Comment by rinon

You assume that tuition is actually an "in kind" benefit. Most of that tuition money is not an in kind benefit at all. Rather, it is a way for the university to siphon off overhead from grant money. If you think of graduate students as apprentice workers, which is far closer to the truth than students, then taxing overhead costs is a ridiculous idea. We don't tax business expenses, why would we tax educational institution business expenses?