How to silence the voice that tells you you're being financially irresponsible by spending 4 to 6 years doing a PhD?

Question

I'm very conflicted regarding applying to (American) PhD programs vs. not doing so and finding a job in industry to have more money.

The thought of doing a PhD makes me feel financially irresponsible; yet, I have concrete research interests and would be doing a PhD for the right reasons. I've also been told that my application would be strong for some good schools, so I feel I'd waste a valuable opportunity.

How do you decide to do a PhD, knowing that it's the "poor" route to take for the next 4 to 6 years of your life? It feels like a reckless move, but at the same time, a dream worth pursuing, and that nothing in industry could possibly come close to digging deeper into my research projects that I've started on.

Answer 1

When you go to the industry, how do you silence the voice that tells you you could be spending your time advancing the knowledge of humanity, rather than devising new ways to make people look at an internet ad, or helping big stock exchange companies aimlessly move money from account A to account B, without any net gain for the world?

Answer 2

In many STEM disciplines it is financially irresponsible. To not understand that would be deceiving yourself. Don't do a Ph.D for money. Have other reasons to make it worthwhile.

Answer 3

I don’t think that getting a Ph.D., especially in a “STEM” field, is irresponsible. You get a stipend, you leave without added debt, and you can find decent employment after.

But it is the case that if you’d want to maximize earnings, getting a Ph.D. is not generally a good strategy. The reason people get a Ph.D. is usually because they want to have a research career, not because they want to make as much money as possible. And that’s what you tell yourself if you need to justify getting a Ph.D.

It wasn’t hard for me to justify to myself — I don’t generally make decisions only around what will make me the most money, and I didn’t in the case of going to grad school.

Answer 4

How to silence the voice...

PhD is a an investment with a very long term maturity. I.e. you may not see the benefits of you having got a PhD until you are 40-50. But there are huge financial benefits to it that may make it financially responsible to get a PhD early on in your life. Here are some:

1. With a PhD you will be employable as long as you want to. You will always be able to find a decent paying teaching job even if you are over retirement age, whether at a local community college or somewhere overseas. Without a PhD, your risk of finding yourself unemployed in your later years is much higher.

2. A PhD gives you a lot of transferable skills. You will be able to switch jobs easier and switch careers, should your main specialization become obsolete decades into the future.

3. PhD does increase your salary. While you lose a bunch of big paychecks early in your career, your PhD/skills do not devalue like money. 30 years into the future $500,000 may be equal to $50,000 of today's dollars. Your research skills will be every bit as valuable.

4. You will become generally smarter. You will read a lot more books, papers, analyze more data, and learn to solve harder problems. Life is long. An uptick in intelligence can save you a fortune over a ~50 year period.

5. This is my favorite. It will change your values. You will become a different person with a different set of needs. World's problems will seem more personal to you, while your own problems will seem common and trivial in the grand scheme of things. It seems too abstract and questionable, but financial implications are real. You will buy less expensive and luxury things, as they will give you less joy, and entertain yourself more intellectually, which costs less. E.g. choose to take some time to read a few books on your to-read list, rather than going shopping for a new expensive phone or car.

Answer 5

I had very similar thoughts as I was starting a mathematics PhD 5+ years ago, so I'll tell you a little about my experience.

1) During graduate school I was fortunate to earn a decent stipend. With this and fairly modest living, I was lucky enough to finish without debt. I realize this isn't possible for everyone, but it is definitely possible for some. (It also helped that my institution was in a midwest city--rent was cheap.)

2) I now work at a small liberal arts college doing exactly what I want to do. The amount of freedom I have is tremendous, and I can't imagine a job that would be a better fit for me.

3) It was definitely challenging to watch my friends "grow up" faster than me. While I was still in school and eating pasta/rice/ramen for most meals, they were buying houses and new cars. But now I make comparable money to them, I have a job I like more, I get to set my own schedule, and I have the summers "off." Definitely worth it, in my opinion.

Answer 6

This article shows that a PhD in Engineering makes only ~7% more than a Master's in Engineering in total lifetime earnings.

If your PhD is related Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, etc. (unfortunately mine is not), it is worth a lot. A PhD student from CMU once told me that data scientists graduating from his group earn $200K to $300K in their first jobs (including RSU, sign-in bonus etc).

Answer 7

I decided to do a PhD by looking inside myself and asking "What is the ultimate purpose of your life in the short time that you have on this planet?". This is obviously specific to me and may not help you. I think doing a PhD is a subjective decision that you need to decide about it based on your personal desires, goals and preferences. As a result, I believe in this context, "poor" or "reckless" are also subjective and can depend on your personal perspective because, for me and many people that I know personally, doing a PhD is hard for many reasons but is not considered poor or reckless as we enjoy working toward the goal that we have.

How to silence the voice ...

To be honest, I believe that this voice you mentioned is always with me whenever I need to make an important decision. After receiving my M.Sc. degree, I went to industry and took a job that paid well and I enjoyed doing but, the voice told me incessantly that I was just fulfilling someone else's dream. After starting to pursue a degree, the voice came back saying "You are giving up a comfortable life for 4 years of hard work to gain what?" (curse words removed! :)). Therefore, the voice that you are referring to will probably never stop. This is not a bad thing by itself as I believe it can be utilized to make a more informed decision. I understand you that making this decision is hard, but remember that after making a decision, it is important to adhere to it and know that sometimes it is not a bad idea to ignore the voice for a while.

Side note: Jazz music and a pair of good headphones help me a lot silencing the voice!

Answer 8

You need to realize that you just need to stay alive long enough to die. I mean that in the cheeriest way possible. Your real currency is time. How do you want to spend that? Academia? Fine. Industry? Fine. Just spend it on something you think is valuable enough to account for your life.

Money is so over rated, it is sad that we measure the value of a human being by it. How will you be remembered by your children, your friends or history? I know you may think that you have to sock away money for your children's college fund or something but the people that are telling you that are those that profit from your money sitting in their possession.

Doing a PhD because it improves your job prospects is totally the wrong reason to do it. You should be doing it because you love the work and want to contribute to it. As already covered by other answers it doesn't really make economic sense apart from a few fields.

On the point of how much time it takes, there are more ways to accomplish this such as moving to another country that has a more streamlined approach to PhDs. You could also do the work part time and work part time if you think you are being irresponsible by not earning a wage.

Answer 9

I did a PhD in theoretical physics. This is usually the royal way to never have the problem of getting rich.

I did it because I loved science and it was a great adventure. I met a population which I would not have had the chance to meet otherwise.

It was a fantastic time.

I then realized that I would not be a good scientist. It is not that I would be bad (I loved to teach for instance) but going to high tech industry helped me to choose the optimal way: enough science to keep me entertained all the time, and a different environment/goals. And money too.

The fact that I had a PhD was important: I was lucky enough to meet people who understood that if someone went through a PhD in physics, they have at least some perseverance. I got two fantastic jobs because of that.

So when you say "knowing that it's the "poor" route to take for the next 4 to 6 years of your life", I say "knowing that this is a 4-6 years investment, and a really, really fun one".

EDIT: I was not poor either. I got all sorts of grants, worked at CERN (where the salaries were excellent) - and the environment I worked in was not particularly interested in money so it ended up not being my main concern anyway.

Answer 10

The question cannot be answered because it is based on a false premise: that is, that there is a recurring "voice that tells you you're being financially irresponsible by spending 4 to 6 years doing a PhD".

In my decades in academia (STEM) I've hardly ever seen or heard any serious scientist having this supposed "voice". On the contrary, most scientists with a job I've met are happy with their work, and deem industry as something that is not suitable for their purposes and aspirations.

Answer 11

I would argue that there's more to making the decision between master's and Ph.D. programs than concerns about fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility is wonderful—and a skill you'll need to master as a graduate student and beyond. Equally important, though, is determining if you want to be in a research role, or if you are satisfied with doing a job in industry for a number of years (or possibly the rest of your career).

If what you really want to do is research, then you're likely going to be unhappy after a while in industry, even if you're making good money.

Answer 12

...a dream worth pursuing, and that nothing in industry could possibly come close to digging deeper into my research projects that I've started on.

You already answered your own question.

One thing to add is what type of work you want to do now and in the future. Having a PhD would not guarantee you development/research projects while working in the industry, but it would help you a lot. And if you are interested in working development/research projects (either industry or academia), maybe that is more life fulfilling than than maximising your salary in a job that you dont like.

Answer 13

You should try and actually compute the costs, including the non-monetary ones. The non-monetary benefits include: the ability to make your own schedule much of the time, getting to the level where you can do independent research, time to learn things that may not be of immediate benefit to your employer, five years of waking up when you want (most days), etc.

I found those benefits invaluable. The ability to do independent research for example will stay with you for the rest of your life. I'd argue even that you can't possibly know the benefits of this skill without actually having experienced it. Computing raw PhD vs BSc/Msc salaries will not give you the truth.

A PhD degree is five years of focusing your entire energy on yourself. Do it!

Answer 14

Irresponsible is as harsh word. If you pay your own way you are responsible.

Financially responsible is how you manage your money. There are athletes that made millions and died broke.

Start saving 4-6 years late means you need to save aggressively but just manage it.

I would rather brown bag to a job I like rather than a $20 lunch for a job I took for the money.

Answer 15

If at the end of your life, when you are laying in bed, waiting for death, someone asks you if you had a happy life, then which answer would satisfy you more: that you had a lot of money and could buy whatever you wanted to, or that your research has been a valuable contribution to mankind?

The answer to that question is the answer to your question here. If you choose the other, you will regret it for the rest of your life.

Answer 16

Your main concern is being "financially irresponsible" but that is meaningless without specifying some objective that would not be satisfied by a PhD salary.

You make it sound like life's ultimate purpose is to earn as much money as possible. Wouldn't financial responsibility then mandate that you progress via prostitution and organized crime to a career in politics?

So without spelling out which financial responsibilities would not be met by entering a PhD program, you cannot expect useful answers.

A grandfather of mine was an industrial sewing machine mechanic working in construction. He received a promotion to some department head position and handed it back several weeks later, including the considerable pay raise, because the change did not match his interests and leanings and enjoyable skill set. He had a family and house to support. Was that financially irresponsible? Not in my book. It was financially inconvenient, definitely.

But leading a life that you can feel good about is a responsibility that sometimes clashes with earning as much money as possible, and while having more money rather than less when everything else is equal may be good, everything else is not always equal.

Answer 17

I'm very conflicted regarding applying to (American) PhD programs vs. not doing so and finding a job in industry to have more money.

Your parenthetical points to an answer no one put forward yet, though it seems you were at least subconsciously aware of it from the start. You could apply to PhD programmes in countries where the route to the degree is much faster than in the US. Not only is it faster, but in the UK, you typically start doing research right away, whereas in the US you first do a bunch of coursework, pass some tests, and only then start doing research.

Personally, I've tried both and while I didn't save time that way, I did learn which one I found more to my liking. In addition, there's something to be said for life experience above and beyond money and education. Living in a foreign country (even an English-speaking one) is an interesting way to garner some experience that you wouldn't get sticking around your home country.

Amy Chua: “Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery.”

Answer 18

I am not going to use statistics but I am going to give you feedback from my personal experience: it made a lot of financial sense to me. I am earning way more than I would, not only, I can very easily get a new job (much easier than if I did not have a PH.D.) which also means many more choices, and you get a lot more respect on your job from day one. I think, if you have the qualities to do it, it would be (financially) irresponsible not to do it.

Answer 19

First, I suggest that you don't try to silence voices. Yours is a valid concern, even if there are ways to address this concern. In addition to other fine answers, I suggest you take time to discuss this with friends, preferably older ones who can share experiences of having taken each of the two "roads".

Another way to deal with this situation is try to be a little more light-hearted about it. In that context I very much recommend you read:

Life's big decision: A PhD or the lottery?

by Ronald Azuma (who's a PhD himself).

Answer 20

You Don't

That voice is an important voice. It is one you need to hold onto and remember when future students ask you about getting a PhD. It's the one you remember when one of your students is essentially being asked to give the university a short-term, interest-free loan to the university while they wait for reimbursement for a conference trip. It's the voice you think of when you read the debates about paid vs. unpaid undergraduate researchers, and how affluence unlocks academia as a career surprisingly early.

What you do is you think about your values. Money has an obvious, concrete, and tangible value. It turns into cars, and rent checks, nice meals and flat screen TVs. The benefits of academia are genuinely there - there's more intellectual freedom, and the chance to do a lot of unstructured work that is (less) driven by immediate business or financial needs. And that has value.

You sit down, and you ask yourself how much value. You never silence the voice reminding you there is an alternative - the cost:benefit analysis of academia requires that voice. And you revisit that voice on occasion, asking if the choice you have made still serves your interests.

TL;DR: You don't silence it, you embrace it, and you subject it to periodic analysis.

Answer 21

Where is the voice that tells you that a PhD is financially irresponsible coming from?

If this is the voice of self-doubt, you will need to come to terms with the sacrifices involved in following your dreams. All plans have tradeoffs.

If this voice has been foisted on you by other people, then you should spend some time figuring out how you really feel. If your goal was to come to stack exchange displace the old advice with new advice, you'll find that the voice of the crowd, no matter how loud, never inspires confidence the way your own voice can.

Answer 22

Getting a PhD requires a lot of perseverance. Let me share an anecdote about my son. He wanted to be an actor in musical theatre. We were at a meeting at the school he eventually decided to attend and a mother asked the program director what her child should take so the child had something to fall back on if acting didn't work out. The director's answer said a lot: your child should probably find a different career, because you have to have an all-in commitment to theatre or you won't make it. You have to ask yourself if getting a PhD means more to you than just about anything else. Otherwise, you may not stick it out. I went to grad school with others who maybe were more gifted than I but who dropped by the wayside. I probably wanted it more, a lot more. I suggest you have to ask yourself some hard questions before deciding your course of action. Leave financial success out of it. I haven't become rich as a liberal arts college professor, but I have had a satisfying life. What is it you really want to do? We can't answer that question for you.

Answer 23

The reason for doing a PhD should be to hunt for the deep rooted satisfaction and happiness of actually getting really, really good at something. Money is arbitrary and something most of us don't have much control over in life. You can't decide where rich people will put their money. It will always be out of your control.

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But the happiness of getting really good at something... No one can take that away from you.

Answer 24

It depends on how financially disciplined you are. If you tend to inflate your lifestyle to match your income, then you will be equally financially irresponsible no matter what path you take. However, if you are good at saving/investing then the financial consequences could be huge. At one extreme, if you are investing 66% of your income, you should be able to retire after 10 years. In this case, delaying retirement by 6 years seems like a large price to pay. You could always do a PhD after you retire if you still find the drive to do so. I wish I had understood this before doing my PhD.

Answer 25

You also took the University. Being a university student pays less than starting a job immediately (red line in the chart below), right?

But in the long term University graduates (blue line in the chart) earn more. Same goes for PhD students (green line)

Answer 26

I think I understand what you are thinking. It can feel "financially irresponsible" to spend 4-6 years studying for a PhD, because when you are a PhD student, you are earning a relatively low salary (say 30 K USD a year); while your classmates who decided to work in industry may be earning a much larger salary (say 100 K USD a year).

I recommend that you do your research so that you understand your employment prospects after you get your PhD. While your question is primarily about PhDs, I would say more broadly that graduate degrees are not created equal. For example, if you graduate with a law degree from a poorly ranked law school, it may be difficult for you to find a well-paying job. Quoting from the article Law Graduate Gets Her Day in Court, Suing Law School:

She now has student debt of $170,000, with loan interest around 8 percent. Her law degree was not a ticket to a stable, well-paying career, but an expensive detour before she went on to work in a series of part-time positions, mostly temporary jobs reviewing documents for law firms.

After you have done your research, you can then make an informed decision about whether to do the PhD.

Finally, even if you choose to do graduate studies in a lucrative field, you could still end up unemployed due to circumstances beyond your control. For example, the article Burdened With Debt, Law School Graduates Struggle in Job Market tells the story of an unemployed graduate of Columbia Law School. We can't escape the fact that "time and chance happen to us all", but as long as you make the best decision that you can given what you knew at the time, you can choose to live without regrets.

Answer 27

If a magic fairy came to you and offered your three times as much for flipping burgers than what you can make with either a MSc or a PhD would you do it?

I feel there is more to life than money. In fact I don't think we work for money but for the things we can buy with the money we make. I'd be an unhappy gentleman if I had a pile of gold but no books.

Answer 28

In America the financial situation is even worse in comparison to Europe. The problem: You would have to pay insurances mostly yourself and only get a 30% less salary in comparison to e.g. Germany.

Nevertheless, I can tell you out of my experience that 90% of the PhDs are so frustrated at the end of their limited contracts that they just swap over to industry. Research is not really what most people hope for. In most cases you anyway have to work on projects given by a cooperation partner/boss. Then you hope to get a Nature paper with what you obtained from the project lottery or start working on a small side project (and lose time because you have to follow the main project still).

If you are lucky enough to place a potential Nature paper, maybe your boss asks you to hold some results back for political reasons (someone else working longer in that lab shall publish his shit results maybe earlier and the impact of his paper shall not suffer because of an overlap, or there are contradictions because they faked data), or that someone else shall become the first author because he is higher, and everything was just a waste of time.

On the other hand it can be an amazing experience, because some Labs just work. Unfortunately, you sooner or later have to take another PostDoc and you may enter a Lab which is not like your first one. Also keep in mind, that you periodically change your environment and you are usually all alone in 3 year intervals. I know some scientists which lost also their relationships or divorced.

Welcome to bullshit science!

Addition: Don't start a PhD somewhere where you have to work 4-6 years. Try to find an opportunity for max 3 years.