101–110 of 157 posts
Johns Hopkins has a business school, the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, which was peculiarly not mentioned in the essay. You'd think their own business school would be capable of bringing fiscal sanity to the university?
What is the fiscal insanity of taking money from someone and spending it for your benefit (with some strings attached, which are usually minor)?
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Why would they not accept money to do something they are interested in doing? What is the downside to the school of a nicer student union or a public policy/international relations campus in the nation's capital?
Because that's not what the GP was talking about. For example, say there is some controversial economic policy passed by one of the parties. Then a researcher goes out to research if the policy is working or not. But when they do the research, they find out that the policy doesn't work and has bad side effects too. However, the majority of the university votes and supports the party that passed the policy. So the res…
Whether you believe what he said or not, my questions remain.
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What is the fiscal insanity of taking money from someone and spending it for your benefit (with some strings attached, which are usually minor)?
The article explains it reasonably well.
In case it wasn't clear, I don't agree that the original article explains it well.
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Am I misunderstanding your post?: you're implying that HYPSM increase their matriculation by ten times? These "elite" colleges,—one of which I've attended for graduate school,—have serious issues already with becoming degree mills; degrees have depreciated enormously in value over the last several decades: consider the collapse in being able to find a tenure track research position, even from one of these colleges. I…
> Actual "quality of education" mostly comes from a low staff/student ratio and direct access of students to elite researchers: this difference in education mostly takes the form of better research labs to work in, with some spillover into office hours I don't agree with this at all. Quality of education imho comes from being surrounded by fellow elite students so that the pace of the syllabi can remain high. lower t…
Only if the school mandates a quota of passing grades. Not sure about HYPSM but anecdotally at my (Canadian) alma mater no such quota existed: the pass rate for 3rd year fluid dynamics was in the 40% ballpark, for example.
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Am I misunderstanding your post?: you're implying that HYPSM increase their matriculation by ten times? These "elite" colleges,—one of which I've attended for graduate school,—have serious issues already with becoming degree mills; degrees have depreciated enormously in value over the last several decades: consider the collapse in being able to find a tenure track research position, even from one of these colleges. I…
> Actual "quality of education" mostly comes from a low staff/student ratio and direct access of students to elite researchers: this difference in education mostly takes the form of better research labs to work in, with some spillover into office hours I don't agree with this at all. Quality of education imho comes from being surrounded by fellow elite students so that the pace of the syllabi can remain high. lower t…
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s/gets/accepts Nobody is waterboarding the money down their throat. They can say no. The actual question is: why don't they?
Why would they not accept money to do something they are interested in doing? What is the downside to the school of a nicer student union or a public policy/international relations campus in the nation's capital?
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Johns Hopkins gets a lot of money from vested interests to push whatever suits them.
s/gets/accepts Nobody is waterboarding the money down their throat. They can say no. The actual question is: why don't they?
Leaving aside that metaphor, the obvious answer is that they either like or need it. Most likely the former, because many of these well known universities are swimming in money already.
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Having personally run a college P&L, this dodges the bigger sunk costs of higher education: 1. Old and expensive to maintain land 2. High cost of living for all staff (weighted heaviest towards faculty) 3. Ancillaries that are revenue negative, _very_ expensive, and inconsequential to the purpose of the education (eg. the lacrosse team and the Polo Club) It's nice to point fingers at the people who are taking very he…
How old is typical university land, compared to the average age of land in the same city?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glebe (for Northern Virginia residents who have always wondered)
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The fall of the Bretton Woods system was inevitable due to trade imbalances that ballooned in the 1960s. The U.S. Dollar was pegged to an artificially high value and the French central bank was right to arbitrage it by withdrawing specie. Simply resetting all the exchange rates was not sufficient, especially since the Federal Reserve under Nixon continued inflating the currency. The need to have variable rates was de…
Speaking completely out of my ass in the interest of stimulating thought on the matter: the fall of the Bretton Woods system was not inevitable, and the trade imbalances of the 1960s were mere symptoms of the true source of the collapse of our ability to maintain the peg. Post-war, we embarked on a number of massive and economically-inefficient expeditions, driven largely by xenophobia and racism, which inflated the…
I have a more sanguine feeling about America's development through its short history. It embarked on a series of many experiments, many which were successful and many which had terrible externalities. At the time, most people thought they were doing the most reasonable thing. For example, the huge benefit one family got from owning a car, it would follow that all families owning one would have even more benefits. It turned out that suburbanization hits scaling limits, but it was not immediately apparent at the time.
Overall, the standard of living for the median American is higher than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the immediacy of information has caused widespread anxiety. In the 1990s and 2000s, we thought the same optimistic thoughts about interconnected information networks.
I have faith that we will adapt to this new reality, just in time for the next technological wave to catch us off guard. Maybe it will be cheap artificial intelligence.
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Am I misunderstanding your post?: you're implying that HYPSM increase their matriculation by ten times? These "elite" colleges,—one of which I've attended for graduate school,—have serious issues already with becoming degree mills; degrees have depreciated enormously in value over the last several decades: consider the collapse in being able to find a tenure track research position, even from one of these colleges. I…
I mean, is the goal of an elite college to educate? Or is the benefit to sift through the population and pluck out its masters? I don't really care that UC has a lower "reputation" than Harvard or Stanford. The fact is, the UC system has produced more fundamental research and more actual value for the population and the world at large than Harvard or Stanford. Even if a UC degree is not quite the "golden ticket" that…
My public alma mater was a tremendous force multiplier for upward mobility. Many of my peers were first generation college students. They’re now scientists, doctors, and engineers. Few of them will become famous—they mostly just make the world tick.
My current private institution concentrates already wealthy people. These folks mostly go out and become consultants. They’re consumed with the idea of becoming “thought leaders.”
Which one really provides more value? I have strong opinions.