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A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

president.mit.edu

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Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#491

Post by seanmcdirmid »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #352
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having actually lived in Mississippi, I’ve seen the disenfranchisement first hand. But what can we do? We can’t fix Mississippi, they will have to want to fix themselves, so why not let them explore more fully the consequences of their own actions? Mississippi thinks California is keeping them down, then without California they would have to start blaming themselves more.

> then without California they would have to start blaming themselves more Because blaming a foreign country for your woes just doesn't happen.

You know, we can blame China (another country I've lived in) all we want for our problems, and China definitely blames the US for a lot of its problems...but at the end of the day, the Chinese and the USA don't really have to care what the others think about them.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#493

Post by strix_varius »

quantgenius wrote: post #440

I don't know the situation at MIT in particular but overall creating some budgetary pressures for universities is probably a good thing. Every since it became near impossible to discharge student debt due to legislation in the Bush presidency that was designed to make student loans more easily available, the money spigot has been opened far too wide and this is largely funded by debt taken on by 18 year olds who aren…

Most of what you've said is true, but also largely unrelated to the content of the article, which is about funding research.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#494

Post by rangestransform »

danans wrote: post #244
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people leaving their home countries to make money in the US? To study and work, yes. We learned the trick when the Nazis chased off their scientists, doubled down on it by capturing Nazi scientists, and then developed it into a multi-decade advantage throughout the Cold War and the 1990s. Looking back, we started fucking it up with the Iraq War and financial crisis (see: A123 bankruptcy giving China its EV industry…

> A123 bankruptcy giving China its EV industry For those who aren't aware, A123 made the batteries for the GM EV1, which GM famously killed after killing the CA clean air regulation that gave rise to it.

A123 also owned the IP to lithium iron phosphate battery chemistry, which is now BYD’s claim to fame

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#496

Post by nomadygnt »

smith7018 wrote: post #466
nomadygnt wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a longer time to graduate to become the “world expert” in their field is fine if grad students weren’t paid next to nothing for the 60+ hours a week that they are expected to work. As it is now it’s better to finish as quickly as possible so they can have a real life.

Most applicants know that that outcome is antithetical to pursuing a PhD. It's common knowledge that a PhD involves 5-7 years of academic work (read: low pay) in pursuit of becoming an expert in a specialized topic. You don't enter a PhD program expecting to immediately make money or to graduate as soon as possible. It's not a coding bootcamp.

I agree with you. It is definitely what the PhD student signed up for. But like I said in a sibling reply I think if we are worried about having fewer grad students (not saying that we should be), then we may need to change the incentive structure surrounding the PhD programs to make it more worthwhile for people to invest the time and energy. Because how it is currently going it seems to me like fewer and fewer people are going to consider it worth the investment just for the credential alone.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#497

Post by codybontecou »

mswphd wrote: post #442
codybontecou wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some of the Chinese colleges worth paying attention to? Is most of the AI research coming from these colleges or are they primarily from private labs?

CSrankings.org is a (flawed for sure, but still) ranking of the research output of various graduate institutions. China has 3 of the top 10 ranked universities according to this ranking. https://csrankings.org/#/index?all&world

Oh this is neat. Thank you.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#498

Post by secabeen »

quantgenius wrote: post #440

I don't know the situation at MIT in particular but overall creating some budgetary pressures for universities is probably a good thing. Every since it became near impossible to discharge student debt due to legislation in the Bush presidency that was designed to make student loans more easily available, the money spigot has been opened far too wide and this is largely funded by debt taken on by 18 year olds who aren…

I know this is a common argument, but I would love to see some hard data about expenditures on administrative staff in Universities. Every time I look for this, I find that the expenditures on administrators has mostly gone up in the Health Care sectors of Higher Education. Instructional, student affairs and research administrators are up modestly.

Do you have any sources or citations to support the broad claims about increases in administrators or broad surplus revenue? As non-profits, if tuition is going up and all other fund sources are flat, then expenditures have to go up as well, there is no owner's profit to absorb excess revenue.

The best data I has is from the Education department, see the last part of this chart (Expenditure per full-time-equivalent student in constant 2022-23 dollars):

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_334.10.a...

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#499

Post by kittikitti »

As someone who is continuing graduate level education and explored programs from MIT, I find that the major deciding factor to be the administration's willingness to censor pro-Palestinian activity. I don't think it's worth all the time and money at that point. I'm not going to spend all those resources to get a zionist education.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#500

Post by Retric »

SecretDreams wrote: post #269
Retric wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite all the propaganda, unions work. In this case they got better pay and benefits.

I'm pro the concept of unions. They get a bad rep for 3 reasons: 1) They overly protect legitimately poor employees. This poisons the perception of unions. 2) Certain unions have too much power and probably shouldn't exist. E.g. police unions can grind a city to a halt if they don't consistently get a raise. Some teacher unions span a whole state/province - this gives them outsized power. I support these unions and w…

I think you’re missing the point #1 reason people talk negatively about unions, they cost shareholders and management money.

Essentially every large company and wealthy individual has a vested interest in reducing union power or preventing their formation, which results in a vast amount of anti union activity.

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