A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by busterarm » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

rangestransform wrote: post #488

nkoren wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many ways that America could be more democratic, and simultaneously produce less stupid results: 1. Eliminate / work around the electoral college system, which makes it so that people in the most diverse, educated, and economically-productive parts of the country have dramatically less voting power than a small minority of people who live in more homogeneous, less educated, and less economically-productive…

re:2, proportional representation systems oftentimes have more extremist parties elected, they’re just severely kneecapped by not having enough votes to do anything extremist

Except that they can hold your coalition government hostage by making you concede on their pet issue or leave the coalition and force an election.

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

#512

Post by mohamedkoubaa » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

jrflo wrote: post #147

Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all…

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

I decided not to get a PhD against the wishes of my professors and family members because I felt the opportunity cost was too high. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

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

#513

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #85

hgoel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about AI, it's about research funding and what the guys in charge think about science and education.

How big is MIT’s endowment? They really still need to be at the taxpayer trough?

[deleted]

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

#514

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

exegete wrote: post #385

buran77 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. I think this was always the case. The disillusionment isn't new and not all who are disillusioned will act on it. The rest just put their PhD where the money is, as always.

The trend is somewhat new if we look long term. The gap between PhD’s and number of openings in academia has gotten a lot worse.

[deleted]

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

#515

Post by mohamedkoubaa » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

cmiles8 wrote: post #155

Academia is about to go through a generational reset. The system is broken and the market only tolerates broken systems for so long. There are a ton of great things that come out of universities but it’s also clear that a model of charging folks well into the six-figures for a useless degree that doesn’t prepare them for the workforce is dead and a reckoning is underway. Many schools will fail and shut down. Of those…

It's simple. The US used to be the most desirable place for immigrants and the US higher education system used to be the envy of the world and now for both of these it is not any more. A reset was always inevitable.

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

#516

Post by JuniperMesos » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #406

simonw wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably 0% on their 401k returns, which is the more appropriate comparison point to an endowment.

Respectfully, comparing a janitor's 401k to a $27.4 billion endowment is (very) tone deaf. But yes, the tax goes against "keeping sacred systems sacred" principles and is an opinionated policy against rich entities that the current administration dislikes.

US federal government taxation policy shouldn't treat university endowments as sacred systems.

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

#517

Post by gekoxyz » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #495

> "new enrollments for next year are down close to 20%." Does this mean that MIT admitted fewer people, or that there are fewer applicants? The article does not seem to say.

From what I understood they admitted fewer people. The professors are worried about not having funds so they aren't hiring as much

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

#518

Post by j_maffe » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:08 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #448

j_maffe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very funny because up until very recently there was very little competition because one nation was dominating research using talents from other countries. Consider it as a weakening of a monopoly

You say that as if talent was kidnapped and dragged against their will. People go to the US because of an abundance of infrastructure and money. Which now goes down. It's a loss.

Those great minds will go to other nations where they're more appreciated.

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

#519

Post by j_maffe » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:10 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #403

j_maffe wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an aggressor loses their weapons, everyone else is a winner, yes.

MIT is not a weapon. The scientific community is not an aggressor.

The US is an aggressor. The research conducted in MIT and elsewhere in the US is literally used for weapons.

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

#520

Post by matthewdgreen » Thu, May 14, 2026, 7:10 PM UTC

tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

jrflo wrote: post #147

Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all…

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

Reviewing papers, writing papers, these are all part of what grad students do and what they should be doing to learn. They should be getting academic credit for it, however. Your friend sounds like he had an extremely unusual and bad experience, or there's a bit more to the story.