They already went to college. PhD students are employees doing self guided research that brings in lots of recognition and money to these institutions. They are making little money yet doing work harder than 99.9% of people. They should not be demeaned. There are many work environments that are not like this and we should not pretend like it is the norm. If it is genuinely the norm, the we should work to fix it, not just say 'thats how the world works.' we get to define how the world works. Let's make it less shitty.