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Three big problems: 1) Emphasis on funding translational research using government grants, which industry would otherwise be doing on its own. Hence, industry
by jostmey 10y ago
Three big problems:
1) Emphasis on funding translational research using government grants, which industry would otherwise be doing on its own. Hence, industry jobs have evaporated while basic science has languished.
2) Institutional salary caps on Grad students/Post docs, so training funds stretch too far resulting in an oversupply of entry level jobs. Better to pay the best people at competitive wages.
3) Growing divide between industry and academia, making job hopping even harder. Everybody is left worse off.
- typetypetype 10y ago4) Universities accepting more students into programs than could possibly get an academic job.
- jostmey 10y agoWouldn't be a problem if universities competed with each other to nab students with the highest scores. Universities would spend more money hiring students, leaving Universities unable to hire as many students.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago> Wouldn't be a problem if universities competed with each other to nab students with the highest scores Why do you think they don't now?
- mattkrause 10y agoA huge part of the issue, which you hint at in #2, is the "training" part. Most research is actually performed by trainees: undergrads, grad students, and some postdocs. This is silly because 1) the "training" is often pretty minimal (my PhD involved less coursework than an undergrad masters) and 2) most of the people doing most of the work have no idea what they are doing. Nevertheless, this still happens because there are TONS of established funding mechanisms for trainees: REU (and similar per-university programs for undergrads), and individual (NRSA) and institutional training grants (T31) for postdocs and grad students. In contrast, there are very few ways to fund more experienced individuals who are not running their own lab. This is bad for those people, and also bad for the institutions.
- Fomite 10y agoThere's more to training than coursework.
- mattkrause 10y agoSure, I don't want to sell my PhD program too short. There were lots of visiting speakers (which needs $$$), journal clubs, workshops and things like that. There was a terrific library, and an environment where many That said, actual training on doing research was pretty damn thin on the group.