Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by didgetmaster » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:19 PM UTC

gryfft wrote: post #80

didgetmaster wrote: post #78

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…

> cheering on the Biden administration for doing similar things from the opposite angle What is the #1 thing you consider "a similar thing from an opposite angle?"

The complete disregard for our immigration laws was probably the biggest thing, even though there were a number of things that came close.

Millions were let across our borders with almost no vetting whatsoever. Criminals came in freely from all over the world bringing drugs, violence, and human trafficking with them.

The Biden administration acted more like a travel agent than a border enforcement force. Anyone who spoke up about it, was attacked.

Something more closely related to Trump's current actions against universities, was Biden's war on energy. Pipelines canceled. Lands and leases locked up. Taxes and regulations designed to reduce energy production.

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

#112

Post by superturkey650 » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:28 PM UTC

Detrytus wrote: post #79

ok_dad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, when Congress passes a budget, it’s actually a law that must be executed by the executive. There are actually other laws against impoundment and against the executive changing the budget. Trump is literally breaking the law but no one really cares to discuss that anymore since the gish gallop has be so quick this term.

Well, it's not that simple. Yes, Congress passes the bill saying that X billions of dollars have to be spent on universities, but that bill does not name every single university in US as beneficiary. That's what executive branch is for: to work out the details of how to implement the law passed by Congress. So, Trump taking money from Harvard and giving it to say, a community college in Tampa is technically still cor…

Why can’t he discriminate on political affiliation?

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

#113

Post by niemandhier » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:28 PM UTC

Göttingen and Berlin were arguably the best universities in the world in 1930.

They were not in 1940.

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

#114

Post by marricks » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

Papirola wrote: post #63

marricks wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe what’s under discussion is a students right to protest the US governments involvement in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

I believe you can protest whatever, even things that are not real (like the so called genocide, where the population actually grows). There should of course be limits to your protest: violence against people you disagree with should never be an option. PS: if you can stop the war by returning all the hostages, it's not a genocide.

both sides have hostages, and every country in the world besides the US and Israel call it one, in case you missed that

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

#115

Post by dekhn » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #90

People need to understand how the pharmacology pipeline works. The Federal government provides funds for research. That research finds novel compounds and new treatments. The product of that resaerch then gets transferred to private companies who commercialize it and then make massive profits from it. Generally speaking, drug companies don't research with one exception: patent extension. A given compound will be pate…

pharma does plenty of research outside of patent extension.

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

#116

Post by ryan93 » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #47

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BUT, I think the constant focus in the press on the Ivys when we talk about education is a huge distraction from how we are actually going to improve access, quality & cost to education in this county. Because the entire discussion around colleges of all sizes, who gets to go and who pays has been turned entirely into yet another fucking stupid culture war issue by Republicans, putting rural/tradesman "real" Americ…

RE: our parents working their way through college, I think two things happened at least, yes. Reagan gutted education spending. But also the bifurcation of blue vs white collar wages really accelerated through the last 40 years. That is the spread between what my dad made working at a record store vs the professor/admin staff/etc at his college made increased tremendously. Think about it - minimum wage at federal lev…

How credulous do you have to be to attribute education funding to a president from 40 years ago?

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

#117

Post by UncleMeat » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

snickerbockers wrote: post #44

Kapura wrote: 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.

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…

> The judicial branch has authority to stop him but they're only supposed to use it if they are convinced that what he's doing is unconstitutional.

This is not true. They can also stop him if what he is doing is illegal. Statute can absolutely constrain the executive.

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

#118

Post by aianus » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:33 PM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #110

To be clear: It's not as simple as funding for these schools being taken away. What's being threatened is funding for research being done at these schools. That's a huge difference.

Does the admin of the school get any of this money today or is it entirely allocated to the individual researchers?

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

#119

Post by ajmurmann » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

lowercased wrote: post #93

mattlutze wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many people think these are funds to just run the universities. By and large, what is being withheld are funds for research. Federally-funded academic science often looks like: 1. The university + government fund/run a project 2. Project creates new knowledge (cool!) 3. The government gets a pretty awesome license to use that knowledge 4. The government more often than not gives that knowledge away (or offers gre…

It's that last step - 5 - which I think is a missing piece of the discussion. A lot of private company pharma and medical research is often doing the 'last mile' work that started in university research programs. Stuff that looks promising is picked up and commercialized, but there's usually significant work the research people have done before big commercial players take it to market. They're not doing all their res…

It even goes beyond the concrete research that eventually gets commercialized. One pharma startup I am familiar with has much of its research-related leadership and board staffed with very successful current or former academic researchers who used to run their own labs or even departments. We cannot shift skill acquisition like that over night to private industry.

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

#120

Post by arduanika » Wed, Apr 30, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #110

To be clear: It's not as simple as funding for these schools being taken away. What's being threatened is funding for research being done at these schools. That's a huge difference.

It's not as simple as that, either. Every research grant comes with an "overhead" charge on top that goes to the university admin, which can be something like 60%.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/02/10/lies-damn-lies-and-un...

And moreover, it's not just the research grants that are being threatened, as seen in TFA. There's also the massive subsidy in the form of tax exemption. No other hedge funds receive that kind of preferred tax treatment. Only universities.