Harvard University encourages grad students to go on food stamps

It&#x27;s easy to blame Harvard and other universities. But if you focus on Harvard you ignore the plight of all other graduate students around the country who don&#x27;t have a university with a massive endowment.<p>This is fault of the federal government.<p>We are not evil. We want to pay students more. We lived as students and it was terrible financially.<p>Our grants from the federal government are just not large enough to pay students well. And the federal government ties our hands.<p>Graduate student salaries are limited by the NIH cap. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;grants.nih.gov&#x2F;grants&#x2F;guide&#x2F;notice-files&#x2F;NOT-OD-22-132.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;grants.nih.gov&#x2F;grants&#x2F;guide&#x2F;notice-files&#x2F;NOT-OD-22-1...</a><p>The NIH limits you to $56,484 per student. Out of this come taxes, some fees, etc.<p>Even if I decide that I want my students to live better and hire a few less (which by the way would hurt my ability to get future grants), I am not allowed to pay them more than that out of NIH grants!<p>Most grants (NSF, DoD, industry and foundation grants) are calibrated to the NIH benchmark.<p>I wish these articles would blame the real problem: federal science funding has fallen off dramatically. Even 20 years ago we used to spend about 0.9% of GDP on science. Now, we spend about 0.5%. 20 years ago, about 5% of the spending of the federal government was on science, now it&#x27;s about 2.5%.<p>We need the federal government to step up science funding if we want students to be able to lead normal lives.

I&#x27;m split on this. Yes, a university as rich as Harvard should adequately support it&#x27;s students. But other than that, there should not be any stigma associated with accepting any form of government support. Students sounds like the ideal group that the government should really support.

This is were the US Gov needs to do something. Especially for businesses doing the same, yes they exist and I am sure we all know one specific business.<p>I do not know how graduate students work, do they pay tuition or does Harvard pay them for their work ? Also is it for only certain majors. For example do STEM&#x2F;Law&#x2F;Business majors get better pay if Harvard pays them ?<p>In anycase, if Harvard pays these students, then yes they should get a livable wage or at least free housing.

to put into perspective: phd graduants in Germany can earn 48k EUR per year in the beginning. (not every subject but certainly in CS), this is 10 % above average income in Germany and definitely decent. And yes, some phd student decided to stay in Germany because of these conditions.

Like the Simpsons episode where Bill Gates buys Homer&#x27;s company. Bill says: I didn&#x27;t get rich writing checks.

I can understand a person who is only able to work part time but the FTE of part time + part time should equate to some level of full time compensation. That includes a livable income. If something isn&#x27;t livable it is because there is a race to the bottom which is happening now because company greed ensures profits above a fluid economy. The economy needs to flow not stagnate to ensure everyone has enough money.

There have been several articles over the years showing most Walmart employees are also on food stamps.<p>It&#x27;s the American way, privatize the profits by paying as little as possible, socialize the costs by making everyone get on income supplementation for necessities like food.<p>Food prices have doubled, so has rent prices, but minimum wage, general income, that certainly has not doubled.

Do I understand that right that with a minimum wage for grad students of $40,000 they would still be eligible for food stamps in many cases? I don&#x27;t have a good grasp of the living costs here, but it seems to me that this income is likely too high to qualify for SNAP based on a quick and rough search.

That&#x27;s rich for &quot;Know your place, grad students. We, like Walmart, condone taking tax payer money (also known as &quot;welfare for the poor for the rich&quot;) as indirectly part of your compensation.&quot;<p>If you want to be rich, avoid being a grad student for very long or entirely unless it&#x27;s pivotal to a tangible financial path where the opportunity cost is significantly worth it.

One of my friends told me at one of the FAANGs, some of the employees were openly asking on financial-planning internal mailing list in how to qualify their kids for financial aid or grants because they made too much.

personal experience..in one of the school systems i went to (grade K-12), i had to pay $2.50 for lunch because my parents had a certain income. $2.5 was still a lot to me, so i rather not eat and felt really bad for using my parent&#x27;s income. i think about it from ($2.5 * 5 days a week) for a whole school year.<p>most of my friends didn&#x27;t have to pay as their parents didn&#x27;t meet the income threshold. they just have to show a certain ID for school lunch and get a pass.<p>i remember, i did have some sort of resentment...and the smell of food that my friends ate during lunch even made me more hungry!

From how this is treated by commentators, I wonder how Chèque Repas systems common in Europe would be received. (basically, a lunch voucher that&#x27;s part garnished-wages, part employer contribution, and mostly a tax-deduct from the government. in a €1&#x2F;€2.4&#x2F;€5 ratio)<p>It&#x27;s only visibly similar though, since they&#x27;re meant to be used on prepared food, and everyone tends to get them from the c-suite to interns.

This seems like a rewrite of better reporting by Motherboard:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;93kwaa&#x2F;harvard-tells-grad-students-to-get-food-stamps-to-supplement-the-unlivable-wages-it-pays-them" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;93kwaa&#x2F;harvard-tells-grad-st...</a>

It’s not just grad students, postdoc pay is crap too. Back when I was at Princeton a few years ago, postdoc salary in the physics department was a bit above $50k IIRC. It really sucks to be in a field where you’re expected to do at least two stints of postdoc after getting your PhD (when you’re already 27 or older).

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.harvardmagazine.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;10&#x2F;harvard-endowment-surges-11-3-billion-university-surplus" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.harvardmagazine.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;10&#x2F;harvard-endowment-su...</a>

Just like with immigrant visa sponsors, any source of full time engagement should be liable for recovery of any public assistance money. Why should an individual be liable but an institution such as Harvard or Walmart not?

Harvard is a very poor university, they only have a $50 Billion endowment. They could not possibly afford to give their students a tray of free cafeteria slop three times a day.

Yes, we should probably get used to the idea of rationing. In a world where resources are getting increasingly scarce it would be foolish to assume we can let the market solve scarcity issues, and let the rich have all the fun without repercussions.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rationing" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rationing</a>

Late Stage Capitalism is Socialism.<p>Capitalism drives wealth distribution to the Top. The wealth moves from the masses to the few.<p>Then, the poor get so poor that society starts to break down. The &#x27;workers&#x27; can no longer afford to live where the work is.<p>But this upsets the rich -&gt; &quot;why can&#x27;t I hire dishwashers? why can&#x27;t I hire house keepers&quot;.<p>So, the Rich start actually supporting &#x27;socialist&#x27; type programs like &#x27;food stamps&#x27; in order to keep some bare minimum of surviving population to serve them.<p>If a population is starving, then it is can quickly turn into violent revolution.<p>The Rich would rather chill and have a nice lunch, so they allow a limited amount of re-distribution of the wealth back to the poor (socialism), but just at the minimum needed to reduce the poor&#x27;s desperation enough to keep them from turning into the violent revolution.<p>The growing trend of vast numbers of people with full time jobs that also need welfare to eat, is the indicator that society is reaching the end game. They are no longer employees, there is no longer a free market for the supply&#x2F;demand of labor, it is all supply, and all are reduced to slaves. Just happily ignorant of it, because just enough money is allowed to trickle down.<p>But it isn&#x27;t earned money, labor no longer has value, it is a determined measured trickle down, that is just enough to keep people working.

I feel for them. Groceries are prohibitively expensive right now.<p>I typically only eat one meal a day now or not at all.<p>My salary is on the higher end so I can&#x27;t imagine what its like for those that are less fortunate.

This is disgusting. For any institution and any job. If you can’t pay your people a living wage, you deserve to go out of business. Society should not be in the business of subsidizing businesses in this manner.

Other recent Harvard-related articles:<p>&quot;Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dynomight.net&#x2F;harvard&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dynomight.net&#x2F;harvard&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37076968">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37076968</a><p>&quot;How Jeffrey Epstein Captivated Harvard&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thenation.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;society&#x2F;jeffrey-epstein-harvard-summers&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thenation.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;society&#x2F;jeffrey-epstein-ha...</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37090758">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37090758</a>

Most of them probably aren&#x27;t eligible. I&#x27;ve been told there&#x27;s still only 3mo allowed every 3 years for families with non officially-disabled males resident.

My fault I didn’t read enough of the article before commenting

For a college with a hedge fund, &lt;excuse me&gt;, I mean endowment of such magnitude, and PnL.. I mean returns that generally exceed program expenses.. this is pretty gross.

Really disgusting behavior, you&#x27;d hope that the richest educational institution would pay a living wage to the folks pushing innovation forward and teaching their students

Why is there a need for food stamps? Food is not expensive. Isn&#x27;t a rent the largest expense? So wouldn&#x27;t it make more sense to give a Rent Stamps instead? I am sure people need free rent, not a free food.