NIMBYism in Santa Cruz has resulted in a massive increase in prices over the past few years.

Additionally, the students at this campus voted with an 80% majority against the prior contract that the union had negotiated on behalf of grad students at all campuses simultaneously. Students at other campuses with lower cost of living are not squeezed nearly as much.

Because people go into graduate programs as an educational opportunity, not as a job search?

Not starving or being homeless are great motivators. But yeah, why didn't they just get $250k FAANG jobs like the other 300 million Americans?

I don’t think those people had a binary choice between starving and a Ph.D. program.

Wanting to have your cake and eat it too is no great sin. In fact, it's what everyone, everywhere in modern society is trying to do. You want a job you enjoy, and that pays well. That seems like something worth fighting for. Just what you're doing eight hours a day is a very large amount of your lifetime.