4 ms·

> in a city like Lisbon, good luck being a student for example. Pay upwards of 500$/mo (or for perspective, 75% monthly minimum wage) for a room in a shared hou

> in a city like Lisbon, good luck being a student for example. Pay upwards of 500$/mo (or for perspective, 75% monthly minimum wage) for a room in a shared house Data point: around 25 years ago, I was paying GBP225/month - so that's ~USD300 - for a (tiny!) bedroom in a shared house in Cambridge, UK. I'm not sure what approach one would best use to adjust for 25 years of house price and/or general inflation, but isn't that in the same ballpark as your '$500' in Libson now? FWIW, we thought housing was expensive back then, too.

switch007 6y ago
What about wages in Cambridge at the time?
- logifail 6y ago
  > What about wages in Cambridge at the time? We were postgrad students. No idea about average wages for those who were working, but we were always broke.
zilian 6y ago
Compared to average revenue in the area, absolutely not
- logifail 6y ago
  > Compared to average revenue Q: Are we talking about average students or average workers?
  - zilian 6y ago
    Both
GlennS 6y ago
Second datapoint to fill in the inflation a bit: 16 years ago I paid £270/month to live in a sharehouse in Bristol (not generally as expensive a place to live in as Cambridge) in a boiler cupboard that had been converted to a bedroom.
nunoonun 6y ago
225 GBP wasn't 75% of the 700-800GBP minimum wage at that time. And ignoring completely inflation to help your point. Students are broke, but parents can help, and if your "room" costs half of one your parents wage, that help is less likely to happen. Or make the poorer even poorer. That situation is totally different if your room costs a quarter of one of your parents wage.
- logifail 6y ago
  > 225 GBP wasn't 75% of the 700-800GBP minimum wage at that time Q: Do "minimum wage" rules apply 1) in theory, 2) in practice to postgraduate students? Yet more [ancient] data: UK science research council funding for PhD students in the late 1990s was nothing to get excited about; I have an old bank statement here, BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter not for a month. > Students are broke, but parents can help Q: Do we really think postgraduate students should expect their parents to still be funding them?
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    > BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter > £225 per month Apparently, yes. We do expect parents to still be funding postgraduate students if they don’t want them to starve. £702 pounds per quarter seems kind of hard to live on. That’s like £8 a day to pay for everything except rent. Actually, that seems kind of doable.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - nunoonun 6y ago
    > Q: Do "minimum wage" rules apply 1) in theory, 2) in practice to postgraduate students? If you have to find a part-time to pay some of your expenses yes. In that case a part-time in Lisbon will pay you slightly more than half of your room and in "your case" it would pay the whole room. It's a BIG difference if you have to go down that road. > Yet more [ancient] data: UK science research council funding for PhD students in the late 1990s was nothing to get excited about; I have an old bank statement here, BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter not for a month. I do agree that post-grads are very badly paid. But that's another issue. > Q: Do we really think postgraduate students should expect their parents to still be funding them? Not really, but if there's an emergency I think parents will not let their kids starve. And this hackernews rhetoric of 'if I suffered everyone has to suffer as well' needs to end. That's not how you move forward.
andrepd 6y ago
I understand that you're talking about postgraduate studies. I was thinking more about undergrad: where the parents are expected to pay for their kids studies. Tuition is already 80€ per month, and even that is waived if you come from a low-income family. But how is someone earning 600€/mo supposed to send someone to college when rooms cost at the very least 350-400€/mo? Plus living expenses, 150€ the bare minimum. Even if you apply for financial aid (which you will get) the amount is woefully inadequate to face this rising costs. The result is that poor families cannot send their kids to uni. That's not democracy, freedom, or equality. Also those 225£, what fraction is that of the minimum/median household income?
- kyawzazaw 6y ago
  Thus, loans like the US

switch007 6y ago

What about wages in Cambridge at the time?

logifail 6y ago
> What about wages in Cambridge at the time? We were postgrad students. No idea about average wages for those who were working, but we were always broke.

zilian 6y ago

Compared to average revenue in the area, absolutely not

logifail 6y ago
> Compared to average revenue Q: Are we talking about average students or average workers?
- zilian 6y ago
  Both

GlennS 6y ago

Second datapoint to fill in the inflation a bit: 16 years ago I paid £270/month to live in a sharehouse in Bristol (not generally as expensive a place to live in as Cambridge) in a boiler cupboard that had been converted to a bedroom.

nunoonun 6y ago

225 GBP wasn't 75% of the 700-800GBP minimum wage at that time. And ignoring completely inflation to help your point. Students are broke, but parents can help, and if your "room" costs half of one your parents wage, that help is less likely to happen. Or make the poorer even poorer. That situation is totally different if your room costs a quarter of one of your parents wage.

logifail 6y ago
> 225 GBP wasn't 75% of the 700-800GBP minimum wage at that time Q: Do "minimum wage" rules apply 1) in theory, 2) in practice to postgraduate students? Yet more [ancient] data: UK science research council funding for PhD students in the late 1990s was nothing to get excited about; I have an old bank statement here, BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter not for a month. > Students are broke, but parents can help Q: Do we really think postgraduate students should expect their parents to still be funding them?
- Aeolun 6y ago
  > BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter > £225 per month Apparently, yes. We do expect parents to still be funding postgraduate students if they don’t want them to starve. £702 pounds per quarter seems kind of hard to live on. That’s like £8 a day to pay for everything except rent. Actually, that seems kind of doable.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- nunoonun 6y ago
  > Q: Do "minimum wage" rules apply 1) in theory, 2) in practice to postgraduate students? If you have to find a part-time to pay some of your expenses yes. In that case a part-time in Lisbon will pay you slightly more than half of your room and in "your case" it would pay the whole room. It's a BIG difference if you have to go down that road. > Yet more [ancient] data: UK science research council funding for PhD students in the late 1990s was nothing to get excited about; I have an old bank statement here, BBSRC paid me the princely sum of £1377 on 1 July 1998, and by the way, that was for that quarter not for a month. I do agree that post-grads are very badly paid. But that's another issue. > Q: Do we really think postgraduate students should expect their parents to still be funding them? Not really, but if there's an emergency I think parents will not let their kids starve. And this hackernews rhetoric of 'if I suffered everyone has to suffer as well' needs to end. That's not how you move forward.

andrepd 6y ago

I understand that you're talking about postgraduate studies. I was thinking more about undergrad: where the parents are expected to pay for their kids studies. Tuition is already 80€ per month, and even that is waived if you come from a low-income family. But how is someone earning 600€/mo supposed to send someone to college when rooms cost at the very least 350-400€/mo? Plus living expenses, 150€ the bare minimum. Even if you apply for financial aid (which you will get) the amount is woefully inadequate to face this rising costs. The result is that poor families cannot send their kids to uni. That's not democracy, freedom, or equality. Also those 225£, what fraction is that of the minimum/median household income?

kyawzazaw 6y ago
Thus, loans like the US