You could buy a house and a 69 Charger for $25K in the 60's with a tidy sum left over.
I doubt that the 50k was given to the research as personal pay. It was likely a “research grant” that was used to fund the research and/or get swallowed up as “overhead” by the university
And you probably earned under $10k/yr.
$50k in 2016 dollars.