I'm international so I would work for peanuts but they pay pretty well - werkgeversreview Graduate Research Assistant bij MIT

Great research opportunities in EECS

Can be difficult to manage claszes

High quality core facilities and well resourced labs. Countless brilliant colleagues who can serve as mentors and collaborators

Students and Postdocs are expensive due to high overhead, so unreasonably high productivity is often expected compared to other institutions. PIs are typically stretched very thin. Most departments/labs are very space limited which makes it harder to do safe and productive research.