ASU clinical Psychology program

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derkickder

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Hey guys. Im actually a long time user of this forum(4+ years) but I could not recover my account for some reason. Anyways.....I got an invite to interview at ASU for their clinical program. Was pretty stoked at first but then after reading more into the specifics of the program was turned off by some things. One of the major things was the stipend was listed as $14,900 per 9 month year. I feel like that is embarrassingly low. I interviewed last cycle at 2 places with stipends around the $25,000 mark and got offers at both (had to turn them down due to a major family emergency not worth going into).

So my first question is. Is this astonishingly low or am i missing something?

Second question. Are stipends usually for 9 months or year round?

Third question. Does anyone have any personal knowledge of the ASU clinical program? I have been looking online at some forum and have seen some fairly harsh reviews not painting it very positively. That could just be a few sour apples.

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Been a few years, but that stipend amount is not too far off from most programs, you're missing something. As for length, it varies. As for ASU, I don't know much about their brick and mortar, has good match rates, but they offer some dubious online degrees.
 
Hey guys. Im actually a long time user of this forum(4+ years) but I could not recover my account for some reason. Anyways.....I got an invite to interview at ASU for their clinical program. Was pretty stoked at first but then after reading more into the specifics of the program was turned off by some things. One of the major things was the stipend was listed as $14,900 per 9 month year. I feel like that is embarrassingly low. I interviewed last cycle at 2 places with stipends around the $25,000 mark and got offers at both (had to turn them down due to a major family emergency not worth going into).

So my first question is. Is this astonishingly low or am i missing something?

Second question. Are stipends usually for 9 months or year round?

Third question. Does anyone have any personal knowledge of the ASU clinical program? I have been looking online at some forum and have seen some fairly harsh reviews not painting it very positively. That could just be a few sour apples.

Was the funding for the two programs you turned down for 9 or 12 months? If it was for 12 months, take off 25% to more accurately compare it to 9-month stipends. With 9-month stipends, it's just what they can guarantee in terms of funding, but there may be other opportunities for summer funding, e.g. getting onto your POI's grant or external practica in later years.

And where were these programs located? You have to consider the cost of living in different areas to get a better sense of what a stipend is "worth." E.g. $15,000 in Tempe, AZ (where ASU is) is worth $23,500 in Boston
http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/tempe-az/boston-ma/15000
 
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Were the offers you got in bigger cities (e.g., Boston, NYC, etc.)? Another thought is were the offers from private schools? Typically, the stipends for public schools are lower. I assume you're comparing clinical programs to other clinical programs. I'm also assuming the 25k was for a stipend and not some kind of fellowship (which can bump up the number).
 
That stipend seems a bit low to me. But ASU is a solid program and has been for a number of years.
 
That stipend is similar to others I've seen at many good programs, depending on region. There may be other opportunities to earn more as well since I suspect that is a GTA contract (thus the 9 month). I worked summers at kids camps, for instance. ASU has a good reputation as others have said.
 
Programs can be tricky. If that's the full stipend including fees, that sounds roughly accurate for Arizona. I have an "18,000" 9-month stipend, but for some unknown reason I have to pay student fees, so it's really a "16800" 9-month stipend, and that's in Southern California. Also though, I come from a social justice/critical psychology background and I am extremely critical of the way graduate student labor is used and deemed as "practice"- especially if it's unsupervised teaching, in which case it truly is just labor. Anyway, although I believe it to be low on a personal level, it does sound right/accurate for a stipend.

In terms of reputation, I've only heard great things about ASU's Human Development and Family Sciences program, their Counseling Psych Ph.D., and Clinical Psych Ph.D.- I can't tell you about student satisfaction as this is just the opinion I've been given by mentors and faculty members I meet, but I think ASU is very well regarded! :) Congrats!

Unsupervised teaching is not grad school, that's just a bad grad program. A stipend in the high teens, health insurance, and full tuition remission comes out to a fairly hefty compensation in most cases, especially at just the grad level.
 
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Unsupervised teaching is not grad school, that's just a bad grad program. A stipend in the high teens, health insurance, and full tuition remission comes out to a fairly hefty compensation in most cases, especially at just the grad level.
Yeah, just look at the tuition rates alone at unfunded doctoral programs in psychology or even in MD programs. Remitting all tuition amounts to fairly good compensation by itself. Also, being a TA offers you teaching experience if you want a faculty position at a university or AMC, while being RAs allows you to build up research skills/experience, get onto to publications to improve your resume, and possibly get some work done for your thesis or dissertation if it's in the same area as the lab's work.

Would it be better if the stipends were higher? Always, but they generally are pretty good deals as they are.
 
I come from a social justice/critical psychology background and I am extremely critical of the way graduate student labor is used and deemed as "practice"- especially if it's unsupervised teaching, in which case it truly is just labor.

Going from 40-hour weeks at $32K (pre-grad school) to 5- to 10-hour TA work weeks for ~$18K plus tuition and fees seemed like a pretty good deal to me. I don't think that grad students should be expected to course instructors of record (unless they are later in their training and specifically seek out this experience), but leading a course as a grad student still yields higher compensation than an adjunct would get, as numerous adjunct instructors have pointed out.
 
Hey guys. Im actually a long time user of this forum(4+ years) but I could not recover my account for some reason. Anyways.....I got an invite to interview at ASU for their clinical program. Was pretty stoked at first but then after reading more into the specifics of the program was turned off by some things. One of the major things was the stipend was listed as $14,900 per 9 month year. I feel like that is embarrassingly low. I interviewed last cycle at 2 places with stipends around the $25,000 mark and got offers at both (had to turn them down due to a major family emergency not worth going into).

So my first question is. Is this astonishingly low or am i missing something?

Second question. Are stipends usually for 9 months or year round?

Third question. Does anyone have any personal knowledge of the ASU clinical program? I have been looking online at some forum and have seen some fairly harsh reviews not painting it very positively. That could just be a few sour apples.

Honestly, that stipend is higher than those offered at my program, which is also APA accredited. Our tuition is completely covered as well. It really depends on the area where programs are located and the type of financial resources/backing they have from the universities. Our stipends were for 9 months for the first year of the program and then changed to 12 months, but that varies by program.
 
I'd imagine it varies a lot by region, but that doesn't strike me as an absurdly low number. I graduated from a university in the south just a few years ago, and I was getting $11k/12mo (iirc) in stipends. That definitely didn't cover all my living expenses, but it helped limit the loans I took out. The tuition remission was the big thing for me.... When you factor that in, my school covered about $30k a year worth of expenses for me. Getting a degree and a little bit of money on top was worthwhile in my opinion.
 
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What would you consider a reasonable compensation package if 33k is too low?


As to the rest,
You quote an adjunct pay is extremely high from my experience. This is probably because you quote an hourly rate which is not how those contracts are written that I have ever seen. Both community college and four year university adjuncts I've seen offer somewhere around 5k per class (southeast and Midwest). If you assume that there is zero course prep, zero grading outside of class, zero email response then sure that comes out high dollar like you mention. But that's not the case when teaching. You are likely to spend many more hours a week designing your syllabus, ordering the book, setting up blackboard, responding to emails, designing your lectures, holding office hours, or grading tests and other assignments (lord help if you include written assignments). Don't forget to buy the health insurance as well.

Using your numbers:
Ignoring all that, let's say you only work 3 hours a week per class as an adjunct IOR. You don't do any course prep. Let's say they offer you 5k for a class (1k above a contract rate I saw last week for a friend at a local CC).

After purchasing insurance you are looking at 3k. So, at 85 an hour you are doing 35 hours of class work a semester. That's less than 2 hours of teaching a week. Needless to say, that's unlikely. Perhaps you work a mere 6 hours a week, you grab 52 an hour at a 5k contract (ignoring insurance needs otherwise you are at 31 an hour which is below your GTA estimate).

The answer is get more classes, right? But that's not the purpose of an adjunct. They aren't brought in to teach a full load. To make the same rate as the GTA you will be essentially teaching a 2/2 load which is extremely unlikely to find and will have you working 20 hours+/week. I would be surprised if you worked less than 10 a week per class. There is a reason people aren't flocking to adjunct jobs and it's because it isn't paying 85/hour and isn't steady enough to cover an income. How many adjunct teaching gigs are there- enough for a full cohort every semester, assuming they do give you a 2 class load? So, again, what do you consider a reasonable stipend package for a GTA?
 
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I worry being grateful for tuition remission and a very modest stipend is the attitude that causes our profession to have stagnant wages.

I doubt this, because:

1. CMS and third party payers don't care whether we get tuition remission or stipends.
2. Physicians typically out-earn us by a large margin, but they graduate with six-figure debt after four years of school.
3. Psychology faculty do not earn less, on average, than faculty in most other academic science and humanities departments (professional schools like business and law are exceptions).

This is not to say that compensation issues don't exist, but I don't attribute them to the system of tuition remission and modest cost-of-living stipends, which has existed for a long time (as long as doctoral the programs themselves). What has changed over time is the ratio of tenure-track faculty positions to new doctorates, the advent and growth of for-profit professional schools, and attitudes about what constitutes an acceptable standard of living (i.e., consumerism).

I am not going to advocate that that's by any means a fair salary, especially considering the work we typically do outside of our GSR or TA positions.

What work are you referring to?
 
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