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The ranking is built from three numbers for each department: the stipend, the fees, and the local living cost. This page defines each of them. All money figures are annual, pre-tax, and in USD unless stated otherwise.
Stipend is the minimal amount of pre-tax allowance graciously granted by the institution to its PhD students. Currently, we support displaying (1) the stipend received by the majority of students, (2) the minimal guaranteed stipend, and (3) the stipend that students receive during the semester only.
The reported stipend is not the maximum, the average, or a best-case offer: it is the minimum amount that at least 80% of PhD students (including international students) receive, excluding internships and other outside income. Where pre-qualification and post-qualification stipends differ, both are recorded, and the PhD stage selector switches between them. See the FAQ for the full definition of majority.
Note that some departments do not have guaranteed summer funding, and we are currently working to collect such data. For now, this data is not complete.
The Stipend type selector works as follows:
Fees are annual non-reimbursible tariffs (including health insurance) reclaimed by said institution. If the institution charges a CPT fee or summer enrollment fee for international students, they should also be counted here. In short, this should be the maximum possible fee that the institution charges.
See why health insurance is included in here.
Living cost is based on the institution's county, using the EPI Family Budget Calculator (1 adult, 0 children, denoted 1p0c). It covers housing, food, transportation, healthcare, other necessities, and taxes at the county level. See the FAQ for details on our choice of data source and its limitations.
Hover over a living-cost figure in the ranking to see the county, its FIPS code, and the breakdown used. The optional Exclude Health Care and Exclude Transportation checkboxes let you subtract those components from the living cost.
The ranking table shows the Stipend ($), Fees ($), Living Cost ($), and After Fees & Living ($) columns. The last one is simply the selected stipend minus the fees and the living cost. Institutions are color-coded by type (public, private, or fellowship), and the small-caps labels and icons next to a name flag funding caveats and verification status.
The ranking is based on user-submitted or estimated information and on public sources such as department funding pages, handbooks, offer letters, and payroll records. See the FAQ for how submissions are collected and verified, and the README for the exact CSV column definitions.