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Comment by uluyol | Hacker News Reader

PhD students really don't get paid much. Tuition is waived if you're a TA, and you get a small stipend + good benefits. If you're an RA, you bring money into the university (through being the engine that pulls in grant money and having your tuition paid).

Most students I know were TA for one or two semesters and RA for the remainder of their 6 years. As far as I can tell, they are all a financial gain, not drain, for the university. That will likely depend on the department though.

I don't know about Masters students.

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No, if you’re an RA your prof brings in the money. Might also be the fund draw for post docs but I can imagine some with their own funding (awards or governmental). Based on my experience I would think PhD candidates are smart technicians for much of their residency.

You both bring the money, ideally. I co-authored grants with my professor and was expected to publish to make name for our work and fulfill the proposal's publishing requirements. Sure, the professor is infinitely better than me at this stuff, but there was a whole team, including grad students, who labored to get those grants, at least when I was there.

I did all that also, but $randomgradstudent didn’t get the grant. Like $majorprof didn’t do the lab work, work up the numbers, …. They merely edited, which was important, and had to mojo to get published.

That's part of your training.

That feels like saying it's a restaurant owner that brings in money, not the staff. If the professor couldn't do all the work on their own, then it's the team (which includes the RAs) that's bringing in the money. Sure, the professor is the "name" behind the work, but there's a lot people involved.

While the servers might keep the customers, it’s the chef and perhaps the owners that make the restaurant happen. And this is a terrible analogy for grad school as that staff is paid for shit in the states. Are we going to give ta’s $2/hour and expect their students to tip them?

> Are we going to give ta’s $2/hour and expect their students to tip them?

That would be interesting, because TAs do the grading. ;-)

Looks like you're arguing just to argue now. The analogy was making the point that more than just "the person in charge" is responsible for bringing in the money. Nothing more. The point of an analogy isn't to have every detail line up.

If I said that the introduction of the automobile to common public use was similar to the introduction of domesticated animals for riding, because it opened up a larger/wider area that people could interact with... saying that a car has wheels but a horse doesn't wouldn't invalidate that comparison.

The restaurant owners usually don't claim they make the foodand serve it.

The benefits don't sound all that good.

"“The current child care subsidy will be enough to cover … less than 2 months of child care per year”"

This depends on your university, and also you should compare against a benchmark that's not cushy tech companies. I had spouse + child health care with no premium and only copays, no coinsurance. Didn't need the child care benefits so I don't know about that specifically.

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