The numbers for the MIT living wage calculator are completely wrong for most PhD students. For one, they include thing like social security taxes, which students do not pay. They overestimate medical costs, because most PhD students are young and will not have health complications that drive costs. The rent estimate is based on single-occupancy units, which doesn't make sense because most live with roommates (https://livingwage.mit.edu/resources/Living-Wage-Users-Guide...). Students often qualify for benefits that are not included in the estimate.
It's a popular number to use, but is often quite an overestimate.
This is some nonsense. It's not an overestimate at all.
Grad students do have health issues. I know plenty who do. Actually. I have never had a PhD student who did not have some major health issue in their 5-6 years.
Many grad students have families. They can't live with 6 other people in a unit. They have childcare.
Rent is extremely expensive around MIT. Even a room in a larger unit will easily run you 1.5k or more per month plus utilities.
With 47k in Cambridge even if I shared an apartment and cut expenses I could just scrape by if I didn't have a child. I have no idea how I would make it with one.
Do you disupte any of the things I mentioned? Yes, obviously PhD students with kids and health issues exist, but on average, PhD students are younger, healthier, pay less taxes, qualify for more benefits, and don't have children. The MIT estimate is based on all the above not being true, but that's simply not reflective of the PhD student population.
If you include tuition at the rate undergrads pay it as part of the compensation then they are paid much more than the median wage. Average annual tuition alone for many research universities is higher than the median annual wage.
For the vast majority of the degree, PhDs are not taking any classes (often, they are not even allowed to). They are just workers who either teach or research. The tuition is usually an accounting trick used by colleges/universities for tax and visa sponsorship purposes. Although faculty typically has to cover a PhD's tuition, factoring it in as pay is a little disingenuous.
If tuition was not waived, PhDs would not even apply. The way the PhD is set up in the US is a little byzantine. Other countries (Canada, continental Europe) do have normal employment contracts and benefits.
And this is computer science. If you want to feel bad for someone, grad students in e.g. biology or anthropology are still at or below $20k annually in many places.
It's okay to be ignorant about how weird things work, but sharing opinions about things you don't know about should be avoided. A PhD "student" isn't really a student. They're an employed researcher at a research institution, working under more senior researchers who are able to attract grant money.
To use an analogy to the trades, the PhD students are the apprentices, the senior researchers / professors are the journeymen. Do not misunderstand, the PhD students are doing labor for the benefit of the university, and getting paid to do so. The problem arises from uninformed people who ask exactly your question, operating on the misguided assumption that graduate school is just more, harder undergraduate school.
Yeah, I was a grad student in physics for 6 years, so feel free not to offer opinions on things you don't know about.
Grad students are getting an education and a big bump to their future earning potential, often at significant taxpayer expense. What entitlement do they have to have a free ride, much less make living wage on top of that?
Many career paths include a steady increase in future earning potential. As for entitlement, they are entitled to a share of the value they bring to their employer. Or at least, if Stanford doesn’t think so, it can fire them.
I disagree. You are entitled to what you can negotiate as your market value and what you accept in exchange for your labor and talents. If grad students are lined up the door willing to work for less because a PhD from Stanford gives them a ticket for the rest of their life, why should Stanford or any employer have to give them a share of value? That's not how most employment works. Or at least not O(n) proportional to the value they create.
Organizing and demanding pay collectively seems to help in negotiations, so good for them for taking this approach. It's not like Stanford can move its grad programs to Mexico like a US car maker and its factories.
Didn’t say that. I think that grad students are reasonably paid a small salary to be able to live modestly on, so that more students can be taken into programs. Requiring a living wage to the tune of $50k/yr at UC Berkeley as the standard is not reasonable as a matter of spending university $ wisely, or as a matter of what the role of grad school is.
You obviously have absolutely no clue how research PhDs work.
Most PhD students are pretty much done with classes after the first year or two. They get their PhDs through research (often writing their own grants) or the vital function of teaching. They are workers. It is disingenuous to view them as students. If PhD students were not able to make a living, very, very few people would ever be able to enter science.
> You obviously have absolutely no clue how research PhDs work.
Somehow my 6 years of PhD in physics begs to differ.
As I said in another comment, grad students are going to grad school and getting a big bump to their future earning potential, subsidized often by the state. I don't think it's an entitlement that they get to do that for free, much less claim a right to earn living wage level on top of that.
Maybe you were doing a CS PhD or something, but PhDs in most fields are not a good good way to maximize earning potential, especially when taking into account lost potential wages and the time value of money.
> PhDs in most fields are not a good good way to maximize earning potential, especially when taking into account lost potential wages and the time value of money.
Nobody made anyone get a PhD in a field that doesn't pay, and so that doesn't mean they're entitled to high pay.
It's not hard to google "starting pay for major x" before making a choice. Nobody should be surprised at what the pay is, especially for someone capable of getting a PhD.
As someone who also spent six years in grad school, I’m entitled to say grad students are generally remarkably unproductive. Much of their ‘research’ work after the 2-3 years of classes is best considered continuing education. Most of them suck as TAs too. They don’t need to make a living either - They just need to get by for 5 years by living with roommates and eating ramen. It’s what I did.
(And it’s not true grad students ‘often’ write their own successful grants. The vast majority of STEM grad students are supported on stipends from their advisor’s research grants or do a TA-ship when desperate.)
But still, I doubt you would have found many grad students who were independently wealthy before unionization. Or at least, in the field where they were lobbying the hardest for unionization, is probably where the most independently wealthy students were.
in addition, many professors and departments discourage PhD students from taking separate jobs, and sometimes its even part of the funding agreement that you don’t take a separate job
Yes. My office is about a 10 minute walk away. I work from home when I need to get stuff done. There are simply fewer distractions. I go to the office when I do feel live having some idle chit chat or to be social. If I were 100% remote, I would not miss the office.
I do not have a separate office room at home, I work from my bedroom.
As someone deeply involved with the P4 community and contributor to the P4 compiler it is great to see someone being bullish on the language. Have been following your work with interest. :)
I see that you are developing your own compiler. If you have complaints or suggestions please feel free to reach out to p4-design@p4.org. The language design group is meeting monthly and is always interested in hearing grievances of consumers of the language.
As a side-note, we are currently developing tools to ensure that P4 programs are compiled and executed correctly. Tools include packet-test generators, fuzzers, and general-purpose verification frameworks. Because the language is so restricted you can do really powerful validation. A concrete example is Google using P4 as a specification language for their network devices[0]. If that is something that interests you, shoot me a message (fruffy@nyu.edu).
Hey! Thanks for reaching out. Primary author of the Oxide P4 compiler here. I joined the P4 Language Design WG a while back and have attended a few meetings as time and schedules allow. I'll join in on next week's meeting in case folks are interested in follow-up questions/discussions.
The Tofino chips were amazingly programmable, and before that, the Fulcrum chips were amazingly fast. Intel got ahold of both of them, and the magic was gone.
The latest Tofino 3 is... quite something to look at. Might actually take the cake for largest MCM and largest BGA package at over 10k pins. The POWER5 MCM is a similar size but has much fewer contacts.
As you note, Tofino 2 is still being supported: the team has been very candid and transparent with us (which we very much appreciate!) and Intel has been both formal and explicit about their ongoing support for Tofino 2. We agree with you that there is lots of potential here -- and we are not backing away from the vision of the software-driven switch (and we are pleased that Intel remains engaged with P4).
It seems this is because the company has broadly shifted focus to softer social issues rather than technical topics. Mozilla keeps struggling with market share and users are anguished to see that their (former) favorite browser is investing resources in topics they find to be a distraction.
At least that is my interpretation. Mozilla is not addressing the same audience any longer, a lot of which is technically-minded folk on HN, Reddit, /g/, etc.
As a current CS PhD in the US I find this sentiment aggravating. I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee. I do not take classes and I am not interested in taking classes. I would either like to teach or work on my research in a collaborative environment with other like-minded peers.
Many PhDs are in their late 20s/early 30s, coming from all swaths of life. They are not children. However, in the American education system they are treated as if they were. While this sentiment can have its perks, as shown in the OP, it also means PhDs do not get proper contracts, pay, benefits, or any voice.
Thankfully, I managed to maneuver myself into a position that is livable but I frequently talk to other CS PhDs from other American institutions. It is depressing to hear what people have to put up with in their degree. Sure, the PhD requires initial training, but the ramp-up is not so slow that it is necessary to be stuck in the same serf status for 5+ years.
Unfortunately, I think this is a systemic issue that is not easy to solve.
> I am not a mere "student", I am a full-time employee.
Isn't 'student' the preferable option here? I was proud to be a student when I was doing my PhD. (I said 'doctoral student' when I wanted to be more clear.) Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research?
I can't understand why you'd want to be an employee?!
>Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes
Well, you are still forced to do all that. After all, you often depend on your advisor's funding or expectations. They can make or break you. You get "freedom", but with that freedom
1) you do not have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy.
2) vacations in general are not a thing (it is really important to submit that paper over Christmas).
3) health benefits and family support depend on the whims of the department, any sort of pension plan is unheard of.
4) you sometimes get paid, sometimes not (depending on whether some administrative clerk "forgets" to put you on payroll this term).
5) you are expected to find other work over three months in the summer (but at the same time must continue your research, there is that deadline we REALLY need to hit, do NOT waste your time trying to earn money).
6) as F1 student you are not permitted to find other means of income unless approved by your advisor or department. If they approve, they have to approve every single term (good luck with that).
7) you can try to pursue your own research but then you should also expect to be isolated, receiving no support or feedback from either your lab, peers, or advisor. This is one of the most common stories. Usually, these students just wither away or drop out.
These are not isolated issues, mind you. This is pretty common across the board from what I have seen. And all of these issues are tolerable, if you were at least paid a living wage. But commonly the pay you get barely covers the rent in the city you live in.
Thankfully, I am in a better position and I have an accommodating advisor, but I still think this is a depressing state of affairs.
I don’t disbelieve your post, I’m sure you’re speaking from experience, but this is a YMMV kind of deal.
1) I did have a contract listing hours, and the vacation policy was the academic calendar: a week in the fall, 5 weeks in the winter, a week in the spring, 3 months in the summer.
2) I didn’t experience any work whatsoever during Christmas
3) Didn’t have a pension plan, but the University did offer reasonable health benefits, and the ACA covered the rest of my family at a low premium.
4) I definitely got paid regularly through the University payroll system.
5) I was given summer contracts to continue doing paid research over the summer. This was a choice, I could have taken internships or a vacation.
6) This is more of an issue with US visas, not really something academics can control
7) I was definitely well supported by my lab, peers, and advisors when I pursued my own research goals. They were very eager to see my results.
I wouldn’t say that your bullet points really represent my institution, so “across the board” usually has a boundary at a specific department or school. I wouldn’t generalize your or my experience to all schools, as they can vary substantially.
Yeah, I fully believe OPs experience as I have heard horror stories but similarly my experience with an engineering PhD was that we were treated well. We had contracts, semi-reasonable pay, vacation, healthcare etc.
5) you are expected to find other work over three months in the summer (but at the same time must continue your research, there is that deadline we REALLY need to hit, do NOT waste your time trying to earn money).
Yeah, this is very true, and it's degenerate, because research is a 12-month job and deserves a 12-month salary.
It seems to me that academia takes advantage of extremely smart people (and delusional middling-smart people) because it knows they have nowhere else to go. If you're a legit 140+, you're at the level where corporate America becomes to become a non-option because you're just too different, if not necessarily from the other people, from what you are expected to be as a subordinate.
That's a union as in, we're students getting together to have fun.
People here are talking about a union as in organized labor. Where you have a leadership who negotiates a contract with the university, where you're a dues paying member, where you go on strike when advisors systematically abuse students.
> Where you have a leadership who negotiates a contract with the university, where you're a dues paying member, where you go on strike when advisors systematically abuse students.
The NUS does all these things though. They have a leadership who negotiates with the university, they strike sometimes (a bit self-defeating - nobody suffers except their own education,) they take dues from you (via the university, so you don't see them.) They even campaign against politicians, and once made a concerted effort to get members of parliament unseated. That's more than most blue-collar unions do.
Except negotiate contracts, as you don't have a contract because... you're a student not labour - the crux of the issue under discussion!
But you're right I wasn't part of it - I opted out because as I say all they really achieved was running a mediocre cafe.
My son is currently working on his Ph.D. in CS. I've been working in industry for nearly 40 years. Let me address some of your points.
1. Many, many jobs don't have an actual contract listing your hours or any sort of vacation policy. Even for the jobs that do, there's no guarantee you'll actually be able to take your vacation, or take it when you'd like.
2. See (1). Vacations are almost always worked around projects. I grew up in an engineering environment and I can tell you that's just life in an engineering environment.
3. Many universities offer student health plans. And check your calendar - the year is 2022. Pensions don't exist anywhere - at least not for new employees.
4. I've experienced that working for a start-up too. It happens.
5. My son hasn't had a problem finding work over the summer - that's the bulk of his income. Yes, he also has to continue his research. But, working 60-80 hours per week for 3 months per year is pretty much normal at many places. Whether that should be the case or not is another issue, but I don't see the Ph.D. student getting hit particularly harder than anyone else.
6. The trick is to align your jobs with your research. My son hasn't had problems in that regard. Also, CS departments like to forge and maintain contacts in private industry. So there's research alignment and department alignment to think about.
7. Pursuing your own research that's not aligned with your department isn't smart. After all, you chose that department - weren't you into what they were researching? Hadn't you talked about what kinds of things you were interested in before they brought you on? This is a two-way street - there's things they're looking to get from you and there's things you're looking to get from them. Also, no person is an island - you're going to need help. No one is likely to help you if you're viewed as a maverick who isn't aligned with the department goals.
You are correct that the wages are barely livable. I can tell you from the experience my daughter had in pursuing a Ph.D. that the stipends for CS students are considerably higher than the stipends available for other fields in science. Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads go, but it's considerably better than subsistence living. That's the equivalent of making $30-$45 per hour which is a wage most Americans would find damn good, and can only dream about earning that kind of money.
All told, there's a lot you have to go through to get a Ph.D. and lots of it is politicking. That's why smart people hire Ph.D. grads - they know they're people who can work against the long odds and still come out successful. That's a desirable trait to have in the people you hire.
So yes, you can easily make double the money you're currently making, but you're never going to have the opportunity to research as you do now. Hopefully you chose your department wisely and are aligned with the kind of research they're into.
>You are correct that the wages are barely livable. I can tell you from the experience my daughter had in pursuing a Ph.D. that the stipends for CS students are considerably higher than the stipends available for other fields in science. Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads go, but it's considerably better than subsistence living. That's the equivalent of making $30-$45 per hour which is a wage most Americans would find damn good, and can only dream about earning that kind of money.
This is almost totally unique to CS students and frankly many advisors may not allow their students to skip the opportunity to do more research over the summer.
I'm not sure why you spent so much time defending the PhD system in the US which is frankly broken and borderline abusive.
I'm not sure why you spent so much time defending the PhD system in the US which is frankly broken and borderline abusive.
C'mon - the entire U.S. employment system is broken. What I'm saying is let's not pretend it's only the Ph.D. students getting screwed over. The implication was your life would be so much better if you just went to private industry. No it won't, at least not in the U.S. I guess all that is to say employment in general in the U.S. is broken and borderline abusive (though I'd argue there's no borderline - it's abusive). But hey - I can either emigrate to another country where I have few friends and no family (the bulk of my friends an all of my family is here in the U.S.) or you suffer through their game so you can put a roof over your head and food on the table. I think it's time we acknowledge the quality of life in the U.S. isn't all it's cracked up to be. Oh sure, it could be worse - and boy, don't they always remind you about that! - but it could also be a lot better, which is something they rarely talk about. I guess I'm supposed to be happy I can carry my gun anywhere without needing a concealed carry permit. Apparently none of our other problems matter.
Let me clarify that I do not have all these issues. I am doing well for myself. This is partially because of my own cynicism, partially because of good mentors, and partially because of plain luck.
However, not everyone has that luxury. The list I gave is a list of problems I personally witnessed friends/colleagues go through. I also have worked a fair bit of industry, so I know that these patterns are not normal or in any way acceptable.
And yes, with clever strategizing you can find your way around being exploited. However, my point is that this should not be normal. Contractual working conditions would at least give you baseline protection.
And of course, there are always worse conditions to be in in the US (except maybe the students whose immigration status depends on the whim of their advisor) but we should hold universities to higher standards than that.
>Plus the CS students have the opportunity to work over the Summer and make the "big bucks." Altogether you should be making $60K-$70K per year, which isn't a lot as far as CS grads go, but it's considerably better than subsistence living. That's the equivalent of making $30-$45 per hour which is a wage most Americans would find damn good, and can only dream about earning that kind of money.
Just want to point out that this depends. For example, if you are an F1 student you will have to get your internship approved. This can be a lengthy, uncertain process. Some departments/advisors also expect you to not do internships at all as they prefer you to do research instead. Now 60k is also not guaranteed. In NYC universities for example, a full year of funding will net you a ~40k salary before taxes, iff you manage to acquire funding over the summer. Students are thrifty and typically find a way to finance themselves (e.g., move home, find other sources of income), but again, this should not be normal.
But you're opting into them having more control over you. If you're an employee they can set your hours. They can't as a student. You're opting into a HR-managed vacation system instead of managing your own time.
Health insurance, behaviours, retirement, etc I guess so.
> If you're an employee they can set your hours. They can't as a student. You're opting into a HR-managed vacation system instead of managing your own time.
The PhD students I knew did not managed own time. They worked when mandated by supervisor, they worked long hours and vacation meant still working. And they could not go to vacations whenever either.
Being an employee makes it easier to demand fair treatment. As a "student" people can say "of course your pay and benefits are low and hours are terrible, you are a student and are paid in coaching." If you are instead understood to be an employee then suddenly the comparison between working at Target and working as a graduate student becomes harder to ignore and the abusive practices become more clear.
There are downsides, like it being important to be able to fire low performers in employee/employer relationships. But thinking of graduate students as skilled knowledge workers makes it easier to agitate for better conditions.
>Why do you want to work for someone else, on their hours, answerable to them, doing their research and teaching their classes, instead of working on your own research?
Did you actually do a PhD? You ought to know that you are completely beholden to your advisor, what they want you to work on, what papers they want you to write, the classes they want you to take etc.
As an employee you actually have rights, benefits and fairer pay and are under basically identical working circumstances.
Anecdotes aren't very useful but in my department it was pretty clear that most of your work was going to be derivative of your advisors at least tangentially if not directly.
Also I think the article and most of the discussion so far has been around experiences in the US' PhD system so I'm not sure experience in the UK is equivalent.
Yeah, it is supposed to be that in theory. But in practice, I had to be trained through multiple research positions doing work for other people, none of whom had managerial experience or training. It was very chaotic and I rarely had time to work on my own research until dissertation.
A PhD should be, at least in theory. Whether it is or not is a question - and "until dissertation" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Importantly, a staff scientist position will never be. If you cannot tie your project to one of my grants, you are losing me money. For a student, that might be acceptable. For a staff scientist, it's not.
That’s the way it works and will probably always work. Profit, prestige, and power are the driving factors, even for the most equity-minded individuals.
The problem, I think, stems from the fact that a doctoral advisor, because he influences your reputation in all of academia rather than just one company, is even more of a career SPOF than a corporate manager.
The good news is that your advisor is safe (tenured, or at least likely to make tenure) in most circumstances, so he's not going to fuck you over unless he's a truly terrible person, and 90 percent of people aren't, as opposed to the corporate world where the pressure of constantly watching your back turns that middle 80% into bad people as well. The bad news is that he does have this extortive power over you, if he wants to use it.
There's also a conflict of interest when it comes to delayed graduations. If the advisor's getting cheap or free grunt work, and delaying your graduation for another year can get him more of said work, then he has an incentive to do so. Of course, this can't be continued forever, because eventually he'll get a reputation for his students taking too long and not doing well... but in the short term, it is an option for him, and it is sometimes exercised.
> If the advisor's getting cheap or free grunt work
This is a huge misconception. Yes, as a grad student you aren’t paid well. That doesn’t mean you are cheap for a PI. They have to pay your tuition, as well as university overhead related to your stipend. You don’t see a lot of that money in your bank account, but it is leaving the PI’s research grant nonetheless.
The most productive students are those who are about 3 years in when they are done with classes. The least productive ones are those about to graduate; they typically have a serious case of “senioritis”, and are often busy making contacts in industry and planning a career. Keeping them around makes them less productive, not more.
Professors want to graduate them to free up resources and to bolster their promotion portfolio.
You want to be a PhD employee so that you don't have to pay college out of your own pocket.
Sure, most would prefer to be rich, or have their parents be rich, or having gotten a full ride or some other stipend. But that's not the norm for most PhD students. For most, the alternative to not being a PhD student employee is to leave college and become an employee employee.
Or, you know, unionize like regular workers. (Former UAW-represented PhD student, here.)
I then spent some time in the Swiss system as a postdoc... night and day! I went from the "American Riviera" (UCSB) to the "Swiss Riviera" (EPFL), and so living costs were about the same. But PhD students were paid more than twice what I was paid in the US.
Also much less teaching at EPFL, but that was probably due to differences in the "type" of institution.
Why would you pay extra and deal with the additional headache of being screened/having to enter your private data if you could just take the more convenient and largely anonymous train for under a $100? A train where you are not squeezed into the seat like a sardine?
I am personally also really uncomfortable with the notion that you have to pay an additional convenience fee just to have a mildly more pleasant travel experience. Coach class should not mean that you are cattle.
People in coach can still use PreCheck. Work only pays for economy tickets, so I can tell you PreCheck still works fine.
Also, FYI there are two price levels for TSA screening. One is the TSA PreCheck, the other is the 9/11 security fee everyone has to pay. A universal PreCheck would probably mean increasing the security fee.
How trustworthy is The War Zone? It seems to be largely focussed on US defence tech industry, so I expect fairly biased reporting on this topic. Is there a better source?
They have a POV, but I wouldn't call it a US bias. They're pretty quick to criticize. (It's one of my few regular reads besides HN.)
They always post their sources, and then explain any speculation from there. Usually the speculation is more accusative of the US military than anything else, but Russia, China etc also get covered.
Now, many of the "sources" are US military or other US government FOIA requests or similar, as well as some vets sharing technical details of what their deployment was like, etc.
(I actually think they have more trouble with bias in proximity to US domestic politics than they do any US bias.)
Any US "bias" isn't really a skew of reality, so much as the US military is pretty much the topic the focus on covering.
They get giddy about some historical stories, but it's usually more about the tech than the allegiance.
Is hacker news biased for having a large number of articles about, or from the POV of, tech/startup/otherwise-HN crow? (excluding comments) Or is it just what the site is about?
It is 100% biased to USA sources. But they have interesting information on how the US defence tech industry works and goes more in depth than most places. It is a very fair point. I like how they actually talk about the technology and all that. Thanks for reminding me to keep in mind the source!
There is some pro-US military bias in their analysis and editorial content. But their factual reports tend to be more accurate than the mainstream media.
All reporting is biased. You shouldn't try to find unbiased reporting - you'll never succeed, except at fooling yourself - instead you should identify the biases of the things you read and read sources with a variety of biases.
Try Simone de Beauvoir's the ethics of ambiguity. It's deals with many of the concerns Neitzsche raises in the area of ethics and moralality and provides some convincing arguments in a short accessible book.
Deleuze's books on history of philosophy are interesting and approachable. Although they are more about his own philosophy over people he write about they're still very valuable. Deleuze gets bad reputation for his other writings as they are difficult to read but that's not the case with books on history. He also have books on Nietzsche so that might be a nice starting point.
Other continental philosophers that you could try are Heidegger, Foucault or Bataille. Everything depends on what you're looking for, but if you're coming from Nietzsche and Stirner they might be interesting for you.
Edit: As someone else mentioned, Walter Benjamin is also very interesting!
P4 and eBPF are not really competing in the same space. eBPF/XDP is a virtual kernel machine that you can program in restricted C. P4 is a language that specifies how a device should process packets. So P4 is compiled down into a target (for example, a switch or NIC), which then executes the code as specified by the programmer. The nice part about P4, compared to just working with the devices, is that it establishes a standard reference format for administration and control of packet processing. For example, Google is using P4 to test their switches (they talk about it in their keynote in this workshop [0]).
The eBPF/XDP VM could be one of these P4 targets. You can write a P4 specification that is converted into eBPF byte code which is then loaded and executed.
The reference P4 compiler even has a eBPF[1] and an XDP[2] back end. However, those are currently not well maintained. Another problem is that the code generated from P4 is not as efficient as manually crafted eBPF byte code. With a little care this is all easily solvable.
https://csstipendrankings.org/
Many universities are not paying a living wage for the area they are located in.