Why this site exists
Hi, I'm Anna, a PhD student. When I was choosing where to apply and which offer to accept, the question that mattered most was the one nobody answered clearly: can I actually afford to live on this stipend?
Admissions forums are full of acceptance stories. University pages publish stipend numbers, but rarely next to what rent, utilities, transit and parking really cost in that city. Putting those side by side took hours of digging for every school. GraduateLedger does that digging once and shows it in one place.
What you'll find here
- Compare tool: put two or three universities side by side: stipend, rent, utilities, transit and parking.
- Offer decision matrix: weigh up to four offers on what matters to you, such as stipend against cost of living, advisor fit and funding security. See which offer wins and how fragile that result is. Your entries stay in your browser.
- Fellowship directory: national graduate fellowships with stipend, tuition benefit, eligibility and deadline, filterable by citizenship, career stage and field.
- University and program pages: the funding and cost-of-living picture for a school, plus a profile of each degree program built from the department's own pages.
- Articles: plain-English guides on grad school finances, such as stipend taxes, quarterly estimated payments, health insurance, negotiating an offer and choosing between offers.
How we handle the numbers
Every stipend and cost figure on this site carries a label: Official, Crowdsourced, Estimated or Unverified. We never present an estimate as if a university had published it. Missing data says "Not yet available" instead of being guessed. The full explanation is on our Methodology page.
Our research is compiled with the help of AI-assisted tools, working from official university pages, and then structured and labeled by source type. That's why we publish how we source things, show verification dates, and run a corrections process.
What this site is not
GraduateLedger is an information resource, not financial, tax or legal advice, and it is not affiliated with any university. See our Disclaimer.
Get in touch
Found an error, or know of a newer figure? Please tell us at the address on our Contact page. Corrections from students and staff are the fastest way this site gets better.