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UIUC - 58.6% One thing that really annoys me as a grad student is the fact that the University charges tuition to my advisor even if I'm not taking any classes

UIUC - 58.6% One thing that really annoys me as a grad student is the fact that the University charges tuition to my advisor even if I'm not taking any classes. Most PhD students finish their course work pretty quickly and don't take any classes after that and yet they get charged for tuition from the grant. The justification is that they're enrolled in thesis credits which is also a class but that's stupid imo, especially when the grad students don't get paid much. It's even more annoying when people say "oh your pay as grad student is low because technically you are getting free tuition.". Yeah no, I'm getting free tuition for like a year or two I take classes while I'm working there for 5 years. I also wish the funding agencies allowed more flexibility is terms of spending excess money in different categories. I was surprised to know that left over money from a grant that's supposed to pay for an an undegrad cannot be used to buy a faster computer for research related to the same project or maybe even pay for data labeling services like scale.AI. They wanted us to hire a much more expensive undegrad instead of using external data labeling services at much cheaper prices. Oh and also Fly America Act. Every federal grant requires you to use US airlines and I sometimes paid 2x what I would have paid otherwise (and only one of the author could do instead of 2 because of limited money).

kevviiinn 4y ago
Yea it's BS. I'm getting charged tuition (which is waived) while getting paid a 50% FTE contract as a graduate researcher yet I spend 100%+ time in the lab on research. So they're saying that they're charging me for that other 50%+ time I guess? Sure, they can call it dissertation work, some of it isn't directly on the grant I'm under but that's still messed up IMO. Some other students in my lab are there every weekend.
- runeblaze 4y ago
  I really think that after the first two/three years there should be a system converting PhD students to an official researcher title, which is what they essentially are. Credit hours for thesis research, most of which is publishable and usually for some grant, is just BS, and even worse it helps justify the fact that one must work 20 hours per week while spending extra unpaid time for fulfilling the thesis research credit.
  - Fomite 4y ago
    Both the university where I got my PhD and the university where I'm at right now have mechanisms to reduce your tuition to very, very near 0 (usually whatever is the minimum number of credits) once you pass your prelims.
- hervature 4y ago
  Waived tuition for PhD students is such BS and a clear tax loop hole that universities can increase their costs artificially (they get to pick tuition). I always told my peers that universities would treat PhD students very differently if they actually paid the full payment to the student via 1099 who could then claim the cost as a business expense. The 50% FTE I think is heavily intertwined by the fact that international F1 students are not allowed to work more than 20 hours. You could have a 2 tier system for domestic vs. international students but that would cause a clear schism in the student population. Regardless, there is the very real problem that a huge part of PhD is indeed training. In my department, it was very real that your "non-training" hours looked something like 0/25/50/75/100 across the years. Basically, nothing in the first 2 years, taking courses and maybe helping a bit on the side then finishing the last year writing and publishing a lot of stuff and training the new PhDs. It averages to 50% and I think is generally fair from that regard that the university did not hire you as a 100% researcher out of the gate.

kevviiinn 4y ago

Yea it's BS. I'm getting charged tuition (which is waived) while getting paid a 50% FTE contract as a graduate researcher yet I spend 100%+ time in the lab on research. So they're saying that they're charging me for that other 50%+ time I guess? Sure, they can call it dissertation work, some of it isn't directly on the grant I'm under but that's still messed up IMO. Some other students in my lab are there every weekend.

runeblaze 4y ago
I really think that after the first two/three years there should be a system converting PhD students to an official researcher title, which is what they essentially are. Credit hours for thesis research, most of which is publishable and usually for some grant, is just BS, and even worse it helps justify the fact that one must work 20 hours per week while spending extra unpaid time for fulfilling the thesis research credit.
- Fomite 4y ago
  Both the university where I got my PhD and the university where I'm at right now have mechanisms to reduce your tuition to very, very near 0 (usually whatever is the minimum number of credits) once you pass your prelims.
hervature 4y ago
Waived tuition for PhD students is such BS and a clear tax loop hole that universities can increase their costs artificially (they get to pick tuition). I always told my peers that universities would treat PhD students very differently if they actually paid the full payment to the student via 1099 who could then claim the cost as a business expense. The 50% FTE I think is heavily intertwined by the fact that international F1 students are not allowed to work more than 20 hours. You could have a 2 tier system for domestic vs. international students but that would cause a clear schism in the student population. Regardless, there is the very real problem that a huge part of PhD is indeed training. In my department, it was very real that your "non-training" hours looked something like 0/25/50/75/100 across the years. Basically, nothing in the first 2 years, taking courses and maybe helping a bit on the side then finishing the last year writing and publishing a lot of stuff and training the new PhDs. It averages to 50% and I think is generally fair from that regard that the university did not hire you as a 100% researcher out of the gate.