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Comment by dublinben | Hacker News Reader

Adjusted for local cost of living, the Harvard grad students are much worse off. The median income for Cambridge is $112k, so these grad students are earning around a third of that. Said German grad students are earning more than the area median income.

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You also have to ask what the median income is for a 22-year-old in Cambridge and how that compares. It makes no sense to compare someone just starting their career to a median based on people that have been working for probably 20 plus years.

Sure it does. Higher median income in a given area means the costs of nearly everything go up comparably. Look at the cost of living in a place with a six-figure median income and compare that to the cost of living somewhere with a $30k median income.

The students have to live there so the cost of living is what matters, not trying to make it look marginally (and artificially) better by excluding people who earn more because they're old.

So you're you're saying that every job with 0 years of experience should pay the median for the local?

You raise the minimum and you raise the mean. The only time the mean and the minimum can be the same is if everyone is paid the same as the highest earner

If said student is in Munich or Frankfurt his cost of living is very similar to student in Cambridge. Also while Cambridge median is high, 30 min drive gets you to the place where median is less than 50k.

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