For PhD programs in the US and Canada, it is categorically unadvisable to accept anything less than a funded offer.
You do get funded offers already. Anything extra you want to consume should be compensated with a loan. It has nothing to do with me not knowing anything about grad education. You're lucky you even get funding, be grateful.
Moreover, you don't want your PhD candidates at U of T to be taking out loans. You want them to come here instead of Princeton, or Harvard, or McGill, or wherever else they get offers from.
But if what you said was true, then there wouldn't be any grad students here because according to you, they'd already be at Harvard or other institutions with better funding. Your comment makes no sense. There are other factors to consider - even funding - when you make the decision for where to study.
That's what gives the university its prestige. And you rely on that prestige.
The university's prestige is not contingent on grad students only. These individuals are assisting the professors in doing certain work. I'd give the professors much more credit. I rely on faculty more than grad students. Show me a PhD thesis in the last 5 years that has been directly correlated with more prestige for U of T and its students/faculty. Putting out more and more research doesn't necessarily translate over to more prestige.
"You're no different than undergrads except for the fact you take higher level courses." Again, this is false. PhD students do high-level research for the university.
You don't see the bigger picture here. We're all students and adults. We should all pay tuition to cover the costs for the university. Who cares if you're learning at a lower level of education or not? What makes you that much more special? If it weren't for undergrads, you wouldn't get funding or even research in good facilities. If it weren't for you then research would move at a snail-like pace. Everybody depends on everybody and if you think for a second that you deserve to be on some pedestal then you're very arrogant and conceited.
In that case, pay all the costs of your education all by yourself and stop asking for others to subsidize your education.