[pja]

> You are very off (unfortunately) about how little PhD students are being paid

All in costs for a PhD student include university overheads & tuition fees. The total probably doesn't hit $150k but is 2-3x the stipend that the student is receiving.

Someone currently working in academia might have current figures to hand.

[latexr]

Worth mentioning that numbers for the US are unlikely to be representative when discussing it as a whole, though might be relevant to this specific case.

[pja]

In the UK the all in cost of a PhD student starts somewhere around £45k once you include overheads I believe. If you need expensive lab support then it probably goes up from there.

So about $75k for the bottom end? The quoted numbers sound about right in PPP terms in that case.