[evolighting]

I don’t think this is really about salary.

The “whole thing” is never cheap. Running something like a university — providing the environment, infrastructure, administration, facilities, compliance systems, equipment, libraries, grants offices, laboratories, and institutional platform that allow professors and graduate students to do research — is itself extremely expensive.

After all, if you look at the fiscal budgets of major economies, public spending on education and research is often much larger than military spending.

[robotresearcher]

The grad students get facilities along with their salary and benefits, yes.