Expensive in terms of time, perhaps, but almost all good universities in the US and continental Europe provide decent salaries to PhD students. UK is a bit more haphazard but it’s still very rare for UK PhDs to actually pay to be there, especially in technical fields.
Specifically, the salary is for being a teaching assistant or a research assistant, rather than being a student, but everything is structured under the assumption that graduate students will have a relevant part-time job that covers tuition and living expenses.
I think that’s true in the US, but not in most of Europe. E.g. in Switzerland a first year PhD student gets paid $40000 a year WITHOUT doing any teaching, and more if they teach. That’s unusually generous, but I think the setup isn’t uncommon.
Expensive in terms of time, perhaps, but almost all good universities in the US and continental Europe provide decent salaries to PhD students. UK is a bit more haphazard but it’s still very rare for UK PhDs to actually pay to be there, especially in technical fields.
Specifically, the salary is for being a teaching assistant or a research assistant, rather than being a student, but everything is structured under the assumption that graduate students will have a relevant part-time job that covers tuition and living expenses.
I think that’s true in the US, but not in most of Europe. E.g. in Switzerland a first year PhD student gets paid $40000 a year WITHOUT doing any teaching, and more if they teach. That’s unusually generous, but I think the setup isn’t uncommon.