[currymj]

From the perspective of a grad student, you're getting paid $20k/year in a HCOL area, the grant is getting charged like $40k a year (somewhere around $20k of "tuition remission" charged on fake tuition that nobody actually pays), and then the government is actually paying $60k/year due to overhead. This is frustrating.

Where's that extra $40k going?

I had a small desk in a shared office and I guess used some electricity for my computer, and there was custodial staff who cleaned that building. That's about all I can think of, and I don't think it cost the university $40k/student/year.

Campus amenities were paid for by a $600 mandatory fee which came out of my paycheck separately.

It's not paying for compute -- the computing resources I used were bought separately through grant money. If it was paying administrators, then how come every time I needed to do something it had to go through the same handful of extremely overworked people?

You could see where people would start to get annoyed.

[gradstudent]

Agree, it's complete crap. Until COVID, my faculty used to charge monopoly money for grad student tuituion fees (which is to say, these costs were always waived provided the candidate had good grades and funds could be found for a living stipend). Since COVID, we now charge many tens of thousands per candidate per year. Why? grad students cost SFA in terms of additional overheads and they are the folks who do the actual "work" that brings grant ideas to fruition. Its not like (undergrad) student numbers are down vs pre-COVID times either nor is there some huge sudden influx of graduate student.

[iamerroragent]

"That pays for facilities and education programs and funding the department itself."

Buildings, rooms costs rent from each department.

Departments have expenses. Salaries to pay. Equipment to upgrade. Sometimes costs go over or researchers suddenly leave for whatever reason. The department they worked in is holding the bag on that.

Literally all that .57 or whatever part of every of every dollar you bring is going to the university to do with it how they like it. You're always working to make someone else more; that's why they hired you.

Now why is it going through the same people all the time (like grant management I presume?), Because grants have limited amount of money and people that fund research like to know the money was spent the way it was supposed to and the university itself likes to know all the money its researchers are bringing in and avoid conflicts of interest.

Edit: I also forgot to include, don't forget that like part of your pay you don't directly see, it's a about a third more, which goes to your benefits.

[Fomite]

Minor note: Tuition isn't typically included in the "base rate" for overhead calculations.

[UncleMeat]

It is worse than that. You get paid 20k/y. You pay 20k/y in tuition. But only 40% of the grant money ends up going to this 40k. So it costs the funding institution $100,000 to pay you 20k.