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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)

#31

Post by ideamotor »

_yb2s wrote: post #30

As a US academic at a prestigious institution, I find it surprising how few of my close colleagues and collaborators are US born- a very small percentage (maybe 10-20%?). In some sense it makes sense that if our institutions are best, the globally best researchers would all come here. If it were a true meritocracy, I guess we would expect ~4-5% of US academics to be US born, given that it's our percentage of the worl…

We don’t live in a meritocracy even just in our own country. It’s a myth that is used to justify bad behavior.

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

#32

Post by streptomycin »

dekhn wrote: post #27
tnel77 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US chronically underfunds pre-college education. Universities are typically flush with money coming from grants usually from the government but also rich people. Often a large fraction of the grant money a professor obtains is siphoned off to dean's lush funds which help support education, hiring top professors, etc.

> The US chronically underfunds pre-college education

Not true, US spends more on pre-college education than nearly any other country https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

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

#33

Post by beefman »

anovikov wrote: post #26
beefman wrote: post #21

Throughout history, the leading empire or nation (by GDP) has always had the best universities. Also the best music industry, the best visual arts, etc. Ok, that's just what GDP measures, so it's a bit tautological. (Or is it?) It sure as hell isn't whatever policy these authors determined was most likely out of the 3 or 4 they considered using regression over a time period containing one observation of the dependent…

Not really. Austro-Hungarian Empire was an undisputed leader in music and one of the top in visual arts too, while it's economy was absolutely sucking, and technologies terribly outdated.

You're referring to Vienna. It's broadly part of Europe and narrowly functions as its own city-state. Its intermediate allegiance may be less important.

It's long had outsized musical influence but was only the world leader in music during the classical period, roughly 1750-1820. This does not overlap Austria-Hungary. However, I don't know the economic output of the Habsburg monarchy relative to the rest of Europe, so it may still be an exception.

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

#34

Post by silvestrov »

abadger9 wrote: post #28

I've wished at least 2 dozen times over the last decade that the nordics had better research universities. I spent a portion of my life in Finland and the quality of life is so much better there, I would say it's probably unattainable here (the reduced crime, the affordability of everything, lack of homelessness, a more well educated population, etc.). Unfortunately the research being done at the top universities the…

Problem in Denmark is that every small town wants their own university.

You can't have 5 research universities in a country of 5 million people.

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

#36

Post by hderms »

_yb2s wrote: post #30

As a US academic at a prestigious institution, I find it surprising how few of my close colleagues and collaborators are US born- a very small percentage (maybe 10-20%?). In some sense it makes sense that if our institutions are best, the globally best researchers would all come here. If it were a true meritocracy, I guess we would expect ~4-5% of US academics to be US born, given that it's our percentage of the worl…

There are huge obstacles for foreigners to move to the US and work, but higher education is also one of the most straightforward paths to the immigration pipeline (afaik as someone who's never dealt with it themselves). I believe that indicates there are two opposing forces, so the relative proportions being off would likely be expected as we don't know which force is stronger.

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

#37

Post by [deleted] »

silvestrov wrote: post #34
abadger9 wrote: post #28

I've wished at least 2 dozen times over the last decade that the nordics had better research universities. I spent a portion of my life in Finland and the quality of life is so much better there, I would say it's probably unattainable here (the reduced crime, the affordability of everything, lack of homelessness, a more well educated population, etc.). Unfortunately the research being done at the top universities the…

Problem in Denmark is that every small town wants their own university. You can't have 5 research universities in a country of 5 million people.

[deleted]

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

#38

Post by Enginerrrd »

ideamotor wrote: post #31
_yb2s wrote: post #30

As a US academic at a prestigious institution, I find it surprising how few of my close colleagues and collaborators are US born- a very small percentage (maybe 10-20%?). In some sense it makes sense that if our institutions are best, the globally best researchers would all come here. If it were a true meritocracy, I guess we would expect ~4-5% of US academics to be US born, given that it's our percentage of the worl…

We don’t live in a meritocracy even just in our own country. It’s a myth that is used to justify bad behavior.

We also don't live in the antithesis of a meritocracy either.

Competency is usually rewarded, and rewards are pretty well correlated with competency.

There's plenty of room in the tails one can cite to justifyany opinion on the matter, but on average I think we're far more meritocratic than not.

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

#39

Post by qikInNdOutReply »

Protestant readyness to suffer as a martyr for a imagined supressed cause, same is to be expected from iranian universities and israeli universities.

Subversive society streaks exist. Problems often can not be brute forced economically or within a given reference framework, so its interesting having people who "go around the problem" without gaming the system in total. So you want a punk mentality, but not a wallstreet trader to produce real value.

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

#40

Post by Cwizard »

Test0129 wrote: post #10

> Combined with sorting dynamics that concentrated talent and resources at some schools—and the emergence of tenure—this enhanced research performance. Something tells me this is only part of the story. Yes, after several wars we took in scientists who subsequently brought new ideas, improved teaching, etc to the country. But this ignores the biggest factor: US universities have tremendous endowments [1]. Having depl…

How is the comparison to GDP relevant? GDP is the amount of good and services a country produced in a year expressed in some currency. An endowment is an amount of money? Totally different things I would say? But I have seen this type of phrasing a lot in the media. I don’t understand the connection.
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