March 2008
We all wish it was a little lower
Four years ago, while eating lunch with a Stanford professor during his trip for an invited talk, I asked him about life at Stanford and living in the Bay Area. One thing that I still remember is that the way he expressed difficulty for him and his wife, also a professor at Stanford, to own a house in the region. At that time, as a graduate student graduating from a school far away from the west coast, I did not have to take it seriously. After two years of that conversation, I graduated and decided to join my current lab at Stanford. I knew it was going to be expensive, still my family and I decided to move to the Bay Area. The cost of living did not matter in making the decision.
During a recent visit to my doctor, who happens to be an affiliate of Stanford, we talked about the life in general and the rising living cost in the region. I found him concerned about the pay scale of the postdocs that universities including Stanford have been offering. His personal view was that maybe this high living cost is hurting Stanford because some potential postdocs and faculty choose not to join it for that very reason. Last week, I met a friend of mine who was in the Bay Area for a job interview for a tenure track position in one of the three powerhouses in the region and again it turns out that one of his major concerns about moving to the Bay Area was the cost of housing. As a postdoc, I try not to think about the expensive housing in the area and hope everyone who Stanford offers to join could accept the offer and move in. I wonder if it has become one of the factors in decision making by likely postdocs and faculties.
We wish the living cost in the Bay Area was a little lower and affordable.
Adios
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