PhD salary (research assistant) did not increase during summer while working hours doubled, is this normal? (USA)

Question

I'm I PhD student in X engineering in the university X (top ranked program in the US, big university) and I'm finishing my first year with a first author paper in an important journal, 3 conferences (1 of them as invited speaker) and accepted to two more international conferences in October (my field is in physics actually but my group is inside the X engineering department). I've also completed all the credits required for candidacy and I'm going to take the exam in January of 2023.

As far as I know, PhD students (in particular international students like me) in the US are not allowed to legally work as research assistants for more than 20 hours per week during semesters (which makes sense if you are not a candidate yet) but are allowed to work full time during the summer (like I did during this summer in my first year). But my stipend remained the same during the summer... while I worked twice as hard...

Did I miss something? Why am I getting paid the same amount of money than during the semester if I'm working more hours... and I'm supposed to work 40 per week in the summer. Apologies if this is a silly question but I really don't understand this situation at all.

Answer 1

It is normal, though not universal. Some schools do exactly as you suggest, paying double over the summer. But this is a bit inconvenient for the students, who may resort to banking the summer surplus and slowly parsing it out over the rest of the year. So, many schools instead pay the same amount but in twelve equal installments. This may or may not reflect the "behind the scenes" view -- i.e., your advisor may indeed be paying more for your time in the summer than during the year, but that is not necessarily visible to you.

Answer 2

The idea of the 20-hour rule is that the "work" you do for 40 hours per week is half for your own education, and half for the project that funds the work. That has presumably not changed during the summer break.

Answer 3

As an international student, you might be confusing the federal 20-hour limit for F-1 visa students and your school's policies.

Most school policies consider you to have a full time workload all year. During the school year you are expected to take a full class load and do research, and taking classes is part of your full-time load. During the summer the time you would have spent on classes is spent on research instead. Your school doesn't think you're doing more work during the summer- just different work.

The federal government sets a limit of 20 hours of work per week for students on an F-1 visa during the school year. Time spent studying is specifically not included in those 20 hours. The limit is 40 hours per week during school holidays and summers. These limits exist to ensure that F-1 students have enough time to make adequate progress toward their degrees and to prevent abuses of the F-1 visa system.

On top of that, most PhD students are supported by a stipend- not an hourly wage. This is almost always an agreement to pay a monthly amount, and this is good for you. Many international students go home once or twice during their PhD, and they continue to receive their stipend during that time.

Answer 4

Hey congratulations on all of those accomplishments! Though with regards to the question, I don't think they are relevant. The following focuses mostly on STEM experiences, but I think applies broadly.

The 20hr work restriction has nothing to do with being an international student. It applies equally to domestic students. The reason, is that 20hrs / week is the minimum requirement to be labeled as a "student", i.e. in order to maintain student status in the eyes of the university and/or government. From what I understand though, this practice differs between private and public institutions. Graduate students live in a strange state between students and faculty. Student status is important for several reasons, like: (1) the university paying for your tuition (2) student benefits like class enrollment and healthcare (3) tax reasons, for both yourself and your institution. You may notice that you pay a suspiciously low tax rate on your earnings.

Over the summer, it's a different story. There is no required time to be in school, meaning that legally, students are free to work >20hrs / week while still maintaining student status. In terms of hours, you can be paid for 40 hrs / week, and indeed like other posters mentioned, often times students plan for this over the course of a year, and will save those earnings to help out during tougher times in the academic year.

So legally, you are free to earn a ton of money over the summer. In practice though, this usually doesn't quite happen for several reasons.

First, your department needs to have funding, which is often a major blocker. Second, assuming the money is there, your advisor or source of funding needs to agree to pay you for your time. This has both an agreed upon hourly component, as well as agreed upon start and end dates. With regards to advancement to candidacy, most universities have tiered pays, meaning that before advancement you will have an upper bound on your researcher salary. But again, that has nothing to do with hours worked, it's only w.r.t hourly pay. After candidacy, some departments will set standards for payment, while others leave this up to negotiation between students and advisors/department.

Third and finally, there is one additional problem with earning too quickly over the summer, that doesn't apply to everyone. If you were the recipient of a prestigious fellowship, or some other means of earnings, you can go over the annual cap if paid out too quickly (I think the cap starts/ends over the summer). This is not a fun situation to be in, and you basically just lose your money, it doesn't roll over. In this case you may opt for half pay over a longer period of time, even if the working hours were only during a fraction of that time period.

All in all, if you don't feel you're getting the pay you deserve, it's likely a conversation to have with your advisor.

Added note: You can also work two jobs over the summer. You can pick up 20hrs / week teaching and 20hrs / week researching. I was only focusing on the initial post, but this is further evidence that there is no working restriction.