The current system takes as given that young scholars ought to be able to get by with very little guidance. I think that would be a principled stand to take, were they not students -- I think that being a student implies a certain right to mentorship and support that employees do not have. If you want to give me on-paper tuition dollars and call that compensation, I'd better be getting some work out of you, is what I'm saying.

I'm not arguing that my system would lead to better management. (Terrible management is still management; Dilbert's boss is a manager, even if he's lousy.) I'm merely wondering what would happen if we dropped the pretense of close mentoring and replaced it with salary befitting someone with a bachelor's degree. It might not make science trainees any happier -- though I do think it could be salutary for some to hear explicitly, "Nobody cares whether you make it, so go buy some self-help books" -- but it might remediate the sense of unfairness that permeates the soured mentor relationship. It would at least make it truer that failure is the fault of the trainee -- which is something academics will tend to believe, whether or not it is true.