As a lowly undergraduate, getting by on £5,000 per year amassed from student loans and bursaries, driving a 1990s bucket of a car, and living within the increasingly frustrating parental household, the prospect of a PhD sounded great, particularly the financial side.

Suddenly, I'd no longer be getting by on far, far less than you'd get working minimum wage in ASDA - I'd be getting a tax-free stipend of almost £14,000, with the opportunity to earn an extra few thousand through teaching and tutoring. I would finally move out of the parental home, become truly independent, and maybe even get a better car. I knew I wouldn't be going into a graduate job like some of my fellow classmates, but I didn't think life would be much different for us financially, since the tax-free stipend, with no council tax, and additional earnings would probably bring myself and my graduate-job-classmates into the same playing field where 'take-home income' was concerned.

However, with just a month to go before I actually start my PhD, I'm beginning to think that this initial excitement may have been more than a little naive.

I've moved out alright, and now pay rent in my own flat. But I had to get a guarantor to secure the lease. This week my old bucket of a car finally caved in and failed it's MOT, and is now on the way to the scrapyard. But I enthusiastically found a decent car and attempted to secure finance for it... only to find that I was rejected by every single company, and my only hope would be to find somebody else to put their name down for the finances (like a parent).

I just don't want to do that though. Clearly, it's not that the finance company feels that I'm unable to afford the car, because even with the repayments I'd still have more disposable income than most people. I have a spotless credit history, having never missed a payment in the past few years of paying phone bills, internet bills, car insurance and, more recently, credit cards.

So I went about looking for personal loans, and it turns out that if you're a student and don't own your own home, then you have absolutely no chance of securing one.

It's quite depressing. I thought I would be an independent person, finally a fully-fledged adult capable of dealing with his own finances without having to rely on the credentials of parents. I thought I'd be on a level playing field with classmates going into graduate jobs, and I thought the world would finally take me seriously. But no, I'm still being treated as a wreckless child where finance companies are concerned.

I just find it absurd that after all my hard work up until this point, I'm nowhere near reaping the social/financial benefits from it. It feels like the carrot, which just a few weeks ago seemed to be relatively close, has actually just been placed on a much longer stick.

So I guess I'm just here to ask you guys... is this what it's going to be like for another 3 years? Am I never going to be able to secure a car with power steerin

... power steering and airbags? Am I just going to be treated like a child and have to rely on the credentials of parents for another 3 years? Will I only be a fully-fledged and respected member of society once I convince a panel of academics that my research is of a high quality, and finally shake off the burden that is 'being in full-time education'? Are there ways around this, or do I just have to accept that this is how it's going to be, and my dreams of truly being an independent and financially acceptable person further off than I thought?

Thanks for listening, if you managed to stay with me to the end haha!

Wow, you really are punishing yourself! You have secured a degree, and now a PhD...you should be chuffed to bits! Unfortunately everything doesn't arrive on a silver platter all at once...but life would be boring if that happened! Just enjoy it...you will look back on it in the future (when you are driving your ferrari around) and smile x

With all due respect you need to sit down, have a think about the opportunity you have, and get a grip.

Rule number one in Phdland is never compare yourself to other Phd students or your mates who have real jobs.
Rule number two in Phdland is never compare yourself to other Phd students or your mates who have real jobs.
Rule number three in Phdland is never compare yourself to other Phd students or your mates who have real jobs.

"I'm nowhere near reaping the social and financial benefits from it". You need to get over yourself. Like any other job you get out what you put in. I still see research as a vocation and unfortunately, in the history of man, 'vocational work' is a euphemism for 'longs hours little pay.'

Again, you'll never become your "fully fledged adult" until you get your head out of your arse and realise the world doesn't revolve around you.

GSM: I would try not to take the credit issue too personally. It could be that at your age you simply don't have much of a credit history at all- never mind that it's good, credit providers can be overly cautious, most even more so now the banks have seen where offering sub-prime mortgages got them. It is also possible to have too good a credit history- though they'll rarely admit it, lenders like to take on more "profitable" customers. Asking for a guarantor for a flat is standard practise, and thanks to this whole credit crunch thing we're having even people with well-paid jobs are struggling to get credit. Just be happy you're not trying to get a mortgage in this climate...

The "real job" thing is something that I, as an older aspiring PhD student who has had several "real jobs", find hard to relate to. I've just gone from working on a fascinating and fulfilling MSc lab project with an amazing supervisor who gave me a great deal of autonomy and confindence in myself as an independent researcher to a blistering dull call centre job where that my confidence is being sapped by bosses who micromanage the staff to within an inch of our lives. The pay also isn't that great, and unlike a PhD student I have to pay income tax, council tax, and national insurance, and with the rising costs of food and energy what I have left doesn't go very far. Again you should consider yourself lucky here: your fellow classmates will be struggling over the shortage of graduate jobs and having the same problems as you, only to a greater extent because they won't have your tax-free £14,000 and three years of job security, or the chance of a much better-paid postdoc job at the end of it.

As for relying on your parents, you're not alone here- with rising house prices and rents and static salaries more people are finding they have to wait a little longer to become financially independent. I'd suggest you swallow your pride a little and accept any help your parents offer you- again you're lucky to have that option- and in three years' time you can get them something nice out of your first postdoc paycheque. Maybe buy yourself something nice too- a holiday or a spa break- as a little treat before the work starts. It's normal to feel anxious over the huge commitment that is choosing the PhD route but if you've survived on £5,000 you can survive a PhD. Good luck with it!

I'm ecstatic about my undergraduate degree and even moreso about the opportunity to do a PhD! I hope I don't come across as ungrateful in that respect, because I certainly am!

The problem seems to be that everything DOES arrive on a silver platter all at once, but just not until you've gotten your PhD and have a full-time job that doesn't count as 'full-time education'. I would prefer it if it was more incremental than it seems to be, that's the issue!

And a ferrari? Really? I don't recall seeing an academic drive anything flashier than a BMW :P.

Thanks for your reply. Again, I hope I'm not coming across like I'm not ecstatic about the opportunity I've gotten for myself here. I am, very much so, and I'm not disillusioned as to what significance it has and what it will do for my prospects in the future.

I was just hoping, I guess, that being a PhD student would have more standing in society in terms of financial standing and security than an undergraduate. And in monetary terms, it does, because clearly I'll be on almost 3 times as much money as I was as an undergraduate. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't see it that way.

Is there any particular logic behind that rule of your? Okay, everybody is different, and everybody will be going down different paths, but isn't ignoring the alternatives to your own choices just denial?

You say that a PhD is vocational, meaning long hours and little pay, but I don't really think it is little pay. Maybe I have lower criteria for what counts as 'high pay' because of my background, but the money I'll be on as a PhD student doesn't seem insignificant at all, which is why I'm frustrated that the rest of the planet doesn't recognise that, and makes no distinction between me, now, as a PhD student on a generous stipend, and me, 6 month ago, an undergraduate student struggling to get by on less than half the salary of a person on minimum wage.

I'm not asking the world to revolve around me. I'm not talking about me specifically, but PhD students in general. Unless, of course, the rest of you have some way to avoid the aspersions that are cast on us that I just don't know about.

Thanks for your reply Flack.

You're probably right about the credit think. My theory is that it's a combination of me having nothing to secure the loan against and not having enough missed payments in my history. If the credit was given to me, the finance company would stand to make £900 over 3 years in the very likely event that I would make all my payments. However, if I had a poorer history of making payments, and secured the finance against a mortgaged home, then they'd probably take me on in an instant, secure in the knowledge that they'll probably get to repossess something of mine eventually and make far more than the mere £900.

My particular field is one that is suffering least from the financial crisis, and there's a strong graduate-job market still out there, so a lot of my classmates who left with even quite poor degrees (2:2 and below) are finding it easy to go into employment with big-name companies, on handsome starting salaries and golden handshakes. By my calculations, once you factor in all the things you've mentioned (income tax, council tax, student loan repayments, national insurance, etc) then my graduate-job classmates and I are probably on equal footing where take-home income is concerned, which is why it's so frustrating that the finance companies see things differently, simply because I have the word 'student' on my application form. Although I do realise that in 3 years time, I could probably join my classmate's companies on a higher salary and at a higher organisational position than them, and am of course, grateful for that.

In terms of relying on my parents, I don't actually need to rely on them for actual cash, just for their credit histories (in fact, my parents have terrible credit histories, so I'm actually having to rely on other family members, not them specifically). It's just a little deflating to have gotten this far and not have anybody outside my friends, family, and academic circles recognising it, and the business world still seeing me as a liability that needs some sort of adult supervision stepping in to cover my back.

I guess I was just under the impression that my days of 'barely surviving, and only through the help of parents' were over, and am a little disappointed to find out I'm quite wrong, at least where obtaining credit is concerned.

[quote]Quote From flack:

GSM: I would try not to take the credit issue too personally. It could be that at your age you simply don't have much of a credit history at all- never mind that it's good, credit providers can be overly cautious, most even more so now the banks have seen where offering sub-prime mortgages got them. It is also possible to have too good a credit history- though they'll rarely admit it, lenders like to take on more "profitable" customers. Asking for a guarantor for a flat is standard practise, and thanks to this whole credit crunch thing we're having even people with well-paid jobs are struggling to get credit. Just be happy you're not trying to get a mortgage in this climate...

The "real job" thing is something that I, as an older aspiring PhD student who has had several "real jobs", find hard to relate to. I've just gone from working on a fascinating and fulfilling MSc lab project with an amazing supervisor who gave me a great deal of autonomy and confindence in myself as an independent researcher to a blistering dull call centre job where that my confidence is being sapped by bosses who micromanage the staff to within an inch of our lives. The pay also isn't that great, and unlike a PhD student I have to pay income tax, council tax, and national insurance, and with the rising costs of food and energy what I have left doesn't go very far. Again you should consider yourself lucky here: your fellow classmates will be struggling over the shortage of graduate jobs and having the same problems as you, only to a greater extent

It sounds to me you had all these great plans of how wonderful things would be, they're not happening so you're not happy. As others have said and opposite to what you may believe, things don't come on a silver plate (at least not to most of us anyway!) and not all of our plans come true either but this is life. We live and learn and live a bit more and learn a lot more, stuff happens and we just deal with it. It's all about flexibility and resillience and I think most of us would agree that a PhD needs heaps of both! No one said life was fair and sometimes it isn't, especially if we make unfair comparisons.

As for the ferrari, it'll depend on 1) what you do after your PhD and 2) how good you are with money 8-)

Thanks for the reply skig.

I didn't really have grand plans as such. I just had the notion in my head that I would be recognised as somebody who has elevated past undergraduate studies, and that the distinction would be made between undergraduate student and postgraduate research student for the purposes of securing finance, etc.

I'm aware that things don't come in a silver plate, but I'm not asking for much. My classmates who got graduate jobs will be getting finance for things far more expensive and superior to the things that I want, and will be getting it. I'm not interested in getting anything flashy - at the moment I'd just like a car that isn't a deathtrap, but I can't even get £5,000 finance for that.

For the record I'm not interested in a Ferrari.

Did you try Toyota? They are the *only* company that would give me a car loan, (albeit with my mother as guarantor) and i tried all of them. I got a brand new Toyota Yaris with 5 year guarantee and 3 year's servicing included for £212 a month and just my old car (worth about £300) as a deposit.

All other companies laughed at me when i attempted to organise finance "oh no, we would never finance a student" but Toyota didn't see this as a problem. Might be worth a try.

I'm sorry if it sounded like I meant you had 'grand' plans. I just meant you had things planned that you were really looking forward to but they didn't materialise and they were 'great' plans. I'm afraid the reality is, in my experience, that most people see 'everyone enrolled on a course' as 'students', regardless of their level of training/qualification. I know it can be frustrating when we feel we've been unfairly treated but I think that sometimes we just have to accept that we win, we lose as other alternatives are not helpful if that makes sense.

(you could try the Toyota dealer as suggested! That sounds a good idea if you can afford the monthly payments!)

If it makes you feel any better, I am nearly forty and have never had a car. I am just about to buy one ....any my husband is signing the finance agreement! :-s;-)

Nope, I wasn't really banking on buying a new car, just been looking at used ones. I didn't think the companies did their own finance though? I've been going through Arnold Clark, and when you ask for finance with them, they send your application off to more than 40 finance companies until you get approval. Unfortunately, each and every one rejected me!

I'll look into Toyota though, but my purpose in creating this thread was more to have a general rant about how PhD students are viewed, rather than me complaining about not being able to get a car!

I agree with others on here, in that unfortunately, as long as you are a 'student', you will be viewed and treated as a 'student', and the nature of the degree won't matter to anyone. On the paper, you are a student.

Annoying, but that's life.

Aside from having other opportunities to improve one's (financial) situation (benefit of family support or whatever), the best anyone can do is get the degree over with as soon as possible, IMHO.