Originally Posted by indigo
Originally Posted by Bostonian
STEM graduate students should be getting teaching and/or research assistantships and should not be taking on debt.
It would be great if it worked that way, however the economy is changing. It is unclear if this statement is based on research, statistics, anecdotes, or personal opinion... and what particular areas of STEM graduate studies you are referring to. Might you clarify?
At my physics PhD program in the 1990s, graduate students who did not have research assistantships were given teaching assistantships. The stipends were enough for a single person to live on. They were not charged tuition and were not taking on more debt. This was the norm, and I believe it still is in the natural sciences. See for example MIT Department of Physics Graduate Funding Information. I think too many people go to graduate school as it is, and I would even more strongly discourage anyone from going to graduate school if they needed to borrow to do so.