I'd say "constantly reminding" someone and their surrounding peers of the fact that they are of lower stature economically is a recipe to divide the student base and breed resentment. You would be less likely to feel resentment standing in a separate line from most of your peers, looking at a bunch of students with outfits worth more than a month's rent, singled out for getting "handouts" from your school? Don't grad students typically earn a stipend working a job anyway? I don't see that as any more "living on the largess of others" than going to school on your family's money.

It would be ungrateful and counterproductive if such students felt resentment towards their parents, no?

Don't grad students typically earn a stipend working a job anyway?

I earn a salary by working a job which aims to make customers happy (same as when I was in grad school on a stipend). However, I don't feel resentment toward those customers - that would be counterproductive and harmful.

Did you somehow get the impression I think grad students should be resentful towards the university because of their stipends? I think most of them are grateful - I meant to convey that it's disingenuous to think of a grad student's stipend as some kind of handout, I really can't understand how you interpreted that as you did.

I don't think a grad student's stipend is a handout, just as I don't think my salary is. Nevertheless, grad students should be grateful to the undergrads/taxpayers who are supporting them, and I should be grateful to my employer's customers (I am).

Poor students are needed at these schools to maintain the prestige and reputation of these schools. If they only allowed those who could afford to pay, a lot of great talent would end up elsewhere and then the reputation of the school would suffer.

In terms of real scarcity, it is actually the rich students who are the most easily replaceable. If those poor students went somewhere else, they would still do well and within a decade the new schools would start challenging the reputation of these elite school.

Although I think he was referring to financial aid rather than graduate stipends.

I enjoy exploring ideas that are emotionally unpleasant, but which it's hard to construct a logical argument against. Some unpleasant ideas turn out to be correct!

Of course students on financial aid, etc., should feel gratitude. Surely other students shouldn't be high on the list of recipients.

It does sound like an effective strategy - but for class reinforcement. It's a good way to generate resentment, not gratitude.

Graduate students at schools like this are funded primarily through grant money and sometimes endowment money, not undergraduate tuition.

Undergraduates on financial aid are never funded through others' tuition. That's 100% donations and endowment.

> and give them constant reminders that they are there thanks to the contributions of others

I suppose we should also have a special line for everyone who's using daddy's credit card?