NOTE: I'm not attacking you, although I will use strong language in my answer. I understand the question and the reason for asking it, but I'm answering honestly, with the emotion that this question evokes. Most of us hear the term "tuition credit" and roll our eyes, because it is as empty as a politician's promise.

The tuition "value" is an old salesman technique. "This car is worth this much, but for you we're going to cut that price in half... isn't that a great value?"

It's like saying, "You should thank me because I haven't punched you lately."

I think it's laughable. The way the funding works is this: My advisor writes a grant proposal to some agency. If it is approved, the university gets a 1/3 of the money off the top. The rest goes towards paying for the expenses (servers, software, tools, and my stipend). The school makes money because I'm here, and then they have the gall to say that I receive a tuition "credit" when I'm not taking classes in the first place. Rather, the school reaps the benefits of my labor in terms of immediate financial reward as well as claims of intellectual property over my developments and my publications.

So the university makes money (that they would not get if I were not there doing research). Then they tell me that they would have charged me $X to attend, but out of the goodness of their heart they are going to waive this tuition, and I should consider it as part of my compensation so that I feel better about being paid less than market value. You tell me: should I feel warm and fuzzy about this?

"Tuition credit" is an empty number that they make up. Implying that it is a benefit to me is, frankly, insulting to my intelligence.

The only reason that I am working towards a PhD is because I love teaching, and you have to have a doctorate before you can teach at the university level (although there are exceptions, they are growing exceedingly rare).

Thanks for the very frank response. I agree with you completely. My wife magically became an in-state student when it came time for the University to waive her tuition. funny how that works.

I believe Texas used to grant in state tuition to anyone with funded scholarships over a certain amount. I don't know about your wife's car but that could be the reason why she's in state?

In the last couple years of the PhD, the only class I take is dissertation credit, which is in essence just doing research for my advisor.

"Tuition" in this case is arguably just an administrative device by which the university siphons some money off of my advisor's grants in exchange for the right to employ me as a research assistant.

I guess the other side of the argument is that tuition represents the value of access to my advisor (which apparently fluctuates seasonally, cratering to zero during the summer...), and my advisor('s grant) pays me for my labor, and I (my advisor's grant...) pay(s) the university for access to for my advisor.

These "cost accounting" transactions where schools both charge you and pay you and then net it out are kind of silly. IMO only the net should matter.

If a school "costs" $70k/year but 95% of students get a $50k/year scholarship, are the students really making $50k/year of income? Of course not. The school costs $20k/year; $70 and $50 are both pure fiction.

We should be looking at who actually ends up writing the check and who ends up depositing it, not the stories they tell along the way.

When I was a grad student the only tuition benefits I got were (a) I was allowed to pay in-state tuition instead of out-of-state and (b) I didn't have to pay fees for things like the Athletic department; this ended up being about 25% cheaper than in-state undergrad. On paper, (a) was a huge benefit, but considering I lived there for seven years and paid state and local taxes the whole time, I'm not inclined to be too generous with that accounting.

It's hard to put a market price on something that no one pays for.