Tuition is supposed to pay for something specific: a college education. For the many doctoral students. However, for students in Stanford’s STEM departments, I estimate that about 75% of total tuition is for independent graduate research units, or – as I like to call them – “mock courses “. There are no exams, no classes, no tests and certainly no curriculum. Stanford does not establish or enforce minimum university-wide advising standards, and faculty contact hours are often far below the standards of regular academic units. PhD students deserve better. Either Stanford should define and enforce clear standards for research unit tuition or specify exactly how tuition money is spent to support graduate students.

In some ways, the Ph.D. student tuition costs seem to be an accounting fiction. doctoral students do not pay tuition fees directlyso it’s easy to dismiss it as a made-up amount that the University pays itself — in this case, approximately $13,000 to $14,000 per quarter. But tuition fees are not paid out of pocket. For the doctorate. students in a STEM department, like me, tuition is often taken from research grants paid to a student’s academic advisor, money that could otherwise be spent to further support students and their research. If Stanford wants to accept such a large portion of its grants under the guise of tuition for graduate research units, there must be a clear educational benefit for doctoral students. students.

Research units are usually listed as 399 or 499 in the course catalogbut the registration experience feels much more like research work than a course. A unit in a Stanford course typically corresponds to one hour of lessons per week, but the Ph.D. students generally receive significantly less instruction time, even when enrolled in 10 research units. My graduate school experience averaged one or two hours of individual counseling per month, although in some programsup to one hour per week is common – this is still only 10% of the hours involved in a 10-unit enrollment.

In a normal job, meeting with your advisor once a week would be called “having a manager,” and companies typically charge no more than $40,000 per year to provide managers for their junior employees. Indeed, Stanford postdoctoral researchers, who pay no tuition, also benefit from academic advisors and many of the same professional benefits as doctoral students. student workers.

Research unit prices add up quickly. Stanford requires 135 units to complete a doctorate, but departmental requirements are usually much less, e.g. only nine units for computer scienceor 30 units for applied physics. Beyond these requirements, it is often impossible to find enough courses relevant to your specific area of ​​research to meet the minimum units required by Stanford. This leaves approximately 100 to 120 units considered independent research units, which equates to more than $130,000 in tuition per student throughout their doctorate. for research units only.

How should Stanford solve this problem? I see two possible directions: increase quality or adjust costs. Regarding quality, Stanford could raise the academic standards of research units to bring them in line with other courses at the University. PhD students enrolled in 10 research units would be guaranteed 10 hours each week with their advisor, either individually or in small groups. If a faculty member relieves himself of the training of a new Ph.D. students to their senior graduate students or postdoctoral researchers, this should be formalized and compensated. However the academic program is organized, Stanford should monitor and enforce meaningful teaching and advising standards in a way that has been absent until now.

As for cost adjustments, Stanford could officially recognize that research units provide doctorates. students with fewer academic resources than normal and redistribute tuition fees accordingly. If Stanford were to redirect tuition from research units to Ph.D. salaries of student researchers, it could afford to increase salaries by a whopping $22,000 per year, spread over a 6-year degree. This would be a significant, though not inconceivable, financial adjustment, amounting to just about 1 percent of Stanford’s budget. annual budget.

In fact, we already have a model of a peer institution doing something quite similar. In 2022, Princeton eliminated graduate student tuition to research grants, while simultaneously increasing graduate student worker pay. Not coincidentally, this also came with good news for graduating students. Like Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber announcement“Princeton graduate scholarships in all fields will increase by an average of 25 percent,” representing “the largest annual increase in graduate scholarship rates in the University’s history.”

The Stanford administration should clearly answer these two key questions: 1. What academic services are offered by doctoral students? should students be guaranteed per course unit of independent research? 2. Under the current status quo, what benefits per student do research unit tuition pay that are beyond what non-paying postdoctoral researchers receive?

College finances can be frustrating and opaque, and I think Stanford owes its Ph.D. more explaining. student workers here. Tuition is supposed to fund university education, but currently Stanford does not provide enough money to justify tuition for research units.

Ben Parks Ph.D. ’23 is a recent graduate of Stanford’s Computer Science PhD program. Contact him at bparks’ at’ cs.stanford.edu.