Most liberal arts PhD programs at good schools, they pay you to come. It you don’t get tuition remission and a stipend, don’t go!
In science and engineering they normally won’t even accept students if the department does not have the money to pay tuition and a stipend. One of the schools I applied to did not have the money, the others did. So I went where they had the money to pay me.
Amen. Graduate student teaching assistants get a stipend and tuition waiver. If you don’t have the credentials to get one you won’t wind up with the credentials to get a university job. My daughter got a masters in voice performance. Of five schools she was admitted to she went to the one she didn’t have to pay for.
BTW she has a great job: not in music but gained the smart skills that make her marketable. Has never interviewed for a job she didn’t get.
That is true for other programs as well.
If you are in engineering or computer science and paying for a PhD you are doing something terribly wrong.