Waived tuition for PhD students is such BS and a clear tax loop hole that universities can increase their costs artificially (they get to pick tuition). I alway

Waived tuition for PhD students is such BS and a clear tax loop hole that universities can increase their costs artificially (they get to pick tuition). I always told my peers that universities would treat PhD students very differently if they actually paid the full payment to the student via 1099 who could then claim the cost as a business expense. The 50% FTE I think is heavily intertwined by the fact that international F1 students are not allowed to work more than 20 hours. You could have a 2 tier system for domestic vs. international students but that would cause a clear schism in the student population. Regardless, there is the very real problem that a huge part of PhD is indeed training. In my department, it was very real that your "non-training" hours looked something like 0/25/50/75/100 across the years. Basically, nothing in the first 2 years, taking courses and maybe helping a bit on the side then finishing the last year writing and publishing a lot of stuff and training the new PhDs. It averages to 50% and I think is generally fair from that regard that the university did not hire you as a 100% researcher out of the gate.