Where Do I Sign Up?

I had perhaps a slightly different reaction when I read this tweet:

When I was a PhD student, my stipend was just $18,000 and my waived tuition was $55,000.

Taxing someone who only receives $18,000 the same amount as someone who earns $73,000 in order to give billionaires a huge cut is the height of Republican insanity.https://t.co/zkTt5cQ7oG

— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) November 16, 2017

Where do I sign up to get an $18,000 stipend and a $55,000 waived tuition, and then a Masters degree at the end of it??

This guy is talking about it like it was a hardship and I’m sitting here thinking, wow, how is that not a literal gift from the heavens?

Granted, $18,000 for a college kid to live on is not much, particularly in any kind of city, or if you have dependents. And I’m sure there are strings attached in there somewhere. But for me, in my current life situation, an $18,000/year stipend sounds like a pretty good deal.