How much is a PhD ?

[DinosaurDiana]

My DD has announced that she will be doing a PhD.
We will have paid her accommodation for four years, and don’t want to anymore.
Can I ask how the course is funded and how she will pay accommodation/food ?

There are so many answers to that question!

1. There are funded PhDs available that pay for tuition and a stipend but are highly competitive and usually all decided in February.

1. The self funded route costs about £4500 per year (full time) at my uni plus accommodation and living costs

1. There are postgrad loans available - I don’t know how much (I am on a funded PhD)

1. Jobs at the university such as a Teaching Assistant help pay the bills but aren’t enough to live on. Starting salary at my uni for this is about £18 / hour but you are only looking at a couple of hours a week for about 40 weeks of the year as a maximum.

It is possible to get an outside job during PhD - quite a few do a PhD part time whilst working full time.

If she has announced it, and is presumably in her early 20s, surely she has figured out how she is going to pay for it?

Is it a science PhD? Most of them are funded, with a stipend, this used to come in at around 50% of a salary that pays living costs.
As pp said some people are lucky in that they can do a PhD alongside working as a research assistant.

It depends whether she gets funding and if so, how much.

Did you not ask her.?

Need more details OP - has she got funding to start with? I had funding to do mine, but there were people in my office self funding or part self funding and as far as I am aware they weren't having their food/accommodation paid for by their parents. Most worked part time at least and lived in cheap student houses.

Fees are just under £5k.

Self-funding is a bad idea. The job market for those in most subject areas is fiendishly competitive; even those who are brilliant enough to secure scholarships are not all going to get jobs.

Research Council funding covers fees plus a stipend of £15k a year to cover living costs. PhD students can sometimes get some additional income through part-time teaching.

Some PhD students apply to be resident wardens in university halls of residence, which (if successful) provides them with accommodation.

Someone started a thread about a similar situation a couple of days ago, which may be of interest: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4210694-Not-to-want-to-support-DSD-in-her-career-choice?pg=1

We haven’t spoken about it yet because she seems to assume that we will continue to pay her accommodation, but we don’t want to.
She will already have had four years worth off us, we only thought she would do 3 years.

She doesn’t discuss anything, it’s more of a fait accomplis situation.

What subject? If it’s a science subject it’s highly likely to be funded, to the tune of around £15k pa tax free.

@DinosaurDiana

She doesn’t discuss anything, it’s more of a fait accomplis situation.

Well then you need to have a talk with her- find out what she's doing and how she's going to fund it also being clear about what you are/ are not willing to pay towards it.

Make it clear you don’t want to pay for her accommodation. Everyone I know who did a phd for funding so tell her that’s the route she needs to go down. Can I ask, can you not afford to help her with accommodation or do you not want to/don’t think you should at her age?

Got funding not for funding*

My son had a stipend from the government. I didn’t need to pay a penny. He also worked as a lecturer part time to boost his income.

She needs to get funding from the university or similar. Parents do not need to fund PhDs

Do you think she assumes you will keep supporting her as you have been? I would consider what you would be prepared to offer if anything if she hasn't secured any funding (a lot of the arts council funding is about to or has been offered so she may have just been offered all the money she needs) if not tell her we can help with e.g £5000 a year but no more than that so you will need a part time job alongside your phd

@Springchickpea

What subject? If it’s a science subject it’s highly likely to be funded, to the tune of around £15k pa tax free.

If she's 'announces' it, it's highly unlikely to be funded- funding for science is hugely competitive. And most opportunities for this autumn would have been advertised last autumn.

Has she actually got a topic, a supervisor? Or does she think all she needs to do is fill in a form?

Loans for PhDs are available btw.

If a PhD is genuinely worth doing then funding exists. How difficult it is to secure does depend on subject area but even non-science research does have some funding. It's not unreasonable for parents of a 22yo to say that the bank of Mum&Dad is no longer providing subsidies.

If she is ready to do a PhD she will figure this all out herself, including how to pay for her own accommodation. I know my parents were scared I was going to ask them for money when I told them I was going to grad school, but I made it very clear all I needed was a place to stay for a few weeks between when i needed to move out of my flat and before I left for my new city. She needs to figure out funding, whether or not her program allows outside employment, etc.

To qualify for funding your dd will need a very good first degree, a masters with distinction and an excellent research proposal in a "sexy" subject that is much in demand.

I got a studentship from my uni to begin my Ph.d. then the following year I won government funding for 2 years. I finished my thesis within the 3 funded years but thats extremely rare.

I also did part time teaching at the uni (most postgrads did that) and had a PT teaching job in FE as well. It meant I could afford my own flat - albeit on a very tough council estate.

This was back in the 1990s and even then academic jobs were few and far between. I had 5 fixed term contracts of 2 years each before I finally retired from employed work and opened my own business.

Tenured posts in academia are now very rare. So unless in a desirable science subject where there are real shortages the best one can ever hope for is a series of fixed term contracts. Most people with a doctorate do not stay in academia but go into other areas within their subject specialty.

Not sure how many of you actually work in universities but there are still 57 unfilled PhD studentships at my local university, and plenty nationally:

www.findaphd.com/phds/united-kingdom/?g0w900

Sometimes they are filled like a job advert, sometimes it’s more about the relationship the student already has with the supervisor, perhaps as a project student, and funding is sought specifically.

@User135792468

Make it clear you don’t want to pay for her accommodation. Everyone I know who did a phd for funding so tell her that’s the route she needs to go down. Can I ask, can you not afford to help her with accommodation or do you not want to/don’t think you should at her age?

I don't want to anymore. She will have had over £6000 per year for four years. I’ve had to work to pay it. I don’t want to push her into selling her body or drugs to fund it !!, but I equally don’t want to pay anymore.

I don’t want to push her into selling her body or drugs to fund it

It is definitely not the case that PhD students are either funded by their parents or have to descend into selling their body or drugs to fund their research addiction. Don't worry.

The qualifications and study you have already helped her through have given her the skills and qualifications to make her own way in the world now. Her path may include going for a PhD but if it does she is perfectly capable of using her brain and talents to find ways of supporting herself through that without resorting to the world of crime and exploitation.

Don't feel bad OP, my parents didn't fund me at all at University. I did 4 year degree and then a PhD, all of which I paid for myself by having part time jobs. For the PhD I got a stipend.

What does she want the PhD for? Does she have a career in mind where it'd be helpful, or is she just interested and wanting to spend some more time studying?

If she has even a glimmer of a thought she wants to get into academia, she needs the funding not just financially, but also because it's quite a significant CV boost.

Subject matters. DS is taking a PhD in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics, and from the end of his second UG year has not had a problem finding Research Assistant work. The University were practically begging the Masters sudents on his course to do some TA work on compulsory first year maths courses. His PhD offer came with the offer of voluntary but guaranteed teaching work which bumped the funding up considerably. Note that PhD funding is tax free so you don'tpay much tax on other income.

However those who have mastered financial maths are in short supply and therefore in demand.

There is also a healthy market for private tutors in London. People looking for help with A level physics were hiring Imperial PhDs at significant rates. And, less acknowledged, there is also a healthy, renumerative, market from Undergraduates, often from countries with strong tutoring cultures, who used tutoring to maximise A level grades, and then find the step up to University level maths difficult, or who want to continue to get top grades.

DS eventually chose to do his PhD in the States where teaching/RA work is part of the contract, which effectively means it is less well funded than his UK offer. The University offers further teaching work for those that want (tutoring members of the football team, say, as they need to maintain a level of academic achievementto remain eligibleto play for the University) but he say that private tuition for UGs is so well paid that few are interested in doing further University organised stuff.