An assistantship is a job. So they are trading work for the school in return for reduced tuition. I never heard of a free graduate school education anywhere. You should get your facts straight.
Yes you’re right, teaching assistants have jobs. I guess what upset me was seeing how easily intelligent, bright people were avoiding employment by hanging on to the universities as a way to live by their wits, long after they have gotten an “education,” using every government handout they could get and the realization that our increasing dependency on government has become a way of life for them. That it’s not just the urban poor who have become dependent on government, it is the middle class as well.