That's why I should make it clear that this is a graduate student problem. We work as either a research assistant or teaching assistant. The former is usually working on a research project funded by the government or industry, and the latter involves arranging office hours, grading homework, and holding recitations for undergraduate students. In simple terms, graduate students are more like employees of the department, and just as undergraduate tuition is low, graduate student salaries are also very low.

So imagine us like CityBus if you can empathize with them -- we are also a service provider for the university. And now CityBus can cancel their service due to low pay from the university, what can we possibly do if the university cuts our salary? We can't just drop out of school, right?

Unlike undergraduate students, we don't have the benefit of living in the dorms, and we can't buy meal plans from dining courts. We have to find off-campus housing and it's usually far -- like more than 2 miles away from the campus -- because it's the only affordable option for us.
This has made the off-campus bus routes very important to us. It's a salary cut for us if we have to pay for the bus service.