Except that for research programs these tuition wavers are for "research credits" for the majority of grad school duration. That is, there is no classes, only work on behalf of the university. Unlike normal work, you pay them. Calling most grad students "students" is a fiction. They are workers.

> That is, there is no classes, only work on behalf of the university.

On a PhD you do your own research. You aren’t working for anyone but yourself. You may do some teaching but that’s just an optional part-time job.

Replying to your lower comment: That is just not remotely my experience or the experience of most people I know. Most people in science I knew already know what project they would be working on before entered grad school at all. It is very much directed, with some latitude like any other skilled job.

> It is very much directed

Graduate school is very much directed? The usual criticism is that it’s completely undirected and you can drift if you aren’t careful!

Not anymore. There’s no money to linger around because many schools don’t let you TA for a long time.

This is emphatically not true and shows a major misunderstanding of graduate funding.

If you want to have a PhD you need funding. To get funding you need to work.

Then you get to research in your free time.

Source: I’m a PhD student.

Some funding requires you to work, some doesn’t.

And the funding that doesn't require you to work is increasingly offered less.

That's not true. Do you even know how grad school works? Research you produce and grants you pull in benefit the university. Your research also is directed by your PI, a university employee and your boss, and often involves directly assisting their projects. How would a research university look if all of its grad students stopped doing research?

It is true. I’m sure the university benefits, but you decide what to do yourself. You aren’t doing work given to you by the university or your advisor. Your advisor is absolutely not your ‘boss’, they’re a tutor, almost a peer.

> You aren’t doing work given to you by the university or your advisor.

Something tells me you have not been through PhD, or are have not interacted with other PhD students. You absolutely work on what your PI got their grant for.

Nope I do have a PhD.

It's safe to say your experience is highly atypical. Even if a grad student's stipend is not funded on an RA for their research, the research still costs money. It is certainly funded from somewhere, and it's not coming from the tuition. It's almost always the PI's grant. And that means your research is on a specific problem.

I can't speak to what your experience is, but what I am saying here is typical in US universities.

Um, I had a TAship and the tuition waiver during my Master's period at UCSC as well as when I needed to take any required classes post-Masters.

Current US tuition is a scam driven by an exploitative loan industry. Giving tuition waivers to grad students is something universities do precisely because it lets them say "no but really when you consider your total compensation it's very competitive with the industry". It's nonsense.

There is a lot of that going on, but it is important that factor only came into play in the 1980s and then in a big way after Biden and friends changed the rules around student loans. That is a huge problem that must be dealt with, but underpaid graduate students, exploding tuition, and colleges going under has been going on for a while even without the lending.