It is impossible for Universities to cut down graduate enrollment. Professor productivity is defined primarily in terms of two measures: how many papers you au

It is impossible for Universities to cut down graduate enrollment. Professor productivity is defined primarily in terms of two measures: how many papers you authored (notice I avoided using the word wrote) and how many advanced degree students you graduate. Having a big pipeline of graduate students to help you achieve both goals is fundamental for success. Also, Professors are tasked with multiple responsibilities that add little, if anything, to their perceived productivity as measured by the University. The most time consuming of those is usually lecturing undergraduate classes. Having an even bigger pool of graduate students where to offload time consuming activities associated with the class (primarily T.A.s and L.A.s but also people never met by the class doing support work like slide preparation, library searches, capture of results in brain-dead software platforms purchased by Uni's managers not doing any teaching themselves, etc) will allow you to concentrate in your research and do things that really matter (a.k.a. athoring papers and advising future PhDs).