Being a professor where you want

[Lavabug]

So why are they given stipends and not salaries? Why are they often not given benefits as the regular employee at that same institutions? Did you or someone had to pay on you behalf to the institution for you to work when you were a faculty member?

Zz.

Every US grad program I've seen offers health and dental benefits as well as privileges like subsidized housing, does this not count? That is better than any "official job" I've ever had.

Zz, I really don't see the grounds to your objections of calling what US grad students do as a "job"("a regular activity performed in exchange for payment" according to wiki). They do services to the university/their adviser in exchange for money and tuition waivers. Would grad students still get stipends and tuition waivers if they did NOT complete their ~20 hours of teaching/research assistant obligations? I don't think so.

Also,

Disagree on what point? That graduates students have to PAY to attend graduate school? This is a point of debate and uncertainty?

It's not a point of debate or uncertainty. According to AIP, only 1% of physics PhD students in the US are self-funded, the rest are paid as teaching or research assistants: http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/bach/figure5b.htm

What you are saying might hold for Masters students, but not PhD students.

As a loosely-related anecdote, I received what you would call a "stipend" during my undergraduate study in my country on top of a tuition waiver, like what many US grad students perceive. My only obligation to maintain that "stipend" was to maintain satisfactory academic progress (being in a low income bracket was also required). However, all the official documents I have on the matter address my stipend as "BECA SALARIO" which literally translates into "SALARY AWARD". Since I literally receive a SALARY and not a STIPEND, does this mean I have a job?

 

[Vanadium 50]

This thread has migrated very far from the original topic. Keep the discussion on topic or this thread will be closed.

And so it goes.