Physics Graduate Student Compensation: Academic Year 2023-24

Three-quarters of physics departments offer a teaching assistantship stipend that is below the living wage needed to live in a shared apartment.

Graduate student compensation concerns have been a national issue for many years. Minimum stipend levels are typically set at the university level, with departments often seeking ways to increase stipend amounts when possible. Graduate student support extends beyond stipends and often includes tuition waivers, fee coverage, and health insurance. The adequacy of graduate student compensation spans multiple disciplines and is influenced by several factors, including university budgets, funding sources, and union negotiations.

To provide the physics community with a national perspective on graduate student compensation in physics departments, AIP included questions on this topic in its annual Enrollments and Degrees Survey for the 2023–24 academic year. This report summarizes key findings from that survey.

Types of Support

Nearly all full-time physics graduate students enrolled in PhD programs receive some form of financial support. This support may come from a single source or a combination of sources and often changes as students progress in their graduate studies. A common transition occurs after passing qualifying exams, when many students move from teaching assistantships to research assistantships.

The structure of compensation packages offered to graduate students varies between departments and is typically determined at the university level. Assistantship stipend amounts are just one component of the overall compensation package a graduate assistant may receive. Almost all physics departments provide full tuition waivers for full-time PhD students. About one-third of departments fully cover mandatory fees, while another third offer partial coverage. In addition, over 90% of departments include health insurance in their financial support packages, with about 20% offering cost-sharing plans. Dental and vision coverage availability varies, and one or both are frequently not included.

In the 2020–21 academic year, more than half (56%) of first-year physics PhD students held a teaching assistantship as their primary source of support (Figure 1). By their fifth year, the majority (60%) held research assistantships as their primary source of support.

Figure 1

Stipend Amounts

Figure 2 presents typical teaching assistantship stipends awarded to full-time, first-year graduate students at PhD-granting physics departments. Each data point represents the typical 12–month teaching assistantship stipend for a specific department. The departments are sorted from high to low for typical stipends offered. The stipend amounts vary significantly, with the highest typical stipend being more than twice the lowest.

Figure 2

Similarly, Figure 3 shows that typical annual research assistantship stipends for full-time, fifth-year physics graduate students follow a similar pattern to those of teaching assistantships, although at higher levels. As with teaching assistantships, research assistantship stipend amounts vary considerably.

Figure 3

The number of service hours required for teaching and research assistantships can vary somewhat. Most departments require assistantships to work approximately 20 hours per week, though some require fewer hours.^[1] Research assistantship stipend offerings tend to be more variable than teaching assistantship stipends, possibly influenced by differences in funding sources.

Institutional characteristics influence stipend levels (Table 1). Physics graduate students at private universities typically receive higher stipends than those at public institutions. Similarly, students at institutions classified as having very high research activity (R1 institutions) by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education^[2] tend to receive larger stipends than those at high research activity (R2) institutions. Larger physics departments, as measured by the total number of enrolled physics graduate students, also tend to offer higher stipend levels

[1] Tallied from American Institute of Physics, 2011 Graduate Programs in Physics, Astronomy, and Related Fields (AIP, Melville, NY, 2011), ISBN 978-0-7354-0840-1.

[2] https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/.

Table 1

Living Wage

The cost of living varies considerably across the country. A stipend sufficient to cover basic expenses in one region may fall short in another. A living wage calculator^[1] allows for direct comparisons between typical stipends and the income needed to meet basic financial demands in various geographic regions.

The living wage graphics that follow utilize a living wage calculator that estimates the annual income needed to meet basic needs such as housing, food, healthcare, and other essentials without relying on public assistance programs or other sources of income. The calculator considers geographic cost of living variations by county. This annual income calculation assumes an individual is working 40 hours a week, for 52 weeks.

For this analysis, two living wage calculations were used:

• Living Wage (1): The annual income required for a single individual, with no children, living alone in a studio apartment.
• Living Wage (2): The annual income required for a single individual, with no children, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with one other person (assuming two income earners, earning the same amount, and equal sharing of expenses).

[1] Amy K. Glasmeier, Living Wage Calculator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2024. Updated on February 14, 2024, https://livingwage.mit.edu/ .

Graduate assistantship positions could be considered part-time based on the number of service hours per week (typically 20) departments indicate that students are expected to work. As students are working toward receiving a PhD, the expectation is that students dedicate the remainder of their time to coursework and research. With that in mind, the comparisons made in this report illustrate whether annual stipend amounts received by students provide them with sufficient financial resources to meet the basic needs of their specific geographic location. This comparison is made with the realization that the living wage calculations assume full-time employment (40 hours per week).

Figures 4, 5, and 6 show the typical annual stipend offered by a physics department directly above or below the calculated living wage for the location of the institution. The data are sorted by living wage from high to low. A comparison of Living Wage (1) and typical first-year teaching assistantship stipends (Figure 4) shows that all institutions offer stipends below the Living Wage (1) threshold.

Figure 4

Living Wage (1): Annual income needed for one individual, no children, living alone, renting a studio apartment within the university’s zip code.
Teaching assistant stipend is the typical annual stipend offered to a full-time first-year physics graduate student at a particular university.
Living wage data source: Amy K. Glasmeier, Living Wage Calculator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2024. Updated on February 14, 2024, https://livingwage.mit.edu/.

Since graduate students commonly share housing, a more relevant comparison may be between stipend levels and Living Wage (2). Figure 5 shows that 75% of universities offer first-year teaching assistant stipends that are below the Living Wage (2) threshold for the university’s location.

Figure 5

Living Wage (2): Annual income needed for one individual, no children, sharing a rented two-bedroom apartment with one other person within the university’s zip code. For this calculation, there is the assumption that there are two household earners earning the same amount and dividing expenses evenly.
Living wage data source: Amy K. Glasmeier, Living Wage Calculator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2024. Updated on February 14, 2024, https://livingwage.mit.edu/.
Teaching assistant stipend is the typical annual stipend offered to a full-time first-year physics graduate student at a particular university.

As shown in Table 1, larger graduate programs, on average, offer higher stipends. However, the picture changes only a little when considering first-year student enrollment numbers. Approximately 70% of all first-year physics graduate students with teaching assistantships receive stipends below their location’s Living Wage (2) calculation. As also seen in Table 1, physics graduate students attending private institutions generally receive larger stipends than those attending public institutions. Of the students attending private institutions, 47% are receiving stipends below their location’s Living Wage (2) calculation, versus 86% of students attending a private institution.

Approximately 60% of fifth-year physics graduate students are supported by a research assistantship. A little less than half (44%) of physics departments offer the same stipend amount to fifth-year students with research assistantships as they offer to first-year teaching assistantships. Among the departments that provide higher stipends for research assistants, the typical research assistantship stipend is, on average, about 10% higher than the corresponding teaching assistantship stipend.

Since many institutions offer identical stipends for teaching and research assistantships, the comparison of typical research assistantship stipend to Living Wage (2) by department (Figure 6) is very similar in appearance to the teaching assistantship data plotted in Figure 5. The majority (62%) of physics departments offer research assistantship stipends below the Living Wage (2) calculation for their university’s location.

Figure 6

Living Wage (2): Annual income needed for one individual, no children, sharing a rented two-bedroom apartment with one other person within the university’s zip code. For this calculation, there is the assumption that there are two household earners earning the same amount and dividing expenses evenly.
Living wage data source: Amy K. Glasmeier, Living Wage Calculator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2024. Updated on February 14, 2024, https://livingwage.mit.edu/.
Research assistant stipend is the typical annual stipend offered to a full-time fifth-year physics graduate student at a particular university.

Unionization and Future Research

Efforts to increase graduate student wages by forming student unions date back to the 1960s and 70s. In recent years, unionization efforts have gained momentum, with many student organizations successfully establishing or joining unions. However, the 2023 departmental survey that this report is based on did not collect data on the presence of student unions, so the influence of unions on stipend levels has not been discussed. AIP is currently collecting compensation data for the 2024–25 academic year, which includes a question regarding the presence of student unions at institutions.

AIP plans to continue its tracking of trends in graduate student compensation as part of its recurring survey of academic departments, as well as collecting relevant compensation data directly from graduate students.

Methodology

Each year, AIP conducts an Enrollment and Degree Survey of all degree-granting physics programs in the United States. The fall 2023 survey included questions on financial support for first-year and fifth-year graduate students. Included in the survey target population were 209 physics departments that offered a PhD. Departments had to report stipend amounts for both the 9-month academic year and for the summer to be included in the analysis. Institutions without specific summer stipends were excluded. Usable teaching assistantship stipend data was received from 111 departments, and usable research assistant stipend data from 109.

Stipend Question Wording

“What is the typical academic year (9 months) stipend offered to full-time graduate students?”
“What is the typical summer (3 months) stipend offered to full-time graduate students?”

This report utilizes a living wage calculator developed by Amy K. Glasmeier at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The calculator data used was updated on February 14, 2024 (https://livingwage.mit.edu/ ). Each university’s zip code was used to determine its county-level living wage estimate. The calculations account for essential costs including housing, food, healthcare, transportation, and other basic needs without relying on public assistance programs or other sources of income. The annual income calculation assumes an individual is working full-time (40 hours a week) for 52 weeks.

Two living wage calculations were used in this report.

• Living Wage (1): Annual income needed for one individual, no children, living alone, renting a studio apartment.
• Living Wage (2): Annual income needed for one individual, no children, sharing a rented two-bedroom apartment with one other person. The calculator provides a total household income. For this report’s Living Wage (2) calculation, there is the assumption that there are two household earners, earning the same amount, and dividing living expenses evenly. The Living Wage (2) calculation used in this report is total household income needed divided by two.

The living wage calculation includes healthcare costs that include an employee contribution to an employer-sponsored health insurance premium and out-of-pocket expenses. The healthcare component adds about $3,000 to $3,500 to the annual living wage calculations, most of which are probably health insurance premiums. Since many physics graduate students do not pay insurance premiums, this may slightly inflate the living wage estimates at some institution locations.

Acknowledgments
This report was made possible by physics departments across the country, which provided AIP with their departmental compensation data. Nico Hernández Charpak made significant contributions to the development of the survey instrument. Starr Nicholson and Jack Pold contributed to data collection and analysis efforts, and this report greatly benefited from analysis discussions with Mark McFarling and Susan White.