PhD Funding Runway Calculator
How long will the money last? Enter your savings, stipend, and expenses to see the months of runway and whether your funding is sustainable or draining.
How long the money lasts
A planning estimate assuming steady figures — it ignores interest, inflation, and irregular income. Build in a buffer before your funding runs dry.
Know your countdown before it starts
Funding rarely lines up neatly with the length of a thesis. Scholarships end, write-up years arrive, and a self-funded stretch can appear with little warning. The runway calculator turns your savings and monthly numbers into the one figure that matters when money is finite: how many months you have before it runs out.
Seeing the number early changes what you can do about it — apply for a bridging grant, pick up teaching, trim the burn rate, or bring a submission date forward — while there’s still runway to act.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a funding runway?
It's how long your money lasts before it runs out. The calculator takes your savings, subtracts any upfront costs, and divides what's left by your net monthly burn — the gap between what you spend and what your stipend brings in. The result is the number of months you can keep going at the current rate.
What does 'sustainable' mean here?
If your ongoing stipend or income meets or exceeds your monthly expenses, your savings aren't being drawn down at all, so there's no finite runway to report — the tool calls that sustainable. It holds only while those figures stay true; a rent rise or a funding gap can turn a sustainable position into a countdown.
When is this most useful?
At the pinch points of a PhD: a gap between a scholarship ending and the next one starting, a self-funded stretch while you wait on a decision, the write-up year after stipend payments stop, or planning whether savings can bridge to submission. It turns a vague worry into a concrete number of months.
Should I enter my stipend before or after tax?
Use the amount that actually reaches your account each month — after any tax or withholding — because that's what genuinely offsets your spending. Do the same for expenses: enter what you really pay, including rent, bills, food, and travel.
Does it account for interest or inflation?
No. It assumes steady figures to keep the estimate simple and transparent. In practice prices drift up and savings may earn a little interest, so treat the runway as a planning baseline and leave yourself a buffer rather than running it to zero.
Educational estimate only — not financial advice. It assumes steady figures and ignores interest, inflation, and irregular income. Keep a buffer rather than planning to reach zero.