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How to deal with an inappropriate greeting in an email?
I'm relatively new to teaching (I was just hired as a tenure-track English professor at a local community college and have been teaching for just about 2 years). I recently received an email from a male student (he is in his mid-50's), and he addressed me as follows:

A great morning to you my dear lass,

Now, the email was complimentary. He thanked me for teaching a great course and said that he learned a lot in my class (all of these things are nice to hear). He has, at times, been difficult to teach (he questions academic conventions regarding basic essay structure, such as not beginning or ending a body paragraph with a quote), but he eventually concedes and makes the necessary adjustments (I am teaching a developmental writing course).
Usually.
I was just a little surprised by his choice of greeting. I am not overly familiar with my students, and I am not young (I am a divorced, 40-year-old woman). I like this student, and I am unsure of how to address this (or if I even should...) situation without causing offense. I feel certain he didn't mean to sound condescending and sexist, but... I also feel certain that if I was a 40-year-old male professor he would not have began his email with "A great morning to you my dear lad."
I would really appreciate any advice concerning how to address this issue. Additionally, I am teaching a combo course, and we just completed the first half, so he will continue to be my student for another 8 weeks.

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I added the tag united-states, because (i) there are no community colleges in the United Kingdom, (ii) in comments (some now moved to chat) the OP has clarified that the student is American and (iii) many many people seem to want to lecture this English professor on what "lass" means to certain British people.

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This question has gotten, IMO, way too much attention. It's the equivalent of the Stackoverflow questions which are pretty simple and every second person on the site seems to want to give a similar answer - and it all gets massively upvoted. No offense to OP of course.

Personally, I would address it in a friendly way, but one that makes it clear that you think it's a bit of an odd form of greeting. It doesn't sound like it was intended in an unfriendly or disrespectful way (and I definitely wouldn't characterise it as sexist), but it does sound inappropriately overfamiliar (it would be a bit like one of my students starting an email to me with "Dude! ...").
The easiest way to deal with it, to my mind, is just to send a fairly normal-sounding (but obviously more formal) email back, and mention it in passing in a friendly way at the end. For example:

Dear <name>,
Many thanks for your email - really glad to hear that you've been
  learning a lot from the course. It's been good to see the improvements
  in your essay structure since the start of the course - I'm hoping
  that you'll be able to solidify those improvements over the next 8
  weeks.
Kind regards,
<name>
p.s. Just a friendly piece of advice - whilst I'm not generally too
  fussy about people addressing me formally, I think I should probably
  steer you away from things like "my dear lass", not least because some
  people if addressed that way might take it the wrong way and get
  offended. I'm fine with people calling me by my first name (if the OP
  actually is), but I think that's stretching things too far.

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I would simply reply:

Dear Student, thank you for your email -- I really appreciated it -- but in the future please avoid addressing professors in an unprofessional way, like "lass" or "lad".

I deleted my answer because I didn't notice the student is 50 years old. I believe this answer is more polite.

If the student's from a culture where "lass" is a more common expression, it may be appropriate to qualify the term as inappropriate within the context of the current culture.

I'd add to the answer: "(...) and please don't refer to professors/teachers as 'my' and also not as 'my dear'."

Straight to the source and the point is best, I agree. Literally just the other day a colleague called me "sweetheart" and I told her right away I'd rather be called something else in the future. She apologized and admitted right away it was a poor choice of words. At least the first time it's easiest for everyone to just call it out and see how they take it. If it never happens again, then problem solved without any annoying paperwork.

@Nat Agreed. Another example that some people might find odd: in some places in Britain it's perfectly normal to hear people calling other people "my lover" - even people they don't know. Anyone who knows the culture is completely fine with it and knows it's a term of endearment, but there are also a lot of people who misinterpret it and claim it's 'sexist' (despite being used by both males and females) or offensive in some other way.

@GottfriedHelms, so you can't say "my teacher"? That seems a bit of an odd and misleading comment. People refer to others as "my" all the time, it certainly doesn't infer you think you own them...

@EdmundReed I think that Gottfried is suggesting to avoid the usage of my when speaking or writing to the professor, not to a third party. You can certainly say "my teacher" when speaking with friends, but avoid saying that when speaking to the teacher.

@Nat Are there any cultures in which "lass" is a common way to address a professor, though? It may be equivalent to "girl" in some contexts, but it shouldn't be hard to an adult to wrap his head around the fact that he shouldn't address his professor as "my dear girl."

I would reword this a little bit: "In the future I would prefer that you use a more professional salutation". It sounds less accusatory, and also doesn't sound like you're telling him how to address people other than you (with whom he may have a different relationship).

I think this is a good neutral response - I'd probably leave the closing with a positive, like your suggested "I really appreciated it" or "I've enjoyed teaching you" etc. so that the reader isn't left dwelling on the correction / negative aspect of your reply.

It's not unprofessional - it's just not formal.  Getting upset about it is like getting upset when someone from an Asian country addresses you by your surname. It's not wrong, it's just different.  You can perceive it as unprofessional or rude if you're that sort of person, but it's really just one person being unfamiliar with another culture's customs.  I wouldn't let it ruin your day.

@DrEval This seems like a distinction without much of a difference--that level of informality is rude and unprofessional in this context, which is how pretty much all social norms work. If it's polite to chew with your mouth open in my home country, it could still be rude in your home country, and it would be good of you to correct me, especially if you're my table-manners teacher.

I am sorry to add an answer to an already cluttered question, but I am worried that many of the answers are delivered by people that are outsiders to American academic culture and seem to have missed that the question concerns this.
American academic culture, while overtly low key in many ways, is most often very sensitive to people being addressed appropriately.  It is also by now highly sensitized to the phenomenon of students not dealing with female faculty in parallel or equally respectful ways to male faculty.  This is not the place to debate whether this is right or wrong (though I will reveal that I think it's right), but if you are not or have never been a graduate student or faculty member at an American institution, I think it is very likely that you do not properly appreciate how big a social error it is to treat female faculty in non-parallel ways and especially ways which could be construed as (i) overly familiar, (ii) belittling or (iii) sexual/romantic.
If you look at the dictionary definitions of "lass" (supplied in another answer), both of them are problematic by the above standards.  Emphasizing the age or marital status of a female faculty member is overly familiar and/or belittling.  Describing a female faculty member as a potential sweetheart would be seriously problematic: at many universities, this is in the ballpark of sexual harassment.
There is a good chance that the student chose the wrong words and does not mean anything ill, and I would also counsel the OP not to assume the worst.  (Or rather, I would if I thought it necessary: as her comments make clear, it isn't.)  However, let me be firm that the student has made a mistake that does require some correction, in part for the student's own good: similar behavior could be offensive to other faculty members, and more so to some, than it was to the OP.
I also feel the need to point out that some of the other answers are themselves not so respectful to the OP.  More than one answer suggested that the OP book up on the denotations and connotations of "lass."  But she is an English professor!  Other answers suggest that she learn more about and/or be more understanding to the student's different cultural norms.  But the student is an American man in his fifties and the OP is a 40-year-old woman teaching at an American university: I am pretty confident that she has met American men in their fifties, both in various English departments and in her real life.  Why she has less expertise on this front than the posters here is far from clear to me. The word mansplaining comes to mind.
Bottom line: the student is not behaving properly, and the OP should certainly correct in some way.  Doing so in a way that is understanding of the fact that the student is a probably-not-evil human being is, of course, wise, but she certainly doesn't need to take any lessons in male culture.
I myself would recommend responding promptly and crisply: just tell the student how faculty at American institutions like to be addressed: as Dr. X or Professor X. It could be two lines in your email reply.  If there are any further issues, you can take them as they come, but in my experience students are generally very receptive to being educated about academic culture by faculty: they know very well how little they know, and (as usual?) faculty tend to assume that students know much more than they do.
Added Later: A lot of the discussion here seems to concern whether the student has essentially good intentions.  So here is a remark that I sincerely (if naively?) hope will be helpful, possibly critical.  Whether the student has (in some sense, any sense or all senses) good intentions is not relevant -- not relevant either way, I mean.
In my professional opinion as a tenured American academic with my fair share of administrative/supervisory experience and responsibilities: the OP's original characterization of the email as containing a "sexist greeting" is factually correct.  By that I mean that the student used language that the culture of her institution would, if consulted, formally deem inappropriately disrespectful towards women.  But here's a crucial clarification: in "sexist greeting," sexist is not a noun -- it's an adjective modifying greeting.
To take a step back for context, let me phrase it this way: the problem is not that the student is a jerk.  In fact, this is doubly not the problem.  On the one hand, the student could very well not be a jerk and still say or do inappropriate (by the standard of American university culture) things.  Some words and actions are inappropriate even if the person saying them has the best of intentions.  In my personal opinion, most of the time that students say or do inappropriate things, they do them out of ignorance or some other reason than ill intent of any kind.  On the other hand: from the university's perspective, a student who is a jerk is still entitled to full service, so long as he refrains from inappropriate words and actions.  I have taught (just) a few students who really are jerks -- dishonest, bigoted, or otherwise distressingly wrong-thinking.  That makes things hard for me, because I have to teach them anyway, and indeed I have to be very careful not to allow my personal perceptions of their jerkiness influence my treatment of them in the course.  If I witness a student making a sexist greeting and ding him for it in his course grade, he can appeal the grade, and neither "He is a sexist!" or "He wrote a sexist greeting!" will hold up as a defense.
So if (as I hope she does) the OP makes the student aware of the inappropriateness of his choice of words, she is not accusing him of being a sexist (of course there is no need for her to use the word "sexist" in any form when discussing this with the student; no one here has contemplated doing so, including her); rather she is identifying inappropriate behavior and informing him about appropriate behavior.  (As I said in my answer above: I think that doing the latter is sufficient, as it implicitly accomplishes the former.)  Is this one sexist greeting part of a larger pattern of inappropriate behavior, possibly one that could constitute harassment of the OP?  Of course, I don't know, but given that the student and the instructor have already completed a whole course and seem to be largely satisfied with each other, I see no cause for alarm about that.  And certainly the OP need not worry or hesitate about the appropriateness of responding to the student as suggested above: as a few people have already pointed out, she is literally getting paid to teach this student how to develop his writing.  There is no way she can get in trouble for this.

A note about cultures: in writing my answer I actually tried to take into account the American culture (for what I know it -- after all, I spent just a few months in the US at various times), because if I were to answer from the point of view of my culture, the reply would have been much, much more sharp and impolite toward the student. When I was a student, writing in that way to a professor would have caused a long series of fail at the exam.

@Massimo: Your answer is the only answer I've upvoted.  The one thing I would say about it is: rather than telling the student what not to do, I would suggest telling them what to do instead.  To an American ear that more "positive" answer is more polite...and also the student really might not know what they're supposed to do.   But your answer is brief, direct and professional: all good things.

+1 to this and to @PeteL.Clark. "Do this instead" is more polite, and more helpful to the student if he's actually confused about how to address his professors.

'But the student is an American man' Could watch a lot of British television, and otherwise enamoured with British culture, where these kinds of friendly greetings are more common.

+1 for clearly distinguishing between intention and action, their interplay and their distinct contribution in assessing a situation. And for a great answer as a whole.

@Cruncher I don't know what your experience is of British culture, but speaking as someone British, I think your scenario is unlikely. Unless by "common" you mean "common in the make believe version of Britain as depicted by characters in the show Frasier"

Oh, and +1 to Pete and to @paulgarrett

@YemonChoi, somehow my little comment about "mansplaining" is gone now. I don't think I removed it. Oh, well, ...

Why drag in such a contentious term as "mansplaining"? And have it be the sole emphasized word in your entire answer no less? Frankly that entire paragraph makes no effort to answer the question or support your own answer but is a criticism of other answers which should probably be reserved for comments on those answers.

@paulgarrett - That comment got a few "offensive" flags. Why it did, given that the term was used in the actual post, I can't explain, but when something get >1 flag thats typically a sign that it should go.

@eykanal, Hm. Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Oh dear, this has hit the SE super collider.  Since you're actually qualified to say if my spelling and grammar suck, my apologies in advance if any of this is written terribly.
In general, discrimination is in intent not in specific words.  Since I live in the north part of England, I'm used to hearing strangers being addressed as "love", "hun" and occasionally "dear".  The intent here isn't to condescend or be sexist, it's usually to open a conversation in a friendly way when you're about to ask them to do something and don't want to seem rude.  Example:

Excuse me love, could you move over a little, I can't quite get past.

In this particular case, let's run through the potential ways to greet you:

Good morning teacher - No good, sounds like it's a form letter
Good morning [first name] - Inappropriate for addressing a person of authority
Good morning Ms [last name] - Better, but impersonal. Could be followed by "You're awesome" or "I hate you".
Good morning ma'am - What is this the military?

Ok, but seriously, "A great morning to you my dear lass," is certainly overly familiar, but I think it's more intended to convey "get ready, I'm about to say awesome things about you, are you sitting down and suitably braced for how awesome I think you are".  I'd personally say that "A great morning to you Ms " would have been the better way approach.
If this person were British rather than American I'd interpret "my dear" as "you're a person I think highly of and are important to me", and "lass" as "woman who I want to imply seems younger than her age might actually be".  I'll be fair and say that it's harder to give a similar compliment to man, since the nearest version of lass to refer to a guy would be "strapping young man"... that's a harder one to pull off.  Considering in particular that he's of the older generation, I'd tend toward this being a sincere expression of thankfulness.
So how to handle it. Tactfully, very very tactfully.  Don't suggest he's being sexist or condescending, that will likely not go well.  Focus on the need for professionalism, that's something that can be held as a reason for the change without negative implications.  Maybe something like...

Thank you for feedback, it's always good to hear students praise my teaching and let me know that the course helped them. [More specific responses to any points that need addressing in the original email].
While I'm flattered to be considered youthful, it is important for us as teachers hold a professional and impartial image with our students.  Not managing to do this results in grading and feedback being seen with an unfair bias.  It would really help if you could refer to me as  even in correspondence.  Apologies if that comes across as cold, I don't mean it to be rude.

If it turns out to be a one time thing then that would seem sufficiently handled to me.
It is, to be honest, a sad thing that modern culture makes it considerably harder to honestly flatter someone without it being interpreted as sexist or an inappropriate advance.  It's even more sad that enough people do make sexist and overly forward remarks such that we default to that being the intention we infer from them.
There should really be a version of Hanlon's Razor that reads "Don't attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by social ineptitude." Well at least not until you've checked if it was meant to be insulting.

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"discrimination is in intent not in specific words" regardless of whether or not that's true, I don't believe the crux of the question is about discrimination. Discrimination would be something that the administration of the school might do. This question is more about appropriate behavior in an academic context. The asker is bothered and even offended by the language of the student, and that response must be respected no matter what the student's intent was.

@ToddWilcox the framing of the question was changed after I started the reply, check the revision history.  The general idea I was trying to convey is that in such matters it's best not to jump straight to the worst interpretation.

What's wrong with an impersonal (actually formal) salutation in an email to someone you don't have a personal relationship with?

@MissMonicaE nothing really.  It just feels like it reduces the authenticity of the a complimentary message if it's starting with a very stiff opening.  The name isn't the best way to do it though.

@Kaithar Hm, I think it's a mistake to conflate authenticity with informality. I can really admire and like someone while still keeping a respectful emotional "distance." And in many situations, that's more natural and authentic--being informal and palsy is artificial unless that kind of relationship has actually developed already, which it sounds like it hasn't here.

A very good last paragraph +1

Good morning ma'am sounds just great.

I wonder where you gathered that OP attributes the greeting to malice.

@MissMonicaE perhaps, there are certainly people who can be both genuinely complimentary and formal, but if you're not that kind of person it's hard not to sound slightly cold while maintaining a high level of formality. People have general communication mode as well as person-person specific communication modes, some people really are genuinely friendly and "palsy" to everyone.

@CapeCode as mentioned many times, the question was originally framed specifically as the greeting being sexist.  It might be possible to actively bias against a group of people without wanting to disadvantage or harm them, I'm not going to make that argument though.  Even, the intent of the Hanlon's Razor is that we more often do things by accident than we do by intent.

This is the correct answer, all of the above seem to be overly zealous and down-putting feminist responses to what is an excitable but well intentioned greeting.

To try and forestall the inevitable: I fully support the type of feminism that says women and men should be treated equally, I'll assume @Vix isn't suggesting otherwise.  In writing my response I was aiming for advice that would work regardless of the gender and orientation of the teacher and student, not sure if that came across properly :/

Apologies, I had meant in the above 'answers', including the accepted one - not your response. Guys will continue to refer to girls as 'lass', 'dear', 'love', 'duck', 'petal' until the end of the time, and there's no problem in that, girls are welcome to come up with their own equivalents. There is no issue here besides student/teacher relationships.

A 14 year old's classmates formed little groups for making teachers day cards for an affable female teacher. Many of them wrote "we love you" in their handmade cards. This guy didn't get group mates to help him make cards, so he made his own card and in all his innocence, wrote the same sentence as "I love you". He didn't mean it the way lovers do. He was just rephrasing the sentence in singular. He respected his teacher as a teacher. It was only much later he realized what he wrote.
Since we don't know the person who sent you that email, and what culture he comes from, the best I can judge and say from what you wrote, is to not reply to the email yet. Odd emails or letters are usually not honoured with a reply. Also, emails are very poor communicators of emotion, so it can sour relationships unnecessarily if interpreted wrongly.
Instead, the next time you meet the person, be pleasant, thank him for the compliment and casually ask (not in front of the other students) about his use of the word "lass", also gently mentioning your opinion on the use of the word and the decorum that you or your institution expects between teacher and student.
You also need to be informed about the word itself, so there are these and perhaps more if you search:
1. Lass on Dictionary.com
2. Lass as a word choice in ELL.
EDIT: I'm saddened by comments and downvotes targeting the fact that I gave a dictionary reference to an English professor. As responsible professionals (any profession), we always make it a point to refer the sources of information and keep these sources handy, instead of keeping our ego ahead of us. All I did was give the professor references which might help her understand other points of view compared to the original definition. It was in no way underestimating her capability or knowledge.

I like the advice to not reply by email. I have had a personal experience of an email conversation gone wrong which destroyed the relation to the person. I do not fully understand what happened to this day. Sound advice.

But it is important to talk to them.

-1 since you are telling an ENGLISH professor to look up a word in a dictionary (I think it's safe to say she knows how those work) and telling her to take a disrespectful greeting as a compliment, since the student might have meant well.

@NajibIdrissi "Now, the email was complimentary. He thanked me for teaching a great course and said that he learned a lot in my class"

Contrary to the other answers, I do not think that an explicit sentence like «It's not appropriate to refer to you teacher as lass(...)» is a good first step.
I would recommend a more gradual course of action.
First, reply to his mail in a more formal way, but without stating that what he's done is something wrong. For example, in the greetings, and ending of the letter, if you're formal, it's usually enough. Let's see if he can take the hint. Remember that because he's 50, and depending on his background, and also on the previous rapport between you two, the world may seem very different to him. If this more subtle approach doesn't work after a couple of mails, then I would be more explicit, and firm, but always respectful.
My main advice is, never go in like bulldozer. You need tact, and sensibility.

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Don't wait for a "couple of mails". When I have this issue I hint it in the first reply. If they stick with their informal ways I point it out in the second reply - friendly but clearly.

He sounds like a great and rewarding student teach. Probably he intended to say "Now that the course is over we can be friends" by that greeting. By being too familiar he is probably trying to break previous student-teacher wall and referring to you as a younger lady is probably just meant as a compliment.
Knowing that you taught him writing and you had disputes, this greeting might also be a reference to some dispute or a parody of something that was discussed in the course. Some people like dropping such references in a semifunny way and maybe you just didn't get it?
Now how should you respond? If you find him creepy after such a letter, respond "Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate your kind words." or something like that.
But, if you still like the student, you are still divorced and he is just a bit older than you, I'd say go for it :) I suggest you start your response with "Well thank you kind sir!"

Haha!! I think he is new to college and comes from a slightly different era. The more I think on it, the more I think he really didn't mean anything by his greeting (although it was inappropriate). I'm still learning the ropes, and I've been lucky in that I've really never had to deal with overtly inappropriate student behavior just yet, so when this happened, I was a little stumped about how to  handle it, if it all! I didn't want to ask my colleagues (for obvious reasons), so I thought this site would be a good way to get answers discreetly.

By the way I see no sexism here, just being too familiar and agressively disrespecting the student-teacher distance. If you were a guy, he might start with "yo old dog" or something similarly retarded. At least I would.

Yeah, I think you are right. I would have preferred something like, "What up, gurl? Yo, your class dropped mad knowledge bombs on my BRAIN."

@Kflo just because he didn't mean to imply anything doesn't mean the remark cannot be sexist. If people were less sensitive about that issue it would be possible to actually have a discussion with him as to why it's hard for women not to see a pattern when being addressed casually by subordinates/students while men in the same position rarely are.

The greeting looks inappropriate to me, but I'm not sure that pointing it out to the student is a good course of action. I often see weird email behavior from students, and I'm not sure it's my job to correct them, unless I really cannot tolerate it. Maybe the student lost a bet. Maybe he is inebriated. Maybe he thinks he is funny. I would probably simply answer with a formal "Dear X, thanks for your kind words, I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed my course, Best regards, Y", i.e., ignoring the weird greeting, and move on. If you are offended and would rather not reply in this way, one other valid option is to simply don't reply, and disregard the email.
Yes, inappropriate greetings may pose problems to the student at some later point in his life, but I don't think it's a teacher's job to educate students on proper manners, or anything not related to the class material (unless the student is really disruptive towards their fellow students or yourself).
By the way, one important question that I haven't seen addressed is whether the student is a native speaker of English. If he is not, then maybe that's a very valid reason to simply disregard inaccurate word usage. (Note: I am not a native speaker myself, so maybe I'm not appreciating correctly how inappropriate the greeting is.)

He's a native speaker of about 55 years of age, but I'm not going to address the greeting with the student. I came here looking for advice, and I have received the help I was looking for. I do not think he meant any harm. However, never in a million years would I have dreamed of addressing any of my professors at Berkeley, male or female, as he addressed me unless we had developed an informal relationship. But, sometimes, for the sake of our peace and sanity, we must let things go. I do not believe he meant any harm, so I will proceed as though nothing untoward happened.

@Kflo: When writing "I often see weird email behavior from students", what I was trying to say is precisely that I often see behavior that I would never imagined doing as a student myself. I see this as Postel's law applied to real life: "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept."

@a3nm: exactly that. I won't give examples because that would count as chatting, but in the end decided that these matters do not deserve brain time. Just cleave to Dear/Best wishes in one's own emails and hope they learn by osmosis.

To contribute a personal example to what has been said already: I grew up in what could be called (somewhat impolitely) a very "backwater" area isolated from the decor and culture of professional etiquette within the context of a society that is not almost uniformly deeply conservative and (United States-style) Southern. Additionally, I have Asperger's Syndrome, which makes things hard when I have to adapt to new mannerisms and different (unspoken) local traditions.
Thus, when I moved north over a decade ago, I had a habit of calling persons of a gender not my own "hun" and "sweetie," in, I think, the same sense that some men from England use the term of "endearment," "love." Additionally, whenever I wished to tell someone I had a good professional relationship with "no" to something, especially if I knew them a long time, I had the bad habit of saying things akin to "doc, you know I love you to death, but I just can't see tryin' this acupuncture business ..."
Of course, my primary care practitioner (who I've known for years and who is aware of my background and Aspergers) is neither a family member, romantic partner, nor friend beyond the capacity of someone known in a professional context. She eventually had to break it to me directly that she "knew where I came from and how tough I can have it understanding these kinds of things, but we really have to keep our language professional here, because some people may not understand and misinterpret what you mean when you say things like that."
Your situation would of course be different depending on whether or not the person has social troubles, is "stuck in old ways" (not meant to demean those who are elderly), may perhaps be wishing to pursue a relationship beyond a professional one (whether aware of it or not), and so forth, but the kind but terse response above, for me in a similar context, set me straight without causing any confusion or offense in the least.

Thank you, Thomas! I really appreciate your insights. It's wonderful to receive different viewpoints regarding my question. Although my student does not have any social troubles, I do get the impression that he is used to being the boss (he was, after all, a lieutenant fireman), as he sometimes has difficulty taking any kind of direction from me--especially regarding academic writing conventions. I guess I was afraid that his email greeting was another way to subtly undermine my authority as a professional composition expert--whether or not he realized he was doing so. I wanted to gain some...

insights before I made a decision concerning how to proceed. After reading everyone's advice, I think he meant well, and I am not going to mention it to him. I am his teacher for another 8 weeks, and I will try to continue to assist him in improving his writing. Perhaps by modeling appropriate email etiquette, I can send the right message without coming right out and saying anything.

Can you make it a teachable moment, since he does seem receptive to your teaching? Think about how you might graciously and constructively correct him if he wrote something like this in a paper for your course. Is there any social situation when that casual salutation from a 50+ man to a 40+ woman would be OK? A bar on St Patrick's Day? Someone who can write that salutation has promise as a writer. You don't want to squash that. Perhaps discuss the difference context makes -   in an informal conversation (not return email). I don't think this is a big deal, but it's something you want to teach him not to do in the future, when it might be for him.

"Someone who can write that salutation has promise as a writer" Ehhh, I don't think it shows that much creativity.

@MissMonicaE Maybe not. But the decision to use it might.

How so? It just looks awkward and out of touch to me.

Hard to carry on a back and forth discussion in comments  about style. Which of us correctly identifies whether the salutation shows some spark or is just out of touch depends on information about the writer and reader we don't have. The OP has that information, so can decide whether my suggestion is or is not a good way to follow up.

Okay, it makes more sense to me in that light

The more you engage with this student, the more encouraged he will be to engage with you -- so if you feel that the student is not respecting boundaries, your email response should be succinct and neutral in tone.  The student is looking for attention.  You can guide the student's behavior by selectively not rewarding it.

I also feel certain that if I was a 40 year old male professor he would not have began his email with, "A great morning to you my dear lad."

Optionally, I suppose you could ask his other instructors whether they have received any emails that pushed the student-professor boundary.  From your description, it sounds plausible that he very well might have used this very salutation with a 40yo male instructor.

I agree with the advice given in your first paragraph: a succinct, neutral response is best.  I don't agree with your last paragraph: meaning, I don't agree that the OP should ask the other instructors, as the appropriateness of the action does not depend on it (see the addendum to my answer).  And by the way: I am a 40yo male instructor, and if an older student wrote "A great morning to you my dear lad" to me, he would get a succinct, neutral reply suggesting appropriate modes of address.

@PeteL.Clark - I'm not sure I understood the part that began with "the appropriateness of the action."  // My last sentence isn't intended as a recommendation of what should be done.  I meant that if one is curious what his emails to male instructors look like, one could compare notes with his other instructors.  Maybe I should rewrite the last paragraph?

To me, the last paragraph read as a bit of a recommendation to do that.  As I would go so far as to recommend that the OP not do this, in my opinion a rewrite of the last paragraph could [!] be helpful.

@PeteL.Clark - I tried to make it more clearly optional.  If it's still not clear, I invite you to take a stab at it.

From http://www.dictionary.com/browse/lass

noun
  1.
  a girl or young woman, especially one who is unmarried.
  2.
  a female sweetheart:
  a young lad and his lass.

Although definition number two may be going over some lines, definition number one isn't too "out of line".  He's calling you young.  From his perspective, you are.
From his perspective, he grew up in an era where society taught Robert Frost's "A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age."  His culture does not consider calling a woman "young" to be belittling, rather that is just considered being polite.
Personally, I very much appreciate the comment just for the usage of a word which has become rather rare.  Kudos to him.
Now, if you found this to be too personal for your comfort, I would just tell him.  You can say

The greeting, specifically the word "lass", just didn't sit well with me.

If he recognizes current societal trends at all, he should take that as a cue to plan to back off a bit, being a bit more careful about word choice.  (Whether he takes that cue or not might be a different story, but you can know that you've done what you ought to communicate this to him, without being overly harsh.  You simply stated reality, and if there is any discomfort from such a statement, that discomfort of the statement derives directly from the discomfort of the reality, so that's fine.)
If you like, you can take it a step further: Since you are in a position of authority, you could even ask him to refer to you as "Prof. " (followed by your last name), or whatever other acceptable title you deem more right (Dr., Rev., Ms.), or his choice from whatever you list as acceptable.  That can be a direct private instruction to just him, and you're fully entitled to treat the rest of the class different (as you deem comfortable).

It's rarity depends upon location. In certain parts of Britain it's alive and kicking, though used more by older generations.

@Pharap Would it be normal to address a professor that way in such parts?

Also, can we assume that English teachers are familiar with the dictionary, please?

@MissMonicaE: Apparently we can't

@MissMonicaE : I, for one, do. I also assume that when people are using the world wide web, hyperlinks can save time and be appreciated.  For instance, it looks like Pete L Clark's answer refers to mine (or maybe Nav's). Also, Stack Exchange discourages link-only answers, & prefers to have content placed in the answer (as indicated by the last paragraph of Nav's answer.  Of all my instructors, English instructors have been the most prone to wanting material clearly cited.  Is there a problem?

Donning asbestos longjohns...
There was another answer, mentioned on a question by an OP who was wondering about how to respond to a student who dressed provocatively (once a bikini), and one person answering said he had taught where there were very young women whose dress was a revealing version of "stylish" rather than appropriately professional. He talked with them and they changed their work attire, but "the damage had already been done." One veteran with PTSD leaned over her desk and called her four names like "Missy," and creeped her out. When challenged, he said, "That's how we address women in the South."
On the other hand, I spent some time in England, and part of the social rules (as mentioned by other notes) meant that practically everyone lower than me on the social scale addressed me as "my love," and it was inoffensive to the point of being barely noticeable unless I specifically paid attention. None of the other international students, female or male, ever mentioned discomfort at being called "my love"; the social impact is comparable to a U.S.-situated "How are you?" (And even in the U.S., when someone I don't know very well starts off by calling me "Hun," there may be warmth but I have never found such a person taking a pass at me.)
Between these two I would try to make the point that, at least face-to-face, individual words don't creep people out; nonverbal communication that screams out "INAPPROPRIATE SITUATION" creeps people out.
What this means for email is more ambiguous, because email does the unfortunate job of stripping out nonverbal communication (though over the years people have developed SHOUTING, emphasized and strongly emphasized text, emojicons, and so on, to partly compensate for what email drops.
Now it may be advisable to take your best shot at requesting to be called "Prof." or "Ms.", but I'll take a risky guess that if he had called you "Lass" face-to-face, there would have been zero nonverbal cues either of his having a crush on you or of taking a strong move to steer your working relationship. Now if I'm right, that doesn't mean that you're wrong to do your best at explaining to him your preferred ways of being addressed, but face-to-face you might not find it any more uncomfortable than I found supermarket employees being too personal because they kept calling me, "My love."


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Are My Interests More Suited for PhD in CS or Mathematics?
So let me give a little info of who I am and what my interests are. I just graduated with a BA in Mathematics, concentrating almost exclusively in pure math courses (favoring analysis, algebra, topology, number theory, and combinatorics over computational/applied classes). Next semester I'm beginning a 2-year masters program in computational mathematics (at a group-1 public school, under old AMS rankings).
My research interests are currently strongest in the following areas:

Combinatorics, especially algorithmic/computational and combinatorial optimization
Cryptography, information encryption/decryption and security
Number theory, but really just for the purposes of encryption/decryption

After doing some research on the Web, it seems to be the case that my interests fall into the field of theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics.
At this point in time, my idea of an ideal career would be a professor of math or CS at a university, probably a doctoral-granting university. I might also consider working for the government in information security, data analysis, etc.
Also, I definitely want a PhD. It's just been one of the constants in my life as a goal.
So, I pose the question. Given the above information, would a PhD in Math be more appropriate, or would a PhD in CS (probably concentrating in Theoretical CS) be more appropriate?

Q. What's the difference between a theoretical computer scientist and a mathematician? A. About $50,000 per year.

@JeffE Which way? The theoretical computer scientist heads for Google and the mathematician goes to a hedge fund?

There doesn't seem to be any reason you need to decide now. Why not wait until you've had more exposure from your Master's program.

@JeffE, that's simply not true for most universities. It might be true in the US, but for most state universities in the world there is not a big salary difference between math and CS.

You might also consider specialized interdisciplinary programs like the Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization (ACO) program at Georgia Tech.

Have you actually had any algorithm / data structure course? Did you do any coding? Did you do well on those courses? If not, talking and researching about algorithmic optimizations without knowing what an algorithm is and how to program one is highly unrealistic. The same applies to cryptography. Did you took any such course? Have you studied on your own?

After doing some research on the Web, it seems to be the case that my interests fall into the field of theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics.

Yes, I agree.  Moreover these fields have substantial overlap, and your interests lie safely in this intersecting region.  You could plausibly attend either program, and the post-PHD opportunities and career trajectories would be very similar.
One way to think about the decision is that the differences between a math program and a CS program will be more cultural and incidental.  In a US PhD program there are going to be a lot of required components besides your thesis work.  If you attend a math PhD program you will be required to take courses and pass qualifying exams in areas of mathematics somewhat removed from your stated research interests: e.g. I don't know any math PhD program in which you would not have to take graduate level analysis, including measure theory.  Similarly, in a CS program you're going to have to take coursework and pass exams on non-theoretical, non-cryptographic computer science.  Which of these sets of requirements sounds better to you?
If it's really a coin flip, then I would argue in favor of breadth and diversity of skills.  At a certain point you have to specialize, but all other things being equal, I find basic knowledge more useful: it is so much easier to learn more about something than to get a first, rudimentary clue.  Your undergraduate career gave you training in many theoretical areas of mathematics that are not directly related to your current research interests: great!  Now give yourself the advantage of getting some broad training in CS topics as well.
Anyway, it ought to be clear from this answer that I think there is no bad choice.  Good luck!

Good answer.  I'll add that there are some CS PhD programs that have emphasis in Information Security and others that emphasize computational data analysis and modeling.   As one example, look at Prof. Ross Anderson's group at Cambridge University. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/  http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/projects/ You can probably find other groups like this in other universities.

@MrMeritology: I believe you.  I wanted to mention though that PhD programs are significantly more specialized in Europe than in the US: in the former, they almost always follow separate master's programs; in the US, this need not be the case.  So the "coursework" aspect of an American PhD program is large compared to almost everywhere else in the world.

@pete-l-clark Agreed.

I am not a mathematician, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I would say that your current interests belong to two broad categories: applied mathematics (via combinatorics and, to a lesser degree, number theory) and computer science with an emphasis on information security aka information assurance (via cryptography, etc.) - so either of those areas seem to fit your current research interests.
However, notice my special emphasis on the word "current". Considering the IMHO high likelihood of your research interests might change in the future, I would recommend you to prefer an applied mathematics over CS, as that will give you more flexibility career-wise (i.e., you could apply your knowledge and skills to the fields of operations research, financial engineering and many others).

I believe Pete L Clark gives a good answer. Let me just supplement it with my personal experience. I was in a very similar situation a few years ago, choosing between pursuing a PhD in Mathematics with a focus on discrete fields including graph theory and optimization, and Computer Science with a focus on algorithms and data analytics. I had done research in both fields as an undergraduate, and I would be attending graduate school at the same institution I completed my undergraduate degree. I had the advantage of getting a little taste of the culture and expectations of each department.
In the end, my decision came down to how much I liked each department in terms of faculty, research groups, other students, and degree requirements. With regard to degree requirements, I found one department seemed to offer more flexibility and more chances to take classes that I thought I would like.
Perhaps most importantly, finding a research group that you like could determine which degree you choose. I think it's often  much easier to work with an adviser if you are in the same department.
So my advice would be to take a look at the requirements of each department at whatever schools you apply to, talk to a faculty member and/or student if possible, and generally try to get a sense of the culture of each department. Especially look at the research of different faculty members and see if there are any groups which you particularly like. Surely it's not an easy task to gather all of this information if you don't go to one of those schools already, but you should be able at least to look up the degree requirements for each department and the research of different faculty.
Hope that helps some. Good luck!

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text:
What would be my affiliation if I'm a Masters student?
The question title pretty much says it all. I'm now a graduate student pursuing my Masters degree. Will the university I'm enrolled in be my affiliation when writing a paper?

Well, what else would it be?

@Eppicurt - Thanks. This is my first time writing a paper, so I’m just making sure. Have a good day :)

I've seen several math papers in recent years (in MAA journals) in which one or more of the authors is a high school student, and their high schools are listed for their affiliation, and I thought nothing of it besides being impressed.

Yes.
And be sure to get it in there before you graduate. Though if you are not moving straight to another uni and plan on publishing more, if you talk to your prof they might hook you up with "affiliate" status. This means no money or much of anything else other than the ability to claim affiliation.

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Can I include the schematic and layout I designed on Altium CircuitMaker in my thesis?
I’m currently seeking my masters degree. Part of what I do is testing the design on a PCB. My institute doesn’t have OrCad or Altium Designer licenses, so I opted for the free Altium CircuitMaker. However, one of my colleagues has pointed out that its results can’t be accepted in an official thesis. So I want to make sure, is he right? Should I halt it and start looking for a way to get a fund for one of the commercial programs?

What does your supervisor say?

Can you clarify what you mean by “can’t be accepted in an official thesis”? Is this a legal/licensing restriction of the free software, or are products created using this software considered of too inferior a quality, or is it some other issue?

Your colleague is plainly wrong: You put on your thesis the outcome of your work with the tools you have used, regardless of whether they are applications worth thousands of euros or free ones (that are worth thousands of euros anyway).

That’s what I was thinking too. Thanks a lot!


text:
What is the best approach to write a literature review paper?
I'm completely new to writing a review paper, so how would I best write it? Do I need to read every single paper? Or just a few sections like the introduction and results and get the info from them?
How would you approach this?

What purpose does that review serve?

I'm starting my research for my masters degree, so it will be beneficial for me in two ways: 1. I'll get to review the literature and that is extremely needed, and 2. There are no review papers I could find on this topic, so it will also be a good contribution.

Look again, a topic with 90 papers and not a single review? And sorry, nobody will print a review written by a masters student. That's for post-doc.

Possible duplicate https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/43371/17776

@Karl I've been searching for 2 months, and I didn't find.

@Mithun thank you for the link! That is very helpful.


text:
Must you attend a conference to attend/present at an affiliated event?
Specifically, I'm in the field of Computer Science, where conferences (such as EuroS&P) have lots of cool affiliated events, some of which have proceedings and some which do not.
I am more interested in the affiliated events than the conference itself, and was wanting to submit a paper to one of the workshops and an extended abstract to another -- I am working rather than a student at the moment, and so funding for the conference itself will be hard to come by (in addition to the cost of taking time off work). The affiliated events are held over the weekend, and I was wondering:

Is it possible to attend/be published at only affiliated events and skip the conference?
Is this a commonly done thing or, if it were to happen, should I keep quiet about it?

Thanks!

Is it possible to attend/be published at only affiliated events and skip the conference?

This depends a bit on the conference, but in most cases, the relationship between a "main" conference and its satellites and workshops seems to be like this:

Nobody really cares whether you actually attend the main conference, and there is no reason to be quiet about this. However, some conferences require you to register (I.e., pay) for the main conference in addition to any satellite events, even if you have no intention of attending. So you should keep this, probably significant, additional costs in mind.
Satellite conferences often have their own proceedings, so it is definitely possible to be published only at the satellite, for whatever that is worth. Associated workshops often publish their proceedings in a companion volume of the main conference. I am not sure whether you would consider this "be published at the main conference", or why this would matter for you.

That being said, the best persons to answer this for you reliably are the organizers of either the main event, or of the satellite events you wish to attend.

There is no need to attend the main event/conference if you are only interested in the affiliated events.
To be sure, you could check the registration forms (of past editions if they are not on line yet): it is there that hard constraints such as compulsory registration for the main event would be listed.
In my field, software engineering, it is not uncommon to skip the main event, especially for people from industry who have a presentation in one of the side events. And workshops can also  be more interactive, fun, and useful.
So I see no need at all to keep quiet about this!
Good luck with the submissions!


text:
Statement of research interest as an early Master's student
I need to write a statement of research interest for internships in applied mathematics and computational science that I am applying for this summer.
Having just finished my first semester of graduate school, I feel that I have not fully defined my research interests. However, I have participated in several ongoing research projects and have already interned at a national laboratory.
How can I write a successful statement of research interest at this point in my education? Should I write about what I have already done, or focus on what I want to research in the future?
If I focus on the future, I feel that I will have trouble articulating where I want my research to go... because I really don't have an answer yet!

I would write about both.
I usually think the writing of a statement of purpose as a story I want to tell. Write about your past projects to introduce you and your research interests, giving the reader some context on why you are applying for the position and the reasons your profile/know-how fits well in the job description.
Even if you are not sure about the exactly subject of your next project, you must know the topics that are interesting for you and the ones you definitely are not willing to work ever. You are an early master's student, no one is expecting you to tell exactly to where your research will lead you. However, they expect you to give some clues in order to assign you with the appropriate supervisor and in a project that is best suitable for your ambitions.
I would suggest you to read this text where they summarise the main characteristics of a good statement of purpose.


text:
Postdoc in good environment, but haven't accomplished anything on my own: How long is it reasonable to stick around?
I'm about 5 months into my postdoc now, and I am seriously questioning the choice. Most posts I read about this mention bad advisors, situations with the lab, etc. but in my case actually everything about the lab is great. I'm at the top institution in my field, with an advisor that is well respected in the field and has been around for a long time. The advisor is also an extremely nice person, supportive and consistently provides positive feedback when you present work. The group is also great, full of really smart, but really friendly people. They work a lot, but that's really the only flaw in the group culture (aside from not being the safest in lab maybe). The group is also well funded, and my advisor is supportive of working on anything that is interesting. It seems like this should be an amazing opportunity. Resources galore, support, and scientific freedom.
But here's the thing, I'm totally miserable and haven't accomplished anything tangible that I can call my own. I have helped some people with their projects, but I haven't been able to figure out something to work on that is my own. My PhD used some of the same fundamentals, but this was a relatively big switch moving into the postdoc. I expected some time would be necessary to learn new things and get going, but I barely feel like I've moved forward. I tried several ideas, but nothing panned out. Now my advisor has suggested a new project to make this device, it would be slightly more related to my PhD and we have some of the resources needed to do it, and wrote a proposal to get more, but I'm still really struggling to get going. I feel like this new project doesn't involve many fundamentals, and is just engineering together existing pieces that have all been done before. If it works it might be interesting, but I really struggle to see how I could use it to do fundamental science, which is what you need to apply to academic jobs in the field. I just feel like I am failing at a key part of being an academic, which is coming up with new ideas. At some point that has to catch up to me and my advisor will notice.
So what I am struggling with is whether I should stick it out and grind away on this new project that I don't have much faith in, find a new postdoc and try to move labs (I am not willing to move cities since my partner is also here doing a postdoc), or should I just start looking for an industry job in the area (which would almost definitely come with a much worse commute, but twice the salary)? But if I did the industry search I'm not sure how I could do that without telling my advisor because I would only leave if I got a decent offer. The other labs that would be relevant for my experience are a lot less well known, and I don't think any of them would have as nice of an advisor.

I can't say that research is the number one thing that draws me to academia, I far more enjoy the mentoring/teaching/service aspects. Seeing talks, helping others with their work, reading papers, etc. are all great. Even meetings about the department I like. I enjoyed research and had some ideas throughout undergrad and grad school, so I'm not sure what to think now though.

You read like a thoughtful person with whom it is a pleasure to speak with. I wish you the best.

I took the liberty to revise your title, as it's a matter of interpretation if your post-doc is not going well. If you've been able to help others, that's certainly an accomplishment.

that's a good point, thank you

If you are not happy helping other people with their projects, then I think it's time to quit being a postdoc.  Personally, I think that's the most satisfying part of the job.  If you were to move on to a faculty position, you would spend more time helping other people (or applying for funding) and even less time doing fundamental science yourself.    If you are not sure what you want, go for a high paying industry job.
As for when, I say leave as soon as you can, unless you are moving to a new postdoc position, in which case leave after one year.  But a new postdoc position isn't going to solve your problems.

Actually i love the part where I am helping others with their project - if anything I prefer that over doing any work on my own. the problem is that if you don't have anything that you can present as your own work then you can't get that faculty job and the postdoc was just a period of time where you could have been working at a company (in my field anyway)

@Deer I don't see it that way, but in my field almost everything is a collaboration, so the idea of "own work" is pretty hazy.

You sound like a thoughtful and honest person. Being into Menotring, service and teaching is a great reason to want to be and academic, because it is 90% of the job as fa faculty member.
I can't speak for your field, but in my field it would be not be unusual for a postdoc to produce little in the first 5 months. So its possible you are doing better than you think. The project you are doing now (building an instrument) could easily be a confidence builder that your boss has given you in order to feel better about things (this exact thing is actually mention in one famous article about how to get new mentees up and running).
You say your boss is super nice. I don't have a feeling about how close you are, or how much you trust them. But if you do, perhaps you should talk to them about it? They are likely to know whether your progress is good or bad, how things are panning out, and what your options for alternatives are. You don't have to say you are thinking of leaving, you could just have a discussion about long term plans, and where you see yourself going, and whether they think those are good options.

Any advice on having that conversation? I've tried to start it a couple times, but when it comes out of my mouth it sounds a lot happier and we kind of brush by it quickly. Or I say I'm not sure where this is going, then by the end of the conversation it seems fine, except 5 mins after leaving having thought about it more nothing is different..

I'd start by saying something like "I've been thinking about where I'm going to end up, long term, and which of those places are a better fit for me". You might need to consider that you might already be having the "am I doing well" conversation, and your PI is telling you that you are doing well. You may need to then consider that if this is what counts a "doing well", how that leaves you feeling.

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text:
What can a student do if he has problems with homework problems that he is unable to solve?
In university courses, is it possible or good habit to ask help for homework exercises one can't solve? I mean, someone might think it is cheating but on the other hand, should a student be stuck in some particular problem for days?
The course I take is about version control on git and there are questions in an online system. One question has six different true/false questions, where one can choose on different alternatives. The system has informed me that my answer is incorrect; however, it does not explain why my answer is incorrect, and I'm not able to figure that out by myself.

Six true false questions generate only 2^6 = 64 combinations. You can try all of them in an hour and get 100% correct.

There is a limit that one can try only 15 times the set of six questions so one can't test every possible combination.

In higher education, the role of educators is to help facilitate students' learning. One of the main mechanisms for that is to provide students with high-quality feedback on their assessments. Simply delivering lectures is not very efficient.  Testing students using multiple-choice questions through automatic tools is also not very efficient. Even giving students a grade without explanation how it was produced is not very efficient.
If you are struggling with a task, you should approach your lecturer/professor, show them your best attempt, and ask for feedback, specifically, an explanation what is incorrect in your attempt and what you should work on to improve your understanding of the subject. And no, "your answer is wrong because computer says no, now go away and try again until it says yes" is not good enough. Politely ask for clarification of the relevant material, not mechanics of the automatic assessment.

Tutorials are a good place to ask if the course offers them.

Yes, you should ask for help. But ask for help from the instructor or whoever else is designated by the instructor to give it. Don't go outside the system just to find "answers".
The point of such exercises isn't to get "answers". It is to get the student to be able to create those answers from the knowledge they get in the course. The instructor already has the answers and doesn't need the student to provide them. So, going to a third source completely destroys the entire purpose of them and also handicaps the student's learning.
However, the instructor need to have a system in place where such appropriate feedback can and will be given. If that isn't happening, then you need to complain higher up the system so that things improve. Ideally, an instructor will give "just enough" help in answering a question so that the student can get over any hurdle and get to a better understanding. This is one reason that third parties are actually harmful. They don't understand or see the whole system and so are more likely to say "too much", thus making learning harder - real learning.

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text:
Professor asked me to hand in a plagarism report. How do I do it?
My professor told me to submit plagiarism report of my project work. How do I do it? I have tried online softwares but they are not working.

First, why don't ask the prof? Second, this forum is not so good for this question. Third, if you find a forum to ask this question, ask it better: explain what "not working" means in your context, which online softwares you used, what kind of Project work, what you did exactly etc.

Are they asking for a "report" or just a statement that you developed the project ethically and properly cited sources?

I guess there is a standard software simply providing a report that you have to attach to your manuscript. Why not ask your School, it seems to be standard procedure.

It isn't clear to us what exactly your professor is asking for.  It seems likely that this is in response to some local institutional rule that requires you to run a particular software on your document and possibly write a response based on the results.  Thus the best solution to your problem will be to ask for help at your institution.

Many universities have plagiarism software that is used for detecting plagiarism in theses or other project reports. At my previous institution there was a time when students were not allowed to submit their thesis and graduate without first running their thesis through this software and providing the report.
If this is the type of thing that is begin asked, there should be an official web page where you can submit your document and generate a report. We won't be able to help you with those details, you'll need to talk to local administrators to get help with that.


text:
References on how often finances are cited as a barrier to graduate study
I am looking for some pointers to research that addresses the question:
How frequently do students who have earned undergraduate degrees cite financial barriers as a major reason influencing their decision not to go on graduate study?
Anecdotally, I am personally aware of students who feel that financial considerations prevent them from pursuing graduate study (e.g., they have a family to support and they can't afford to live on a graduate student salary for so many years). I am interested in research1 that examines the prevalence of this kind of thing (subject to the usual limitations of this kind of survey research, of course).
I have come across studies on how often finances are cited as barriers facing would-be undergraduate students2, but I have not seen any equivalent research about graduate study.

1 I am not looking for answers from anecdotal evidence not supported by a study or citation. I am also not looking for answers explaining why such a study is unlikely to exist, or why it should not be trusted if it did
2 See e.g., Studies on Barriers to Higher Education in Texas, and University fees biggest barrier to wider access, research finds

Are you mainly interested in studies about US students, or more general? It seems like the results would be very different, since the funding schemes are different.

@Tobias I am asking out of general interest, not any specific need, so I'd be happy with studies from any location or academic discipline.

Not quite an answer, but something that shows that the question may simply not be as interesting when applied to the Danish system: The table on page 39 of this study http://www.au.dk/fileadmin/www.au.dk/kvalitetiphd/KVALITET_I_PHD__UK_.pdf shows that almost half the people who chose to do a PhD at Aarhus University did so (at least in part) because it was a regular job with a permanent income.

(Note that I do find the question very interesting when applied to the American system).

@Tobias interesting read, thanks! Anecdotally, I've heard similar motivations for graduate study from friends in Greece, where unemployment in my age bracket is... insane.

Most of the research I identified describes the impact of undergraduate loan debt (as a proxy for financial burden) on pursuing graduate education. I found fewer studies discussing the direct financial burden as a deterrent, though some literature does review the impact of financial stress on graduate school completion (See Strayhorn, 2010 for further sources).
One study of undergraduates in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math fields) examined the impact of undergraduate debt on graduate school enrollment, breaking down the analysis by racial and ethnic classification (Malcom & Dowd, 2012). They found those with greater debt than the average for other students in their racial or ethnic group were less likely to enroll in graduate school within two years of graduation. Borrowing any amount of debt reduced the likelihood of enrolling in graduate school. For most racial and ethnic groups (the exceptions being African Americans and Asians with high levels of debt), graduate school enrollment declines as the level of undergraduate debt increases.
Another study of bachelor’s degree recipients examined the likelihood they transitioned to graduate school within 1 year of completing their undergraduate degree (Millet, 2003). The study found that students with more than $5,000 of debt were less likely to apply to graduate school compared to students with no debt. However, for students who expressed intent to attend graduate school and were accepted, their degree of debt did not seem to be a barrier. Additionally, the study found that the graduate school’s financial aid offer significantly predicted enrollment, and the author suggests the financial aid may counteract the burden of undergraduate debt when students decide to pursue graduate school. This paper also has a nice literature review section within this paper, which may point you to additional studies.
One study of 19 African American nurses found that financial concerns were frequently cited as barriers to attending nursing graduate programs (Mingo, 2007). In a quantitative survey, 9 students listed financial issues as one of the their primary barriers, and 1/3 of write-in answers expressed financial concerns.
However, some studies have found neutral or even positive effects of undergraduate debt on graduate school attendance. One study of undergraduates failed to find a relationship between undergraduate debt and plans to seek advanced degrees (Monks, 2001); the literature review in this paper cites several other studies, including some using national student surveys, that came to similar conclusions (see Baum & Saunders, 1998; Schapiro, O’Malley, & Litten, 1991). Additionally, 348 senior undergraduate psychology students – found that concerns about cost did not differ between students intending to apply and those not intending to apply re: grad school.
A national survey of over 7,000 undergraduate students found that undergraduate debt affected public and private university graduates differently (Zhang, 2013). For students who received their bachelor’s from a public college, debt reduced the likelihood they would attend expensive graduate programs such as doctoral, MBA, and professional degree programs; it had no effect on master’s programs. For private college graduates, debt was actually positively associated with attending MBA or professional programs, and did not effect other graduate programs either positively or negatively.
Similarly, another study sought to determine whether the 1992 Higher Education Act amendments, which expanded federal student loans and access to those loans, impacted the relationship between debt and graduate school (Kim & Eyermann, 2006). This study compared students who had graduated before and after the amendments and found that before the amendments, students with more debt were less likely to attend graduate school. After the amendments, the study found that debt did not impact low or high income students plans to attend graduate school. Additionally, they found that post-amendment middle income students actually experienced positive relationship between accessing loans and intending to pursue graduate school. The authors suggest that for these students the increased access to loans (even though it resulted in greater debt) actually facilitated their plans to pursue advanced degrees.
In sum, most studies use undergraduate student loan debt as a proxy for financial barriers to graduate education, and results have been mixed.

Baum, S., & Saunders, D. (1998). Life After Debt: Results of the
National Student Loan Survey. Selected Text from the Final Report.
Journal of Student Financial Aid, 28(3), 7-23.
Kim, D., & Eyermann, T. S. (2006). Undergraduate borrowing and its
effects on plans to attend graduate school prior to and after the
1992 Higher Education Act amendments. Journal of Student Financial
Aid, 36(2), 5-21.
Landrum, R. E. (2010). Intent to apply to graduate school:
Perceptions of senior year psychology majors. North American Journal
of Psychology, 12(2), 243-254.
Malcom, L. E., & Dowd, A. C. (2012). The impact of undergraduate debt
on the graduate school enrollment of STEM baccalaureates. The Review
of Higher Education, 35(2), 265-305.
Millett, C. M. (2003). How undergraduate loan debt affects
application and enrollment in graduate or first professional school.
Journal of Higher Education, 74(4), 386-427.
Mingo, A. D. (2007). Barriers and facilitators affecting African
Americans continuation into graduate programs in nursing. The ABNF
Journal: Official Journal of the Association of Black Nursing Faculty
in Higher Education, Inc, 19(2), 51-63.
Monks, J. (2001). Loan burdens and educational outcomes. Economics of
Education Review, 20(6), 545-550.
Schapiro, M. O., O'Malley, M. P., & Litten, L. H. (1991). Progression
to graduate school from the “elite” colleges and universities.
Economics of Education Review, 10(3), 227-244.
Strayhorn, T. L. (2010). Money matters: The influence of financial
factors on graduate student persistence. Journal of Student Financial
Aid, 40(3), 1-23.
Zhang, L. (2013). Effects of college educational debt on graduate
school attendance and early career and lifestyle choices. Education
Economics, 21(2), 154-175.


text:
Online master's degree in CS at the Georgia Institute of Technology
I am a working student (working in software engineering) and this year I'll be completing my CS Bachelor's degree in Italy. I am doing the online degree as I can't attend lectures, due to my job.
I would like to continue my studies with a Master's Degree in CS so I googled a bit and found out that GaTech is offering an online master's degree I am interested in.
Here in Italy the online degree has the same value as the on-campus degree: we take exams on campus, study online with videos and materials provided by the professor, we have conference sessions with the professors for any questions or we can go visit them in their office. The exams are exactly the same as the on-campus degree, so are the professors.
I was wondering if this is the case in the USA and if doing an online degree will be a limit for me to pursue, in a remote future, a PhD. Should I move to the USA to study (I can work remotely) or I can study here, in Italy, and just go to the USA to take exams?

I contacted OMSCS advising, this is their answer: "Earning a Master of Science in Computer Science is not terminal. Students can proceed to apply to a PhD program in Computer Science after completing their masters degree. I would strongly recommend that you contact the PhD program that you are interested in and speak with the academic advisor for that PhD program for more information"

In my opinion, Georgia Tech's Online Master of Computer Science will not help you get a computer science PhD in the US.  Not because it's online, but because it's a professional master's program.
There are two types of master's degrees in computer science in the US:

Thesis (aka research) masters degrees have a significant research component, in close collaboration with an advisor, leading up to a thesis.  These are generally seen as useful stepping stones to a PhD.
Professional (aka class-based, aka "taught", aka terminal) masters degrees consist entirely of classes.  These are generally not seen as stepping stones to a PhD, because there is no expectation of (and therefore no resources for) research.

Moreover, because of the huge scale (>3000 students) of the OMCS program, having any kind of sustained on-on-one interaction with faculty—which you would need to get strong recommendation letters—is almost impossible.
(I regularly serve on the graduate admissions committee in a top-10 American CS department.)

I've heard in the USA it's possible to get a PhD without a master's degree. I'm not saying I'll be able to get in the top PhD programs, but an online Msc degree is still better than not having an Msc. Did you mean all the doors will be closed or just the top unis won't consider me?

an online Msc degree is still better than not having an Msc — Not necessarily, and in particular, not in my department.  If you're applying to a strong CS PhD program in the US  with a master's degree, you'll generally be held to higher standards—especially with respect to research experience—than if you apply with only a bachelor's degree.

@Umar What you have to understand is that the US works totally different to Europe there. While it's pretty much unheard of in Europe to get into a PhD program without a master, the same is not true in the US at all. Actually - at least in my limited experience there - it's more that you either do a PhD or your masters with one being more focused on research and the other more for going into the private sector afterwards.

I'm quite surprised that this answer is marked correct. if you regularly serve on the graduate admissions committee in a top-10 American CS department, you should be able to explain the difference in more objective way. What's your reference for the classification Professional (aka class-based, aka "taught", aka terminal) masters degrees?

This is the definition of "Terminal Degree" according to OMSCS at GeorgiaTech advising: A terminal degree is the term used to describe the highest degree available in any given academic discipline. When a student graduates from their chosen academic program with a terminal degree, it means that they have reached the highest level of education available in their chosen field.

Perhaps the best course of action is to ask the faculty/graduate admissions at GaTech (or other school you are interested in) if if would make a difference to get into their PhD program, given your background.
A group of random gals and dudes on the ńet can't answer this with any certainty. If by chance somebody here can answer (by personal experience, ...) you won't be able to distinguish that from somebody posting compulsively with little or no knowledge of the matter.