[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.