[eddotman]

That sounds strange. Pretty much all the top STEM PhD programs (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc.) offer a liveable stipend and full tuition reimbursement with medical insurance. e.g. MIT gives like $30k/yr, which is reasonable to live on in Boston, and we never pay a cent of tuition.

[simonster]

Yes, at least at the top tiers, you get paid enough to live on without an additional funding source. OTOH, $30K/year is usually several times less than a good graduate student could make in industry. While the pay is livable, it's difficult to argue that it's market rate. Or to put it another way, academic institutions don't value their employees in a way that's commensurate with their skill set.