Thanks for the details. Vinay Prasad had a post on this, and thought the 15% wasn't so bad. A lot of people would like to have the fat cut, but as you point out, the risk is that the bloated admins "rules are for thee, and not for me" will sacrifice the actual support people and save their own overpaid jobs. i'm sure they would do this while proclaiming far and wide "oh, look at what we have to cut, oh, shame on Trump and Musk...."
We'll see how it turns out, I guess.
UC and CSU systems in Calif took in over 2 billion in NIH contracts in 2023 fiscal year. That explains the loud panic and lawsuits now, as well as why those organizations pushed Covid vax so much.
Anyway, thanks for the post, as well as the last one you did.
I talked to a colleague about Vinay's comments, actually. Vinay is from Stanford, where they have endowments. Some universities (like mine) don't have those. Stanford is also pretty big compared to other schools, and I bet that with the amount of research dollars coming in there, the total dollars from indirects is more than for smaller universities.
But what about tuition and state funding? How much of a university’s budget comes from that? What about the money the sports programs bring in? How much of a budget actually goes to educating the student, which is the number one purpose of a university, isn’t it?
State funding varies based on whether the school is a state school or private. I think that's a valid point, but I also think that some schools (like mine that is private) don't get as much from the state. But it's a valid point, and those dollars should be accounted for. Tuition dollars... apparently there is a huge sucking sound as far as those go. My department teaches primarily grad students, and our dept budget sees relatively little return on tuition. Less than you would think anyway. Which sadly explains why not enough attention is given to education when faculty are still expected to bring in 70% of their salaries on grants (where does that leave time for teaching? Leadership doesn't actually care.)
Back in the previous cent. at UC Santa Cruz I read and was told the U's mission was:
1) Public service.
2) research and
3) teaching.
Being the lowly instructional physics lab. mgr. I had a Prof. supervisor. Once I walked in to his office while he was on the phone with a lay person. He was explaining some physics principle. On hanging up he explained he'd just done some public service. I, thereby, justified much time assisting faculty and staff at the local Community College. In addition to my obvious job of ensuring the smooth running of the labs, I instructed the TAs in the intricacies of the lab's experiments and even assisted grad. students in their dissertation work.
Thanks for the details. Vinay Prasad had a post on this, and thought the 15% wasn't so bad. A lot of people would like to have the fat cut, but as you point out, the risk is that the bloated admins "rules are for thee, and not for me" will sacrifice the actual support people and save their own overpaid jobs. i'm sure they would do this while proclaiming far and wide "oh, look at what we have to cut, oh, shame on Trump and Musk...."
We'll see how it turns out, I guess.
UC and CSU systems in Calif took in over 2 billion in NIH contracts in 2023 fiscal year. That explains the loud panic and lawsuits now, as well as why those organizations pushed Covid vax so much.
Anyway, thanks for the post, as well as the last one you did.
I talked to a colleague about Vinay's comments, actually. Vinay is from Stanford, where they have endowments. Some universities (like mine) don't have those. Stanford is also pretty big compared to other schools, and I bet that with the amount of research dollars coming in there, the total dollars from indirects is more than for smaller universities.
But what about tuition and state funding? How much of a university’s budget comes from that? What about the money the sports programs bring in? How much of a budget actually goes to educating the student, which is the number one purpose of a university, isn’t it?
State funding varies based on whether the school is a state school or private. I think that's a valid point, but I also think that some schools (like mine that is private) don't get as much from the state. But it's a valid point, and those dollars should be accounted for. Tuition dollars... apparently there is a huge sucking sound as far as those go. My department teaches primarily grad students, and our dept budget sees relatively little return on tuition. Less than you would think anyway. Which sadly explains why not enough attention is given to education when faculty are still expected to bring in 70% of their salaries on grants (where does that leave time for teaching? Leadership doesn't actually care.)
Purpose:
Back in the previous cent. at UC Santa Cruz I read and was told the U's mission was:
1) Public service.
2) research and
3) teaching.
Being the lowly instructional physics lab. mgr. I had a Prof. supervisor. Once I walked in to his office while he was on the phone with a lay person. He was explaining some physics principle. On hanging up he explained he'd just done some public service. I, thereby, justified much time assisting faculty and staff at the local Community College. In addition to my obvious job of ensuring the smooth running of the labs, I instructed the TAs in the intricacies of the lab's experiments and even assisted grad. students in their dissertation work.
bc (PhD)