phd finance uct

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• Interdisciplinary courses: International Tax Masters

PHD Program

• Masters in Taxation specialising in South African Tax
• Honours degree in Taxation
• Faculty of Law
• Undergraduate Courses
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• ADIT- Chartered Institute of Taxation (UK)
• International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation
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CD001FTX03: PhD in Taxation - FTX6001W

About the programme

Who is in charge?

The PhD in Taxation programme is convened by Darron West.

Do I qualify?

A suitable degree at Masters level. Acceptance onto the programme is dependent on a research proposal being approved and the availability of a supervisor. Provisional candidates will be required to present the proposal to the Departmental PhD Committee, which will decide whether the student's PhD candidacy can be confirmed. The proposal has to be presented within 6 months of first registration.

How much will it cost?

For information on fees,  please see the Fees Handbook.

How do I apply?

Click here to go to the  UCT Online Application page.

By when must I apply?

Closing dates appear on the UCT Online Application page and are generally  31 October  of the year preceding the start of the programme. 

Programme start date and overall duration

Once an offer has been made you are able to register. International students need to comply with national regulations for visas etc before they are cleared for registration. Registration with the faculty office is an annual requirement. (You are also liable for fees every year.) You may register as from 2 January annually, but need not renew your registration the start of each new academic year (mid-Feb). As your access to funding and physical access to the library and labs etc are determined by your registration status, you must follow the directions (from your faculty office) for renewing your registration.

The annual registration also requires the submission of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which sets out the expectations of both supervisor and student for the year. It is against this that your progress is assessed annually. Unbroken registration must be maintained from the first registration until graduation. If for exceptional circumstances your studies are interrupted, you may apply for leave of absence - this is at the faculty’s discretion 

What will I do on the programme?

A PhD thesis is required to be an original‚ coherent and consistent body of work which reflects the candidate’s own efforts. The thesis may not be more than 80‚000 words. A candidate will undertake research‚ and such advanced study as may be required, under the guidance of a supervisor or supervisors appointed by Senate.

Paper requirements to graduate

At the conclusion of research, the candidate shall submit a thesis for examination. This will occur after receiving an indication from the supervisor that the thesis is acceptable for submission. However, a candidate is barred from submission without the supervisor's approval. The candidate must inform the Doctoral Degrees Board Officer in writing of his/her intention.

The final dates for submission of such notification for the purpose of graduation are:

• 10 January for persons hoping to graduate in June
• 20 June for persons hoping to graduate in December

The dates for submission of theses are:

• 15 February for persons hoping to graduate in June
• 15 August for persons hoping to graduate in December

For more information on the courses, please refer to  Commerce Postgraduate Handbook .

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Commencement Events for the Princeton Class of 2024

Photo by Charles Sykes, Associated Press Images for Princeton University

Princeton University is celebrating the accomplishments of undergraduate and graduate degree candidates during 2024 year-end events starting with the Baccalaureate service Sunday, May 26, and continuing through Tuesday, May 28, which is this year’s Commencement date. Tickets are required to attend most events.

The following is a summary of graduation events for undergraduate and graduate degree candidates. More information for students and their guests is available on the University’s Commencement website , including directions and parking, departmental and residential college receptions, and cultural and affinity group celebrations.

Events also will be live streamed on the Princeton University homepage and MediaCentral website , as well as Facebook and YouTube . Professional photos will be posted to the University’s Commencement website in June and may be downloaded free courtesy of the University.

The Baccalaureate service is 2 p.m. Sunday, May 26, in the University Chapel. Seniors are seated inside the chapel (which is just large enough to accommodate the class). The ceremony is simulcast on large screens on Cannon Green for guest viewing. In case of rain, indoor simulcast locations near the chapel are available and are ticketed. The  Baccalaureate speaker is Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury of the Eastern District of New York, who earned her master’s in public affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) in 2006. Choudhury is the first Muslim woman and first Bangladeshi American to serve as a U.S. federal judge. 

The Class Day ceremony is 10:30 a.m. Monday, May 27, on Cannon Green. Guests must be seated by 10 a.m. when the senior class procession begins. In case of rain, seniors are seated in the University Chapel and guests are seated in simulcast locations near the chapel. The Class Day speaker is Emmy-award winning actor Sam Waterston , who is known for his longtime role on the NBC series “Law & Order.” 

The Hooding ceremony for advanced degree candidates will begin at 4:30 p.m. Monday, May 27, on Cannon Green. The ceremony is for master’s and doctoral students earning their degree during the 2023-24 academic year and their guests. In case of severe weather, the ceremony will take place in Jadwin Gymnasium.

Princeton’s 277th Commencement is 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 28, in Princeton Stadium. The academic procession will begin at 9:40 a.m. The ceremony is for graduating students in the undergraduate Class of 2024 and their guests, as well as graduate students who received a final master’s degree or Ph.D. in the 2023-24 academic year and their guests. Seniors receive their diplomas in their residential colleges following the ceremony. In case of severe weather, Commencement is held in Jadwin Gymnasium.

The ROTC Commissioning ceremony is 3:30 pm. Tuesday, May 28, in the Faculty Room of Nassau Hall. The ceremony is for members of the Class of 2024 commissioning in the Army, Navy or Air Force ROTC, and their guests.

Commencement 2024

Celebrate with #princeton24.

• 2024 Commencement website

Faculty members honored for excellence in mentoring graduate students 

Reunions 2024 Events at Princeton

Princeton graduate students honored for excellence in teaching

Four outstanding N.J. secondary school teachers to be honored at Princeton Commencement

Eight seniors win 2024 Spirit of Princeton Award for service, contributions to campus life 

DeLue and Singer honored with Behrman Award for the humanities

Genrietta Churbanova selected as Princeton valedictorian, John Freeman named salutatorian

Sam Waterston of ‘Law & Order’ will speak at Princeton’s 2024 Class Day

Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury *06 will be Baccalaureate speaker

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Private student loan interest rates continue to fall for 5-year loans

The latest private student loan interest rates from the Credible marketplace, updated weekly. ( iStock )

During the week of May 13, 2024, average private student loan rates increased for borrowers with credit scores of 720 or higher who used the Credible marketplace to take out 10-year fixed-rate loans and decreased for 5-year variable-rate loans.

• 10-year fixed rate: 8.57%, up from 8.14% the week before, +0.43
• 5-year variable rate: 7.47%, down from 8.54% the week before, -1.07

Through Credible, you can compare private student loan rates from multiple lenders.

For 10-year fixed private student loans, interest rates rose by nearly half a percentage point, while 5-year variable student loan interest fell by just over a full percentage point.

Borrowers with good credit may find a lower rate with a private student loan than with some federal loans. For the 2023-24 academic school year, federal student loan rates will range from 5.50% to 8.05%. Private student loan rates for borrowers with good to excellent credit can be lower right now.

Because federal loans come with certain benefits, like access to income-driven repayment plans, you should always exhaust federal student loan options first before turning to private student loans to cover any funding gaps. Private lenders such as banks, credit unions, and online lenders provide private student loans. You can use private loans to pay for education costs and living expenses, which might not be covered by your federal education loans. 

Interest rates and terms on private student loans can vary depending on your financial situation, credit history, and the lender you choose.

Take a look at Credible partner lenders’ rates for borrowers who used the Credible marketplace to select a lender during the week of May 13:

Private student loan rates (graduate and undergraduate)

Who sets federal and private interest rates?

Congress sets federal student loan interest rates each year. These fixed interest rates depend on the type of federal loan you take out, your dependency status and your year in school.

Private student loan interest rates can be fixed or variable and depend on your credit, repayment term and other factors. As a general rule, the better your credit score, the lower your interest rate is likely to be.  

You can compare rates from multiple student loan lenders using Credible.

How does student loan interest work?

An interest rate is a percentage of the loan periodically tacked onto your balance — essentially the cost of borrowing money. Interest is one way lenders can make money from loans. Your monthly payment often pays interest first, with the rest going to the amount you initially borrowed (the principal). 

Getting a low interest rate could help you save money over the life of the loan and pay off your debt faster.

What is a fixed- vs. variable-rate loan?

Here’s the difference between a fixed and variable rate:

• With a fixed rate, your monthly payment amount will stay the same over the course of your loan term.
• With a variable rate, your payments might rise or fall based on changing interest rates.

Comparison shopping for private student loan rates is easy when you use Credible.

Calculate your savings

Using a student loan interest calculator will help you estimate your monthly payments and the total amount you’ll owe over the life of your federal or private student loans.

Once you enter your information, you’ll be able to see what your estimated monthly payment will be, the total you’ll pay in interest over the life of the loan and the total amount you’ll pay back. 

About Credible

Credible is a multi-lender marketplace that empowers consumers to discover financial products that are the best fit for their unique circumstances. Credible’s integrations with leading lenders and credit bureaus allow consumers to quickly compare accurate, personalized loan options – without putting their personal information at risk or affecting their credit score. The Credible marketplace provides an unrivaled customer experience, as reflected by over 4,300 positive Trustpilot reviews and a TrustScore of 4.7/5.

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Climate Change - Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (P.S.M.)

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Bryan Kohberger defense grills detective over newly revealed phone records in Idaho murders case

Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger appeared in a Latah County courtroom as part of his defense team’s efforts to compel prosecutors to reveal more of the evidence they plan to use in his upcoming trial.

The 29-year-old criminology PhD student is awaiting trial for the stabbing deaths of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, who were killed on November 13, 2022, at their off-campus house in Moscow .

Mr Kohberger’s defense team has claimed he was driving around looking at stars at the time of the murders and argue prosecutors have not handed all the evidence over for the defense to review, filing multiple motions to compel since Mr Kohberger’s arrest in late 2022 .

As Mr Kohberger looked on in silence, his public defender Anne Taylor grilled Moscow Police Detective Lawrence Mowery about a series of records related to cell phone data police plan to use in the case.

Ms Taylor said her team had only learned about the records. which captures police work from 2023 analyzing the phone data, this Wednesday.

“Those were things that existed for quite some time, is that correct?” she asked, later adding, “I want to know all the records you relied on, all of the emails, all the conversations you relied on to produce this thing.”

During his testimony, Detective Lawrence Mowery pushed back against the suggestion police were hiding something.

He described how the records merely show he was called upon in the spring of 2023 to analyze phone records using a data visualization program called CASTViz, information that was later presented to a grand jury.

The detective said that even though he didn’t save his work, the analysis could be quickly recreated.

“I didn’t delete anything,” he said, adding, “I can open the software, drag the CDRs [call detail records] back in, and in a very short time it’s generated.”

The hearing also concerned police efforts to look for evidence on Idaho transit cameras and windy.com, a weather site that temporarily displays shots from state transit feeds. The detective said that while police consulted these feeds as potential sources of evidence, they didn’t retain anything of value in the case.

Thursday’s hearing ended without a ruling on the motion to compel, and further proceedings are scheduled for 30 May, which will feature testimony from Leah Larkin and Bicka Barlow, two DNA experts called by the defense.

The wider evidence at issue in the case reportedly includes dashcam footage, video and audio recordings of a white sedan at the crime scene, and lab testing results – information police used to arrest Kohberger seven weeks after the murders.

Kohberger’s attorney said at a hearing earlier this month that the prosecutors are withholding evidence that the defense team should be privy to.

“The state knows full well what they have and what they’re withholding from us,” Ms Taylor said at the hearing. “We don’t know what they’re going to show, but we know they exist.”

The prosecution has argued it’s doing all it can to share evidence but is partially being delayed by federal rules, given the FBI’s involvement in the underlying investigation.

“The characterization that we’re just consciously withholding information to frustrate the defense is utter nonsense,” Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said at a hearing earlier this month.

“They [the FBI] have been good partners, but they have their own rules to work with,” he added.

Kohberger was linked to the murders that rocked the college town of Moscow through DNA evidence, cell phone data, an eyewitness account and his white Hyundai Elantra.

But his team claims their client was out driving in the early morning hours of the night of the murders, and that he was in Pullman, which is about eight miles west of the 1122 King Road home.

“Mr Kohberger was out driving in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022; as he often did to hike and run and/or see the moon and stars,” Ms Taylor, the defense attorney, wrote in the court documents. “He drove throughout the area south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho including Wawawai Park.”

In May 2023, Kohberger declined to enter a plea in the case, prompting the judge to enter his plea as not guilty.

Earlier this year, the Idaho Supreme Court denied a request from Kohberger for his grand jury indictment to be thrown out, citing a biased grand jury, inadmissible evidence and prosecutorial misconduct. But the Judge denied the motion.

Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

A trial date has not yet been set.

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What Do Students at Elite Colleges Really Want?

Many of Harvard’s Generation Z say “sellout” is not an insult.

Credit... Jeff Hinchee

Supported by

By Francesca Mari

• May 22, 2024

The meme was an image of a head with “I need to get rich” slapped across it. “Freshmen after spending 0.02 seconds on campus,” read the caption, posted in 2023 to the anonymous messaging app Sidechat.

The campus in question was Harvard, where, at a wood-paneled dining hall last year, two juniors explained how to assess a fellow undergraduate’s earning potential. It’s easy, they said, as we ate mussels, beets and sautéed chard: You can tell by who’s getting a bulge bracket internship.

“What?” Benny Goldman, a then-28-year-old economics P.h.D. student and their residential tutor, was confused.

One of the students paused, surprised that he was unfamiliar with the term: A bulge bracket bank, like Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan Chase or Citi. The biggest, most prestigious global investment banks. A B.B., her friend explained. Not to be confused with M.B.B. , which stands for three of the most prestigious management consulting firms: McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting Group.

While the main image of elite campuses during this commencement season might be activists in kaffiyehs pitching tents on electric green lawns, most students on campus are focused not on protesting the war in Gaza, but on what will come after graduation.

Despite the popular image of this generation — that of Greta Thunberg and the Parkland activists — as one driven by idealism, GenZ students at these schools appear to be strikingly corporate-minded. Even when they arrive at college wanting something very different, an increasing number of students at elite universities seek the imprimatur of employment by a powerful firm and “making a bag” (slang for a sack of money) as quickly as possible.

Elite universities have always been major feeders into finance and consulting, and students have always wanted to make money. According to the annual American Freshman Survey , the biggest increase in students wanting to become “very well off financially” happened between the 1970s and 1980s, and it’s been creeping up since then.

But in the last five years, faculty and administrators say, the pull of these industries has become supercharged. In an age of astronomical housing costs, high tuition and inequality, students and their parents increasingly see college as a means to a lucrative job, more than a place to explore.

A ‘Herd Mentality’

At Harvard, a graduating senior, who passed on a full scholarship to another school, told me that he felt immense pressure to show his parents that their $400,000 investment in his Harvard education would allow him to get the sort of job where he could make a million dollars a year. Upon graduation, he will join the private equity firm Blackstone, where, he believes, he will learn and achieve more in six years than 30 years in a public-service-oriented organization.

Another student, from Uruguay, who spent his second summer in a row practicing case studies in preparation for management consulting internship interviews, told me that everyone arrived on campus hoping to change the world. But what they learn at Harvard, he said, is that actually doing anything meaningful is too hard. People give up on their dreams, he told me, and decide they might as well make money. Someone else told me it was common at parties to hear their peers say they just want to sell out.

“There’s definitely a herd mentality,” Joshua Parker, a 21-year-old Harvard junior from Oahu, said. “If you’re not doing finance or tech, it can feel like you’re doing something wrong.”

As a freshman, he planned to major in environmental engineering. As a sophomore, he switched to economics, joining five of his six roommates. One of those roommates told me that he hoped to run a hedge fund by the time he was in his 30s. Before that, he wanted to earn a good salary, which he defined as $500,000 a year.

According to a Harvard Crimson survey of Harvard seniors, the share of 2023 graduates going into finance and consulting exceeded 40 percent for the second year in a row. (The official Harvard Institutional Research survey yields lower percentages for those fields than the Crimson survey, because it includes students who aren’t entering the work force.)

These statistics approach the previous highs in 2007, after which the global financial crisis drove the share down to a recent low of 20 percent in 2009, from which it’s been regaining ground since.

Fifteen years ago, fewer students went into tech. Adding in that sector, the share of graduates starting what some students non-disparagingly refer to as “sellout jobs” was a record-shattering 60 percent in 2022 and nearly 54 percent in 2023. (That decrease reflected an industrywide contraction in tech hiring.)

“When people say ‘selling out,’ I mean, obviously, there’s some implicit judgment there,” said Aden Barton, a 23-year-old Harvard senior who wrote an opinion column for the student newspaper headlined, “How Harvard Careerism Killed the Classroom.”

“But it really is just almost a descriptive term at this point for people pursuing certain career paths,” he continued. “I’m not trying to denigrate anybody’s career path nor my own.” (He interned at a hedge fund last summer.)

David Halek, director of employer relations at Yale’s Office of Career Strategy, thinks students may use the term “sell out” because of the perceived certainty: “It’s the easy path to follow. It is well defined,” he said.

“It’s hard to conceptualize other things,” said Andy Wang, a social studies concentrator at Harvard who recently graduated.

Some students talk about turning to a different career later on, after they’ve made enough money. “Nowadays, English concentrators often say they’re going into finance or management consulting for a couple of years before writing their novel,” said James Wood, a Harvard professor of the practice of literary criticism.

And a surprising number of students explain their desire for a corporate job by drawing on the ethos of effective altruism : Whether they are conscious of the movement or not, they believe they can have greater impact by maximizing earnings to donate to a cause than working for that cause.

But once students board the prestige escalator and become accustomed to a certain salary, walking away can feel funny. Like, well, walking off an escalator.

Financial Pressures

The change is striking to those who have been in academia for years, and not just at Harvard.

Roger Woolsey, executive director of the career center at Union College, a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, N.Y, said he first noticed a change around 2015, with students who had been in high school during the Great Recession and who therefore prioritized financial security.

“The students saw what their parents went through, and the parents saw what happened to themselves,” he said. “You couple that with college tuition continuing to rise,” he continued, and students started looking for monetary payoffs right after graduation.

Sara Lazenby, an institutional policy analyst for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that might be why students and their parents were much more focused on professional outcomes than they used to be. “In the past few years,” she said, “I’ve seen a higher level of interest in this first-destination data” — stats on what jobs graduates are getting out of college.

“Twenty years ago, an ‘introduction to investment banking’ event was held at the undergraduate library at Harvard,” said Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Forty students showed up, all men, and when asked to define ‘investment banking,’ none raised their hands.”

Now, according to Goldman Sachs, the bank had six times as many applicants this year for summer internships as it did 10 years ago, and was 20 percent more selective for this summer’s class than it was last year. JPMorgan also saw a record number of undergraduate applications for internships and full-time positions this year.

The director of the Mignone Center for Career Success at Harvard, Manny Contomanolis, also chalked up the change, in part, to financial pressure. “Harvard is more diverse than ever before,” Mr. Contomanolis said, with nearly one in five students eligible for a low-income Pell Grant . Those students, he said, weigh whether to, for instance, “take a job back in my border town community in Texas and make a big impact in a kind of public service sense” or get a job with “a salary that would be life changing for my family.”

However, according to The Harvard Crimson’s senior survey, as Mr. Barton noted in his opinion column, “The aggregate rate of ‘selling out’ is about the same — around 60 percent — for all income brackets.” The main distinction is that students from low-income families are comparatively more likely to go into technology than finance.

In other words, there is something additional at play, which Mr. Barton argues has to do with the nature of prestige. “If you tell me you’re working at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, that’s amazing , their eyes are going to light up,” Mr. Barton said. “If you tell somebody, ‘Oh, I took this random nonprofit job,’ or even a journalism job, even if you’re going to a huge name, it’s going to be a little bit of a question mark.”

Maibritt Henkel, a 21-year-old junior at Harvard, is an economics major with moral reservations about banking and consulting. Ms. Henkel sometimes worries that others might misread her decision not to go into those industries as evidence that she couldn’t hack it.

“Even if you don’t want to do it for the rest of your life, it’s seen kind of as the golden standard of a smart, hardworking person,” she said.

Some students have also become skeptical about traditional avenues of social change, like government and nonprofits, which have attracted fewer Harvard students since the pandemic, according to the Harvard Office of Institutional Research.

Matine Khalighi, 22, founded a nonprofit to award scholarships to homeless youth when he was in eighth grade. When he began studying economics at Harvard, his nonprofit, EEqual, was granting 50 scholarships a year. But some of the corporations that funded EEqual were contributing to inequality that created homelessness, he said. Philanthropy wasn’t the solution for systemic change, he decided. Instead, he turned to finance, with the idea that the sector could marshal capital quickly for social impact.

Employers encourage this way of thinking. “We often talk about the fact that we work with some of the biggest emitters on the planet because we believe that’s how we actually affect climate change,” said Blair Ciesil, the global leader of talent attraction at McKinsey.

The Recruitment Ratchet

Princeton’s senior survey results are nearly identical to The Crimson’s Senior Survey: about 38 percent of 2023 graduates who were employed took jobs in finance and consulting; adding tech and engineering, the rate is close to 60 percent, compared with 53 percent in 2016, the earliest year for which the data is available.

This isn’t solely an Ivy League phenomenon. Schools slice their data differently, but at many colleges, a large percentage of students pursue these fields. At Amherst , in 2022, 32 percent of employed undergrads went into finance and consulting, and 11 percent went into internet and software, for a total of about 43 percent. Between 2017 and 2019, the University of California, Los Angeles, sent about 21 percent of employed students into engineering and computer science, 9 percent into consulting and nearly 10 percent into finance, for a total of roughly 40 percent

Part of that has to do with recruitment; the most prestigious banks and consulting firms do so only at certain colleges, and they have intensified their presence on those campuses in recent years. Over the last five years or so, “the idea of thinking about your professional path has moved much earlier in the undergraduate experience,” Ms. Ciesil said. She said the banks first began talking to students earlier, and it was the entrance of Big Tech onto the scene, asking for junior summer applications by the end of sophomore year, that accelerated recruitment timelines.

“At first, we tried to fight back by saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no, sophomores aren’t ready, and what does a sophomore know about financial modeling?’” said Mr. Woolsey at Union College. But, he added, schools “don’t want to push back too much, because then you’re going to lose revenue,” since firms often pay to recruit on campus.

The Effective Altruist Influence

The marker that really distinguishes Gen Z is how pessimistic its members are, and how much they feel like life is beyond their control, according to Jean Twenge, a psychologist who analyzed data from national surveys of high school students and first-year college students in her book “Generations.”

Money, of course, helps give people a sense of control. And because of income inequality, “there’s this idea that you either make it or you don’t, so you better make it,” Ms. Twenge said.

Mihir Desai, a professor at Harvard’s business and law schools, wrote a 2017 essay in The Crimson titled “ The Trouble With Optionality ,” arguing that students who habitually pursue the security of prestigious employment foreclose the risk-taking and longer-range thinking necessary for more unusual or idealistic achievements. Mr. Desai believes that’s often because they are responding to the bigger picture, like threats to workers from artificial intelligence, and political and financial upheaval.

In recent years, he’s observed two trends among students pursuing wealth. There’s “the option-buyer,” the student who takes a job in finance or consulting to buy more time or to keep options open. Then there’s what he calls “the lottery ticket buyer,” the students who go all-in on a risky venture, like a start-up or new technology, hoping to make a windfall.

“They know people who bought Bitcoin at $2,000. They know people who bought Tesla at $20,” he said.

Some faculty see the influence of effective altruism among this generation: In the last five years, Roosevelt Montás, a senior lecturer at Columbia University and the former director of its Center for the Core Curriculum, has noticed a new trend when he asks students in his American Political Thought classes to consider their future.

“Almost every discussion, someone will come in and say, ‘Well, I can go and make a lot of money and do more good with that money than I could by doing some kind of charitable or service profession,’” Mr. Montás said. “It’s there constantly — a way of justifying a career that is organized around making money.”

Mr. Desai said all of this logic goes, “‘Make the bag so you can do good in the world, make the bag so you can go into retirement, make the bag so you can then go do what you really want to do.’”

But this “really underestimates how important work is to people’s lives,” he said. “What it gets wrong is, you spend 15 years at the hedge fund, you’re going to be a different person. You don’t just go work and make a lot of money, you go work and you become a different person.”

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