<p>Grad students shouldn’t be too big of a deal, as they’re actually a large cash cow for schools. I know UCLA uses its engineering departments as a way to bring in lots of money as they admit many people to their MS program. Even funded PhD students are being paid for at sticker price by their professor, so the school’s making money off of them too. And since grad students take up significantly fewer resources than undergrads do (at least the places I’ve been they seem to be much less involved in campus life and catered to by the school), they might actually turn a profit unlike undergrads.</p>