Going Into Debt For a Humanities Ph.D.

It's not a question of whether to take out loans, but rather, limiting the damage

Today, I conclude to my four-part series on how to help an undergraduate choose a graduate program in the humanities (note to readers: my comments should not be presumed to apply to social science or STEM fields.). Click here for part 1, about why you might ask students to delay a graduate application. For part 2, where I suggest that students be encouraged to apply to programs that support diverse outcomes beyond a tenure-track teaching job, click here. And for how to choose a destination that will be a good fit? Click here.

And if you know someone who might find these essays useful, please:

Image credit: Andrew Magill/Wikimedia Commons

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Suppose you agree to support a young person’s application to a graduate program in the humanities. In that case, you must touch the third rail of education and talk to them about money.

It used to be a rule of thumb to tell prospective graduate students that they should not attend any Ph.D. program that does not offer them full funding: this means tuition remission and a stipend to live on. That’s still good advice, but it isn’t specific enough because students cannot necessarily live on “full funding.” In August, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a horrifying story written by a graduate student quitting their humanities Ph.D. program in midstream. “Anonymous,” it seems, could not support a family of three on a stipend of $17,000 a year—for which they had taught 132 students over eight semesters, “served as a research assistant, and worked in the writing center.” In other words, for peanuts, Anonymous was working 12-16 hour days, if you include schoolwork. And because this little family could not afford childcare, Anonymous’s spouse had already dropped out of her graduate program to stay home with their toddler.

It isn’t a typical story, yet it has all the elements that can trigger a conviction that graduate education in the humanities has gone off the rails. Who told this young person they could support a family on $17,000 a year? Who even knew that they were trying to? Official government guidelines define poverty in the United States as $27,750 for a family of four; you subtract $4720 for every person below that.

So, since Anonymous was the sole wage earner, this small family lived on about $6000 less than the poverty threshold. Except that they weren’t. Family, friends, and even strangers came through with donations and gifts during emergencies. In addition, the couple borrowed on top of loans the couple had taken out for prior degrees.

“For piteously paid Ph.D.s like me, accumulating debt is like breathing,” Anonymous writes:

We pay off what we can during the semesters, then slide back into debt over the summers — not due to frivolous spending but because of everyday expenses and family care. When I moved to my current city for graduate school, in 2015, I had no credit-card debt. Seven years later, despite aggressive payments whenever possible, we have more than $20,000. My wife and I met in a master’s program and collectively hold almost $200,000 in student loans. What’s another $10,000 in loans this semester to pay for our daughter’s preschool? Four years into the Ph.D., it became clear this couldn’t continue.

Arguably, although this is a shocking case study, it never should have happened. Graduate stipends were never meant to support a family, and someone should have had this conversation with Anonymous about $150,000 earlier.

Yet, this is only an extreme example of a common problem: graduate students figure the economics out as they go along. Depending on how affordable the city or town where the university is located, a graduate stipend won’t support one adult who is not willing to take on loans or a job outside of school. In New York City, half of that stipend would be spent on a room in an apartment shared by three or more renters. At Yale, where stipends are almost $40,000, students still struggle to make ends meet. They, too, find themselves taking out loans, not just for living expenses but for unanticipated emergencies: dental surgery, a car repair, or a move.