I'm ok with grad students not having a shot at an academic position, and not getting paid much, since it's an internship really. The problem is that postdocs a

I'm ok with grad students not having a shot at an academic position, and not getting paid much, since it's an internship really. The problem is that postdocs also don't get paid much (last I checked the mandated maximum salary for postdocs in biosciences was ~45k/year), and they're being strung along with the hope of professorship. Even worse, a lot of professors will take as few grad students as they can get away with, and mostly use postdocs, since they're only about 50% more expensive, but they're much more productive from a research standpoint. Also, a lot of professors will string grad students along for a while towards the end, since that's when they're the most productive, but they're still cheap. We need to have fewer postdocs, and pay them more. We also need to make grad school follow a more regimented timeline, with raises over time, to protect the students' interests. There's a reason miserable grad students are such a meme, it's a terrible system.