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Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

economist.com

101–110 of 311 posts

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feds aren’t funding ivies for the purpose of education, they’re funding researchers who happen to work at the ivies to do research.

Multiple people pointing this out, and absolutely right. Some question though of how all the research grants do kind of cross-subsidize the education in a way as it pays for research professors, their graduate staff, etc? Otherwise why do we collocate research and teaching?

We did so because having all laboratories be government run was inefficient so in WW2 we decided to split the costs with private and public universities who will maintain labs, equipment, and the federal government will pay directly for the research.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a democracy, not a bureaucracy. The executive branch is governed by a single representative elected by the people. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the people didn't make a great choice this time but our constitutional republic is also one of the foundational pillars of american strength and trump being an idiot doesn't change that. The judicial branch has authority to stop him but they're only su…

If a presidential candidate promises to break the law in his campaign, that does not give him the authority to break the law. We are a constitutional republic and the constitution must be followed. It's quite clear that the current President does not give a damn about the constitution, know anything about it, or have any compunction about blatant violation of the constitution. > Otherwise, all authority in the execut…

> If a presidential candidate promises to break the law in his campaign, that does not give him the authority to break the law.

The Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#103
post #11

This framing conveniently ignores the question of whether the president should have the authority to single-handedly withhold funding for universities, broadly considered to be one of the foundational pillars of America's strength in the 20th century. While I think it's interesting and answers the specific question it raises, it's wild that the economist has just accepted that the president has dictatorial powers.

if you want to go that way, you're conveniently ignoring if congress should have the authority to allocate funds to nonprofits that aren't part of the government under the enumerated uses in article I section 8.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#104
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, the funding in question is research grants. There's an argument that research is more effective at the universities that have concentrated the best researchers.

There’s also an argument that public funds should go to public schools.

What about private research institutes? They don’t really educate anyone, not in the way that people think of when they say education. Why must all funds only go to public organizations?

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#105
post #11

This framing conveniently ignores the question of whether the president should have the authority to single-handedly withhold funding for universities, broadly considered to be one of the foundational pillars of America's strength in the 20th century. While I think it's interesting and answers the specific question it raises, it's wild that the economist has just accepted that the president has dictatorial powers.

Certainly one could argue if evidence of widespread racism by specific institutions should face punishment by the executive. It is entirely reasonable to believe that we should turn the cheek to institutional racism so that we can get good research out of it.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#106

private schools shouldn't be getting public money. shocking people disagree. yes they do research that benefits the public. so does Meta and Google, who don't get public money. public money should go to public schools. especially considering that the PIs who do the work in the private school scenario effectively boost the private school's clout with public money, but these private schools do not increase accessibilit…

What about private research institutes which do no education of undergraduates? What do you base your pronouncement on?

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#107

It is part of the political reality that we live in. Whichever party is currently in power, will inevitably use that power to promote ideas that are favorable to them and to dissuade ideas that they are opposed to. The same people who are whining about the Trump administration abusing their power by doing these things; were cheering on the Biden administration for doing similar things from the opposite angle. This is…

I'm not aware of mass cancelling of research grants under Biden in the same way Trump is doing. The Trump to Biden transition took place during my PhD, and I never heard a peep about anything similar. Now all I hear about is cancelled grants.

Under Biden, many grants did have to appeal to liberal sensibilities to be selected, but he didn't order all grants that didn't focus on DEI cancelled in 2021. I'm not even sure if "inclusion" was added to the NSF's list of "broader impacts" under Biden or well before him.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the government paying for a service. Should a private cement company get public money for delivering cement?

> This is the government paying for a service. a service public schools can do.

Public works departments can deliver the cement. It’s more efficient to have the cement hauler do so.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#109

I am not a fan of the orange man. But I think its an interesting question if the feds should be funding rich Ivies with small numbers of students vs more efficient state universities which educated 100s of thousands each at a fraction of the cost per student. All of the Ivy League combined educate 65k undergrads. SUNY by comparison educates 5x that many at a tuition of 1/5th to 1/10th depending on in/out of state and…

So far, the funding in question is research grants. There's an argument that research is more effective at the universities that have concentrated the best researchers.

Top US state schools have a lot of really good researchers.
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