Based on what the people I know in academia/university research have told me, the research landscape I the US/canada is fuuuucked, too. There’s barely any federal/public funding and corporate partnerships where the research is increasingly risk-averse/uncreative are becoming the norm.
In Canada, the typical scholarship that graduate students are expected to fund themselves with haven’t changed in amount for 20 years. It’s been 17.5k/yr for master’s level students, and 20k-35k/yr for PhD students since 2003. In those 20 years, minimum wage has more than doubled in Canada, tuition has more than doubled, rent has tripled or more, faculty wages have doubled, etc… Everything is more expensive, and everyone else is earning more, but we are expected to live on the same 20k/yr as our supervisors did 20 years (which is now well below the Canadian poverty line, and that’s before we shell out 20% to tuition).
Rent in major cities for a 1 bedroom pushing past 1.5-2k/month, it’s rough, and tuition ranges from 5k-10k/yr (which, afaik, is never waived here)
I joke (half-seriously) that I pay half my income to tuition, and the other two thirds goes to rent. And I’m one of the “lucky” ones that actually got a scholarship for graduate studies…
I’d estimate that half the grad students I know applied and didn’t win any scholarships
Standard operating procedure in school districts around here is austerity, being told how much more is being cut, then proudly announcing yet another new sportsball stadium and/or a new administrative wing to the already bloated building (now with a bowling alley just for administration!) that costs roughly the same amount as what must be cut.
Based on what the people I know in academia/university research have told me, the research landscape I the US/canada is fuuuucked, too. There’s barely any federal/public funding and corporate partnerships where the research is increasingly risk-averse/uncreative are becoming the norm.
In Canada, the typical scholarship that graduate students are expected to fund themselves with haven’t changed in amount for 20 years. It’s been 17.5k/yr for master’s level students, and 20k-35k/yr for PhD students since 2003. In those 20 years, minimum wage has more than doubled in Canada, tuition has more than doubled, rent has tripled or more, faculty wages have doubled, etc… Everything is more expensive, and everyone else is earning more, but we are expected to live on the same 20k/yr as our supervisors did 20 years (which is now well below the Canadian poverty line, and that’s before we shell out 20% to tuition).
Rent in major cities for a 1 bedroom pushing past 1.5-2k/month, it’s rough, and tuition ranges from 5k-10k/yr (which, afaik, is never waived here)
I joke (half-seriously) that I pay half my income to tuition, and the other two thirds goes to rent. And I’m one of the “lucky” ones that actually got a scholarship for graduate studies…
I’d estimate that half the grad students I know applied and didn’t win any scholarships
Standard operating procedure in school districts around here is austerity, being told how much more is being cut, then proudly announcing yet another new sportsball stadium and/or a new administrative wing to the already bloated building (now with a bowling alley just for administration!) that costs roughly the same amount as what must be cut.