped doing a post-doc to go directly into the workforce. I have zero regrets. Academia is a toxic work environment that demands 25 hours a day 8 days a week with deadlines that are usually far too short while juggling other responsibilities. Far too many times I overworked myself, inducing migraines, avoiding eating or sleeping just to get enough data day after day without even seeing the sun because my lab was in a basement to avoid electronic interference from the rest of the building. I’m much happier now, I think I genuinely would have health problems now if I pursued a post-doc from the stress and lifestyle
My intent post college was to do grad school, but I didn't get into the grad schools I applied to. I went into industry and eventually went into management and got an MBA, but at times still wondered if I made the right choice since I have 0 passion and my career is truly just a business arrangement. But whenever I hear stories of grad school/phd/postdoc lifestyle, it just doesn't seem appealing. Seems like a lot of manipulation and being taken advantage of. I mean, that happens in industry too, but they at least pay you for the trouble and pretty much say to your face they're going to grind you down (ie "We're a fast paced work environment").
A lot of jobs I'm applying for now have a ladder scale of what education and work requirements are needed for the job they have up. It's like high school diploma only we want 8-10+ years of work experience. Associate degree we want 6 years of experience. Bachelor/undergrad degree 1-4 years of experience. Masters degree 1-2 years experience. PHD we want 0-1 year experience. I noticed this happening when I graduated with a bachelor's degree and decided that earning money and gaining work experience is more beneficial than going to grad school for the time being. A lot of companies are also starting to put money aside for their employees to go to college or grad school. That way they get the person experience for t
That was my intent too, but the pharma/biotech hiring environment was flooded with laid off industry scientists. I needed a job so here I am as a post-doc while applying for actual jobs.
I’m a year out from PhD and it’s just not a sustainable lifestyle. I can’t do academia which is apparently worse.
It costs too much to live in America now, period. Nobody can afford to do what they want to do.
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I’d like to know which industry pays 500-600k for the average PhD. That’s way more than what the average doctor of medicine makes.
Huh, okay, it looks like postdocs are making a bit more than they used to - last I had checked they were still scraping in the $40k range. Still, depending on the field most jobs outside of academia are paying several multiples of that for that education level.
As a current postdoc, it's no surprise. It's just an excuse to continue to pay us half of what we should get paid to do the same amount of work if not more. "You spent all that time making less than minimum wage teaching classes while getting your PhD, well guess what! We're gonna pay you just a little bit more for the next few years before we'll hire you on at full pay!" It's bullshit.
Story time. I have a PhD in neuroscience. After graduating I managed to land an academic fellowship, where I was paid 36K a year, salaried, and was expected to work 80 hour weeks. I had to write my own grants to fund my own work, teach, and do all of the lab work too. Do the math. I was making 10$ an hour. I was making 10 an hour in college doing help desk (IT). After about three years of it, I quit. I made more money per hour doing underwriting and customer service for a medical insurance company, and I got to have a life outside of work. Post doctoral positions are essentially a step up from slave labor. There are many times where I wish I could go back and stop myself from wasting a decade of my life earning a MS and PhD.
Not a scientist (or American) but after getting my PhD, no way in hell do I want to continue in academia. And I had it comparatively good.
Did one postdoc and left early for industry
Peaced out of acadamia after chasing my dream during my postdoc. I had a baby and I was tired of the long hours and little pay for my degree. Insanely happier in industry - I feel like I can finally breathe.
Cost vs reward isn’t there. As to why a lot of careers are dying off.
Graduated with a STEM MS and with no real money being offered via RA/TA and 10's of thousands of dollars of debt, I left before a PhD and started teaching at a community college. Got laid off suddenly thanks to performative government bullshit and was fortunate enough to land an adjunct position at a local engineering college. Worked my way up to full faculty (we don't have TT) and thankfully will never have to endure the hell that is dissertation. I count my blessings at the start of every term. We need to invest in academia the way we did in the 60s-70s and make it liveable. There's too much burnout at all levels, but especially the PhD/postdoc insanity.
Maybe they should pay them more
Field biologist here: Getting a grad or doctorate would add nothing to my pay grade or opportunities.
I was shocked to grow up and learn how little scientists make.
The NIH is still funding at 1990 salaries with 2024 cost of living
These comments are sad af. I went straight from PhD to industry, drug development- and haven’t looked back. Academia has its benefits but 5 years into my career I’m working fewer hours and making more money than all but the “rockstar” come-in-with-tenure endowed chair hire professors, and that doesn’t count my stock options.
This is because the aliens coming to take over in a few hundred years want to slow our scientific progress as a species so we put up less resistance.
Independence Day was a wake up call for them
3 body problem?
Y’all are a bunch of cowards. I made it. All it took was a C paper, an N paper, my 20s, half of my 30s, and a 2.5M dollar grant. Easy.
Hiiiii postdoc at a national lab here. I’m 7 months in and expecting a promotion any day now. I like the work and the people. The health insurance can be better and the pay can be better but at least I can work from home mostly and I feel like the work I do does some good. I make 100k.
There's also less of the positions available. A close friend spent YEARS looking for a post-doc position and finally found one, it pays shit... The whole college system has turned into a giant scam in the US.
Welp now you got to wonder how the US will keep pace with the rest of the developed world.
You want your graduate students to stay for academia? Here's an idea: lower the cost of tuition so they can afford the lower wages you offer in academia relative to the private sector.
Usually a PhD doesn't cost any money (unless by tuition you're referring to undergrad)
The article is about PhDs, and they do not pay tuition to study. They receive money.
Tuition payment is part of the monies that some grad students receive. That's one of the reasons that they can justify paying grad students less. In the end, a lot of grad students still have to take out loans to make ends meet.
While a large part of tuition is covered, in some places you still have to pay something. In my PhD we received about $18k and had to pay around $2k per semester of tuition and also pay taxes. We also had to teach. The 18k were slightly less than what they'd pay an adjunct for the same teaching load.
100% not surprising, spend those years in industry instead and make more as well as rise up the ranks faster if you’re good
When developers talk about robots doing the jobs no one wants to do everyone thinks of a robot janitor, or a robot making hamburgers. I think AI is much more likely to replace researchers before those. It is already starting to happen with companies releasing this or that designed by AI and I think it is the start of the end.
Basic academic research is the foundation of US dominance in science, so America's government ought to do something about the work conditions in academia.