Certainly not if you’re an Of Color or an Asian.
I am 35, am I too old to apply for a phd?
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In focusing on the imaginary doors that a PhD might open, too many people overlook the very real, tangible opportunity costs of the sheer time spent getting the degree. This is all time that you are removed from the workforce, removed from career growth, and isolated from actual pathways to develop your career, finances, life, and creativity. If you are 35 and considering starting a PhD program, I have to ask: how bad is your life right now? Unless your annual income is under $25K a year AND you have absolutely no other routes to advancement, your life options will actually get even worse by incurring the opportunity costs of a grad program. LEARN A TRADE. COMMIT TO A CAREER PATH. If you already have these things, I seriously doubt you are earning under $25K a year--and if you are, use this as a chance to ground yourself in perspective, and not doom yourself (and possibly others) to elder years in the poor house.
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OP here -- what is the salary of a non TT prof? what is avg PHD stipend? can't find anything, all seems quite opaque. Not driven by money but need to make a living
It varies a lot and also, you have to factor in location. The same stipend in a cheap location will not be the same in an expensive one.
Also, take into consideration that summers are not paid unless you have summer stipend. A few top programs and private universities with more funding have summer stipends for research only. In other places you can teach during the summer to get some money or maybe your advisor has money to pay you something. But any summer stipend is less than what you’d make if you had a monthly wage.
Grad stipends can go from 15,000 to 24,000. That’s for 9-months. Also, only a few programs give you 5 year or 6 year funding from the get go. Others might drop your funding or make you teach your own classes (which is fine if you want to work at college, but not good for other stuff).
For non-tenure track there is a lot of variation. Public universities have public information so you can check that out. I think it’d be like 40,000 to 60,000 for teaching white a lot of classes.
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1. No, you're not too old to hack it.
2. But 35 is too old to join a colt, even if you think you want to at the outset.
3. ^ Unless you are mentally ill. Then you might actually like academia at 35. But you are probably better off just going to therapy
4. If it's just time for a change, plenty of better options that polo sci PhD at 35.