>Not providing them with grants, and thus decreasing the success in recruiting them, would lower the prestige of the university You have a very idealized pictu

>Not providing them with grants, and thus decreasing the success in recruiting them, would lower the prestige of the university You have a very idealized picture of what happens when a university is required to confer a certain amount of PhDs to maintain (formerly) R1 status and has to rely on F-1s to do it.