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  • CAREER FEATURE

‘Not even enough money for food’: graduate students face cash crunch

The cost-of-living crisis is causing widespread financial distress among those in master’s and PhD programmes worldwide.
  1. Chris Woolston

    1. Chris Woolston is a freelance journalist in Billings, Montana.

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Cartoon of a student holding a hat filled with coins.

Illustration by Cathal Duane

Eighty-five per cent of respondents to Nature’s 2022 survey of graduate students worry about having enough money to buy food and pay rent and other expenses, a testament to one of the most urgent issues worldwide in higher education. This growing financial stress threatens to derail some promising careers. Nearly half (45%) of respondents agree that the rising costs of living could prompt them to quit their graduate programme.

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Nature 611, 189-191 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03478-x

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