Academic research productivity per dollar is greatly boosted by low wages for the people who actually do the work. Academic labs are basically indenture shops

Academic research productivity per dollar is greatly boosted by low wages for the people who actually do the work. Academic labs are basically indenture shops that universities and the government use to avoid paying the market price for labor. And of course the greatest profits accrue to commercial companies that apply the work that was paid for by the government and performed by underpaid grad students. Grad school may be interesting and even fun, but it can also have very high opportunity cost, making it something of a sucker's game for many, at least financially. The only thing worse would be trying to stay in academia and being trapped in a purgatory of postdoc and adjunct positions, never making it to the top of the pyramid scheme.