Maybe. A lot of lab supplies are much more expensive than do-it-yourself versions because:

* they aren't mass-produced,

* the people who are employed to make them are highly paid,

* the supply of grad student labor to substitute for them is limited,

* the required quality is high,

* and the costs of defective goods are high.

So high prices don't necessarily mean that Edmund Scientific is colluding with, I don't know, Siemens, to fix prices at above-market rates. It more likely means that it's damned hard to make a profit selling cheap electron microscopes.

There is a simpler explanation. What do you suppose the availability of government grant money to most purchasers does to the price of a product?

In this case, I suspect that the answer is that it creates a market where none existed before, because the price scientists were willing to pay was lower than the price where anyone could make money selling TEMs or SEMs.

I haven't ever written a grant proposal, but I have the impression that if the committee thinks you'll be wasting the grant money, you're less likely to get the grant. I'd be interested to hear about your grantwriting experiences, especially if they're different.