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Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

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Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#11

Post by adamsmith143 »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3

I would love an accounting of things that the universities have discovered that have trickled down to the public in the past century. I'm still using essentially the same internal combustion vehicle, phone, and literally everything that I was using decades ago and more or less that my parents were using. My phone is a little better, that's about it. What is this 150 billion of our tax dollars a year getting us? A tel…

>Elon Musk has moved the needle much more than all of the universities combined it seems like.

Well certainly most of his engineers he employees were educated, and this is shocking, at Universities.

Where do you think all the fundamental research into Aerodynamics, Materials Science, etc. happened that has made his company even feasible?

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#12

Post by Test0129 »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3

I would love an accounting of things that the universities have discovered that have trickled down to the public in the past century. I'm still using essentially the same internal combustion vehicle, phone, and literally everything that I was using decades ago and more or less that my parents were using. My phone is a little better, that's about it. What is this 150 billion of our tax dollars a year getting us? A tel…

One might wonder where Elon gets his ideas from. Perhaps he's standing on the shoulders of thousands of man-years of research and development paid for by the American people. You may be surprised to learn how much R&D technology that takes telescopic photographs of chorizo ends up in your pocket as your phone, smartwatch, etc. Elon fetishism has no place in this argument. He's an end user of the system. I am not even sure how it can compare.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#13

Post by CrazyStat »

t_mann wrote: post #6

Frankly, I find the basic premise of this paper - the explanation for US academic excellence lies in resource allocation and management - questionable. I'd be more interested in a theory of political scientists who explain it as a function of political power. Considering that Germany was the world's research powerhouse in the 19th century, I'd like to see the hypothesis 'You can't have the best universities in the wo…

Are you suggesting the US should start and lose some world wars in order to test that hypothesis?

The things people will do for science!

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#14

Post by xxpor »

eatonphil wrote: post #4

Two US research university professors (presumably funded by a US federal agency, NBER) agreeing that the US has the best research universities doesn't seem very independent.

NBER is not a federal agency. It's a non-profit, whose funding is partially from the US gov via grants.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#15

Post by eatonphil »

xxpor wrote: post #14
eatonphil wrote: post #4

Two US research university professors (presumably funded by a US federal agency, NBER) agreeing that the US has the best research universities doesn't seem very independent.

NBER is not a federal agency. It's a non-profit, whose funding is partially from the US gov via grants.

Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#16

Post by adamsmith143 »

eatonphil wrote: post #4

Two US research university professors (presumably funded by a US federal agency, NBER) agreeing that the US has the best research universities doesn't seem very independent.

Well you can find rankings from across the world: THE, ARWU, QS, Leiden, etc that all show the same thing. US Universities dominate them.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#17

Post by jeffbee »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3

I would love an accounting of things that the universities have discovered that have trickled down to the public in the past century. I'm still using essentially the same internal combustion vehicle, phone, and literally everything that I was using decades ago and more or less that my parents were using. My phone is a little better, that's about it. What is this 150 billion of our tax dollars a year getting us? A tel…

This is one of the most ignorant comments I’ve seen, and I weep for a future where people think that cramming flashlight batteries into cars is as big an achievement as eradicating polio, discovering the structure of dna, developing vaccines that prevent common cancers, creating the whole concept of open source software, or editing genes.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#18

Post by jeffbee »

hdhdhsjsbdh wrote: post #8
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3

I would love an accounting of things that the universities have discovered that have trickled down to the public in the past century. I'm still using essentially the same internal combustion vehicle, phone, and literally everything that I was using decades ago and more or less that my parents were using. My phone is a little better, that's about it. What is this 150 billion of our tax dollars a year getting us? A tel…

> Elon Musk has moved the needle much more than all of the universities combined it seems like. This is incredibly narrow-sighted. How many of “Elon Musk’s” (really, the people he employs) achievements have been made possible by foundational scientific research funded by public grants and made available to the broader community? I would argue a nontrivial amount. Much of tech entrepreneurship is technology transfer,…

Nothing from any of Musk’s enterprises has been even slightly innovative, scientifically. He is an industrial technologist, which is fine, but it means he scales up known processes.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#19

Post by tnel77 »

jschveibinz wrote: post #2

US government funding of university research and operations is a very important factor. In 2018, almost $150 billion USD in total was invested in universities. https://datalab.usaspending.gov/colleges-and-universities/ https://www.science.org/content/article/pandemic-pounds-us-u...

I’m told that we don’t spend anything on education so this must be false.

Re: Why Does the U.S. Have the Best Research Universities? (2020)

#20

Post by jacobr1 »

projectramo wrote: post #5
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3

I would love an accounting of things that the universities have discovered that have trickled down to the public in the past century. I'm still using essentially the same internal combustion vehicle, phone, and literally everything that I was using decades ago and more or less that my parents were using. My phone is a little better, that's about it. What is this 150 billion of our tax dollars a year getting us? A tel…

Whom does he hire to help build those cars, rockets and tunnels? Graduates of universities or Oompa Loompas?

To charitably read and steel-man the GP's comment, one could argue that while undergraduate education is fine - there are better patterns of research - such as industry (bell labs, spaceX, google ml research), or government (oak ridge, NASA center). That the mixed mission between doing research and teaching at the same time in a T1 research university doesn't work as well as more formally separating those functions.

I'm pretty sure I don't agree with the above ^, it probably discounts the value of grad-school research as an apprenticeship model amongst other drawbacks. But it does have some merit to bear consideration. Surely the current model isn't perfect - where could we improve?

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