9 ms·

"I'm not convinced that this outweighs the benefits of funding hundreds, or even thousands of students/scientists in less prominent schools who might go on to m

by fsloth 9y ago

"I'm not convinced that this outweighs the benefits of funding hundreds, or even thousands of students/scientists in less prominent schools who might go on to make such discoveries themselves" While it's plausible anyone can discover anything, the only rule of thumb about finding great research is that great researchers generally train great researchers - or, to put another way, it's likeliest to end up doing nobel price worthy research by being trained by a nobel price winner. The other thing is bad schools do not turn magically into good schools by pooling money into them. Improving education requires human intervention by experts - experienced teachers and so on. Money helps, but if you are sitting on a 140 million dollars, you can't just donate it to some struggling place and imagine it will transform it to a better institution. Or, pick random ten laboratories that have done unremarkable research and imagine a grant of a 10 million dollars will improve the quality of their output. I think the only rational choices to well spend such a sum of money is to support established high performers, or, to proactively invest the money. If proactive involvement is not what the donor wanted then I can't really fault his decision to go with MIT. Or, well, if we follow the silly "nobel price winners beget nobel price winners" rule of thumb and use nobel prices as metric of research quality which itself is also silly, there would have been other options: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_uni...

entee 9y ago
There's a flaw in this reasoning: are Nobel winners actually training people better or do they simply have access to more money? In my experience researchers that get a lot of grants are able to fund lots of projects, which leads to smart people working for you, which leads to big publications, which leads to more grants. Nobel/Lasker/Name-your-prize winners are just some of the people at the top of the grant pyramid. In fact, I'd argue that who wins a Nobel is a bit of a stochastic/political process, there are tons of scientists who made Nobel-worthy contributions that never won one. That said, the outcome ends up being the same. Big/well funded labs tend to be started by smart people who had the advantages at big/well funded labs and the cycle continues, but I think the way things are funded is a big part of how that system works, not the inherent smarts/brilliance of the Professor. Also it's not about pooling money. I think the OP is making a comment on effectiveness for educating people. For example, Cooper Union, an exceptional institution in NY that has a history of training people to an MIT-level for essentially free has come upon hard times and has somewhat abandoned that free-education principle (granted this was due to some financial mismanagement, but a big donor could certainly force changes there). This was an institution that taught many disadvantaged students, particularly from the NY area who couldn't afford MIT and its compatriots. Perhaps the money would have had far more impact there? Or what about offering massive scholarships to people attending community colleges who have a helluva GPA but need help for childcare? $140M is an incredible gift, I can't help but think there are better ways to spend it than giving it to an institute that already gets massive amounts of grant and other money. Maybe a place that could really use it to help those that need it most?
- fsloth 9y ago
  I merely pointed out one plausible statistical strategy for distributing a donation if the idea is to cause an impact and not distribute the funds back to the economy more or less randomly - I have no idea what the underlying mechanism is. "Or what about offering massive scholarships to people attending community colleges who have a helluva GPA but need help for childcare?" That's proactive. But, then again, we know nothing on this donor. "Maybe a place that could really use it to help those that need it most?" And what place would that be? Who would exactly be those that 'need help most'? Where I'm from government tries to handle the material well being of those who've had the shortest end of the stick in life - no idea what charities would provide the best bang for buck in US. I would not call spending money on science wasteful in any case.
- gmarx 9y ago
  Two different issues- research labs/graduate training quality vs undergrad lectures and such. I doubt MIT teachers of basic science are the best in the world. Rather MIT attracts some of the smartest most motivated students in the world. More money won't do much for this. Research lab funding? I think at it's current steady state more money sent to MIT for research would likely find a useful currently unfunded study or group.
peter303 9y ago
Mark Zuckerberg generously gave 100M to improve the education system of Camden New Jersey. At the time the mayor was Stanford grad Cory Booker, now Senator, and future Presidential material. Camden was and still is a minority shithole of New Jersey. Neither Mark's generous gift nor Cory's public service had a lasting effect. Deeper structural problems. I do not know the answer.
- staplesowns 9y ago
  It was actually Newark...
- devb 9y ago
  "Minority shithole" is a bit harsh... I spend a lot of time in Newark and it is a much better place than it was twenty years ago.
  - mabramo 9y ago
    The Ironbound is getting nicer every year. Yesterday I was walking home from the train and there were young people everywhere. Definitely not what I am used to around here. Granted, the Ironbound could be a totally different city than the rest of Newark.
- addicted 9y ago
  Except the gift was nothing but funding the charter school grift (don't get me wrong, charter schools could work, and in some cases do work, but for the large part, in the US, the charter school movement has pretty much entirely been hijacked by union busters and people who want to profit off the privatization of education).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - HarryHirsch 9y ago
    Exactly. There are plenty of laboratory schools attached to universities, where teaching research is done under the eyes of the public. Those are as a rule doing well but Zuckerberg chose to boost unaccountable charter schools. Glad to see that it went as one would have predicted it to go.
foota 9y ago
I think the best educational utility of those millions of dollars would likely be subsidizing tuition for two year schools.
spike021 9y ago
On the other hand, more money means you can afford to pay for higher quality professors/staff/technology. I took a "big data" course on Map/Reduce, Hadoop, etc. We had to use VMs on our own laptops because the department couldn't afford to get us temporary AWS instances or similar. Sure money is not a quick fix for a bad school, but it opens up more opportunities than not.
- kolinko 9y ago
  Good salaries are necessary, but not sufficient to attract top level talent. If the whole environment is mediocre, it won't be able to produce better research or education, regardless of money. (Speaking as someone who graduated #1 university in Poland, but nowhere near #200 globally...)
  - glenneroo 9y ago
    Regarding your 2nd point, do those rankings actually provide any useful information? How is it fair to rate an entire university, especially when they offer multiple studies? Shouldn't the ranking be based on discipline e.g. software development, language, *ologies, etc.? Also #200 out of what? According to this Quora[0] question, there are anywhere between 26,000 and 40,000 universities globally. 200 out of 26,000 puts your university in the top 1%. https://www.quora.com/How-many-universities-are-there-in-the-US-and-the-world-and-whats-the-best-resource-to-find-this-data https://www.quora.com/How-many-universities-are-there-in-the...
  - lazerpants 9y ago
    This is actually part of the strength of a large gift to a university like MIT. Using the prestige of the university, and the money, you can bring in an entire cohort of capable scientists dedicated to a research area, and achieve scale via a "brain trust" that would otherwise be impossible. Other universities have indeed done this in the past with great success.
PatentTroll 9y ago
I like how the accepted dichotomy in this entire debate here in the comment is either MIT or bad school. There is an in between! There are lots of competent, well managed, and important educational institutions outside of the top 2-3 schools! Maybe once you get to like 30-40 or so, maybe that argument holds more water. But let's not pretend like plenty of state universities aren't great academic institutions.

by fsloth 9y ago

entee 9y ago

There's a flaw in this reasoning: are Nobel winners actually training people better or do they simply have access to more money? In my experience researchers that get a lot of grants are able to fund lots of projects, which leads to smart people working for you, which leads to big publications, which leads to more grants. Nobel/Lasker/Name-your-prize winners are just some of the people at the top of the grant pyramid. In fact, I'd argue that who wins a Nobel is a bit of a stochastic/political process, there are tons of scientists who made Nobel-worthy contributions that never won one. That said, the outcome ends up being the same. Big/well funded labs tend to be started by smart people who had the advantages at big/well funded labs and the cycle continues, but I think the way things are funded is a big part of how that system works, not the inherent smarts/brilliance of the Professor. Also it's not about pooling money. I think the OP is making a comment on effectiveness for educating people. For example, Cooper Union, an exceptional institution in NY that has a history of training people to an MIT-level for essentially free has come upon hard times and has somewhat abandoned that free-education principle (granted this was due to some financial mismanagement, but a big donor could certainly force changes there). This was an institution that taught many disadvantaged students, particularly from the NY area who couldn't afford MIT and its compatriots. Perhaps the money would have had far more impact there? Or what about offering massive scholarships to people attending community colleges who have a helluva GPA but need help for childcare? $140M is an incredible gift, I can't help but think there are better ways to spend it than giving it to an institute that already gets massive amounts of grant and other money. Maybe a place that could really use it to help those that need it most?

fsloth 9y ago
I merely pointed out one plausible statistical strategy for distributing a donation if the idea is to cause an impact and not distribute the funds back to the economy more or less randomly - I have no idea what the underlying mechanism is. "Or what about offering massive scholarships to people attending community colleges who have a helluva GPA but need help for childcare?" That's proactive. But, then again, we know nothing on this donor. "Maybe a place that could really use it to help those that need it most?" And what place would that be? Who would exactly be those that 'need help most'? Where I'm from government tries to handle the material well being of those who've had the shortest end of the stick in life - no idea what charities would provide the best bang for buck in US. I would not call spending money on science wasteful in any case.
gmarx 9y ago
Two different issues- research labs/graduate training quality vs undergrad lectures and such. I doubt MIT teachers of basic science are the best in the world. Rather MIT attracts some of the smartest most motivated students in the world. More money won't do much for this. Research lab funding? I think at it's current steady state more money sent to MIT for research would likely find a useful currently unfunded study or group.

peter303 9y ago

Mark Zuckerberg generously gave 100M to improve the education system of Camden New Jersey. At the time the mayor was Stanford grad Cory Booker, now Senator, and future Presidential material. Camden was and still is a minority shithole of New Jersey. Neither Mark's generous gift nor Cory's public service had a lasting effect. Deeper structural problems. I do not know the answer.

staplesowns 9y ago
It was actually Newark...
devb 9y ago
"Minority shithole" is a bit harsh... I spend a lot of time in Newark and it is a much better place than it was twenty years ago.
- mabramo 9y ago
  The Ironbound is getting nicer every year. Yesterday I was walking home from the train and there were young people everywhere. Definitely not what I am used to around here. Granted, the Ironbound could be a totally different city than the rest of Newark.
addicted 9y ago
Except the gift was nothing but funding the charter school grift (don't get me wrong, charter schools could work, and in some cases do work, but for the large part, in the US, the charter school movement has pretty much entirely been hijacked by union busters and people who want to profit off the privatization of education).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  Exactly. There are plenty of laboratory schools attached to universities, where teaching research is done under the eyes of the public. Those are as a rule doing well but Zuckerberg chose to boost unaccountable charter schools. Glad to see that it went as one would have predicted it to go.

foota 9y ago

I think the best educational utility of those millions of dollars would likely be subsidizing tuition for two year schools.

spike021 9y ago

On the other hand, more money means you can afford to pay for higher quality professors/staff/technology. I took a "big data" course on Map/Reduce, Hadoop, etc. We had to use VMs on our own laptops because the department couldn't afford to get us temporary AWS instances or similar. Sure money is not a quick fix for a bad school, but it opens up more opportunities than not.

kolinko 9y ago
Good salaries are necessary, but not sufficient to attract top level talent. If the whole environment is mediocre, it won't be able to produce better research or education, regardless of money. (Speaking as someone who graduated #1 university in Poland, but nowhere near #200 globally...)
- glenneroo 9y ago
  Regarding your 2nd point, do those rankings actually provide any useful information? How is it fair to rate an entire university, especially when they offer multiple studies? Shouldn't the ranking be based on discipline e.g. software development, language, *ologies, etc.? Also #200 out of what? According to this Quora[0] question, there are anywhere between 26,000 and 40,000 universities globally. 200 out of 26,000 puts your university in the top 1%. https://www.quora.com/How-many-universities-are-there-in-the-US-and-the-world-and-whats-the-best-resource-to-find-this-data https://www.quora.com/How-many-universities-are-there-in-the...
- lazerpants 9y ago
  This is actually part of the strength of a large gift to a university like MIT. Using the prestige of the university, and the money, you can bring in an entire cohort of capable scientists dedicated to a research area, and achieve scale via a "brain trust" that would otherwise be impossible. Other universities have indeed done this in the past with great success.

PatentTroll 9y ago

I like how the accepted dichotomy in this entire debate here in the comment is either MIT or bad school. There is an in between! There are lots of competent, well managed, and important educational institutions outside of the top 2-3 schools! Maybe once you get to like 30-40 or so, maybe that argument holds more water. But let's not pretend like plenty of state universities aren't great academic institutions.