My SO is also a PhD, but had a very nice fellowship that not only paid for everything, but upped the salary ~10k. Nonetheless, ~1/3 of it went to 'tuition', des

My SO is also a PhD, but had a very nice fellowship that not only paid for everything, but upped the salary ~10k. Nonetheless, ~1/3 of it went to 'tuition', despite being in the field and away from all communication for ~2 years (off and on). Yes, the 'tuition' is meaningless BS and is a shell game the Universities are playing. Unfortunately, it will not stop from the simple reason that 22 years olds are stupid. My SO sat on some admissions committees and there are literally hundreds of super-star applications for ~10 spots. Just killer people with amazing backgrounds and drive, and they get rejected because there just aren't the spot. Grad programs have NO incentive to change as the people coming in are not going to be less numerous nor less amazing. The supply is so high and the demand is so low that the price is effectively 0 anyways. Really, if STEMy programs wanted to start charging the kids, the applicant pool would not change a bit in terms of quality of student/researcher. Yes, it would be much more WASPy, but the research wouldn't diminish in the slightest as the pool is just that large and good.