Financial stress and debt in clinical psychology doctoral students

Abstract

Introdution: Few studies examine the financial burden of clinical psychology doctoral programs and its impact on achievements, stress, and mental health.Objectives: The current study sought to better understand students' financial stress and debt, and how financial stress may impact their mental health and the attainment of personal and professional milestones.Method: Students (N = 912) completed an online survey assessing demographics, sources of income and expenditures, mental health, and milestones.Results: After accounting for yearly inflation, stipends have not kept pace with the average cost of living in the United States. Over one-third of students indicated that they had no expendable pretax income after paying for their education and typical living expenses. Additionally, over 80% reported acquiring additional debt in graduate school to offset their living expenses. Financial concerns were associated with delays in major life milestones (e.g., buying a car/house, getting married/starting a family, having children), as well as avoiding medical (34.2%) or mental (41.4%) health care, with 17.5% of participants experiencing a health crisis they could not afford while in graduate school. Financial stress was associated with an increase in time spent thinking about finances, higher rates of depression and anxiety symptoms, and decreased sleep.

“Não importa o que você sente ou pensa, você precisa de ser produtivo e eficiente” – Vivências e percepções dos estudantes de mestrado e doutorado no Brasil

“…Outro estudo realizado nos Estados Unidos mostrou que estudantes de doutorado em psicologia clínica vivenciam estresse financeiro, tendo dificuldades de custear suas despesas básicas, o que influencia diretamente na saúde emocional. Portanto, observa-se Brazilian Journal of Health Review, Curitiba, v. 6, n. 2, p.5860-5879, mar./apr., 2023 que a vulnerabilidade socioeconômica impacta seriamente na qualidade de vida destes sujeitos, tornando relevante que programas acadêmicos e agências de fomento forneçam o aumento das bolsas estudantis (SZKODY et al, 2023).…”

Exploring trainee perspectives on barriers and facilitators in serious mental illness doctoral training.

“…Contributors to this article identified financial privilege in the form of family and academic institutional support as facilitators to focus on their education and training. Financial privilege is a facilitator to pursuing clinical psychology across specialties (Szkody et al, 2023) but may be particularly challenging when there is a specialty with less access, such as SMI. For example, contributors expressed how family financial support allowed them the space, time, energy, and/or resources to compete for academic scholarships, offset low stipends, or spend additional time completing academic products, such as dissertation research.…”

Identification of Educational Gaps in Data Science Training Across Agricultural Genomics

“…Considering the quantity and cost of the priced resources, the low number of graduate students that receive departmental or lab funding to pursue workshops or courses is concerning. Assuming an average stipend salary of approximately $25,000 USD, many courses were beyond the reach of disposable income of a graduate student and would not be feasible to attend (Kirchner and Petzoldt, 2022;Szkody et al, 2023). Workshops and courses outside of a student's home university may act as a solution to limited availability of university courses (Hernandez et al, 2012;Theobold et al, 2021), but support from advisors and departments is essential to make these courses possible for graduate students.…”