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My first thought was "Wow! Is MIT really in need of this money?" If not are they're just probing the public opinion on double selling already on hand material.

My first thought was "Wow! Is MIT really in need of this money?" If not are they're just probing the public opinion on double selling already on hand material. Endowment: $13.182 billion (2016) Academic staff: 1,021 Students: 11,319 Undergraduates: 4,512 Postgraduates: 6,807 Campus: 168 acres From [1] For anyone who hasn't worked in academia there are three big funding sources for a university: 1. Endowments: Someone donates you money, you put it into a saving/investment portfolio, and you spend the interest of it. It's continual/perpetual funding for whatever you want. 2. Overhead on grants: I'd bet more then half of MIT's money is taxpayer-funded. MIT has a 54.70% overhead which means that of any grant that anyone on campus gets only 45.3% goes to real research. (I will say that a 54.7% overhead is pretty average. My school has a ~60% overhead.) 3. Last and least, Students: MIT's admission costs are $41,547. That's $187,460,064 total in from their current undergraduate class. They're still making money from grad students but it won't be the same amount so I didn't add them into them mix. You also need to remember for every dollar they take in from someone, they'll find at least 2 dollars to take in from someone else. When you go to a college and pay their admission free, you're paying the subsidized version and the college is getting rich. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Tec...

linkmotif 9y ago
My sentiment exactly. I tried leaving this comment the other day on another OCW-related post, but didn't have the patience to put together numbers like this. MIT is a cash monster that like all schools of its caliber at this point exists basically only to perpetuate itself. This institution sued Aaron Schwartz so hard and so relentlessly just to make the point that open knowledge is not their business. Giving them money is truly a waste of money when you can give that money where it might have some impact.
mathattack 9y ago
You catch my thoughts here. I'm torn between "This is a great resource, we should pay for it" and "Does MIT really need any more money?" This does seem to just be one aspect of their annual fundraising. Donors like to see their money go to specific targets, and this happens to be a feel-good one.
- gravypod 9y ago
  My opinion is, if you are an American tax payer, that you already have been paying for this. If you pay your taxes you pay for the NSF/DARPA/IARPA programs.
  - skosuri 9y ago
    Really? You know NSF/DARPA/IARPA aslo fund private companies like Boeing and Lockheed. Are you saying you shouldn't have to pay for flights either because you pay taxes?
skosuri 9y ago
Just to clarify, because there is a lot of misinformation about overhead considering the Trump administration wants to cut it. 55% overhead means for every $1, another 0.55 gets routed to MIT (so about a 1/3 goes to overhead). Also, the overhead goes to real research. For example, my lab doesn't pay an electricity bill, or a heating/cooling bill, or a cleaning bill, or rent, etc. Also, you can get more exact numbers on MIT here [1]. [1]. http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html
- gravypod 9y ago
  What you are saying is true but I have two issues with it. 1) Most universities get federal funding for facilities. That's what the student's tuition and taxes are meant to pay for. Now I agree that won't make up the difference (right now I've got ~300 machines running my code on my school's super computer) but that means more then half of the money for the research doesn't go directly to the research. Your grant for curing kittens of sadness also has to fund the super top secret nerve gas researchers work down the hall. 2) Many universities require you to pay for utilities, working space, and other things and still take overhead! I know a few who I don't want to point out an laugh at directly but we all know unfortunate colleagues who work at these universities (a few of which are publicly funded). We, as researchers, shouldn't be so dismissive of the blatant pocket-lining that universities do just because maybe a quarter of it will go back to helping us. Overhead basically makes it extremely difficult to start research in "convincing and novel" aspects of research when few people (maybe under 50 in the world) understand that what you're doing has value. In R&D that's most of the things that people are working on. If you're not fortunate enough to have someone already established take you under your wing your great idea will never see the light of day.
  - skosuri 9y ago
    1. I don't know where you are getting this but this is wrong. First of all tuition doesn't pay anywhere close to even breaking even at this point much less investment. Second MIT is a private university so I don't know where you are getting tax thing. Where do you get more than half of funding doesn't go directly to my research? I think you are misunderstanding overhead rates. For example, a 50% overhead rate means to spend a million dollars for my lab, I need to raise 1.5M. 2. Most universities that do that don't require you to pay for space, but will base the amount of space you have on grant dollars you bring in. None that I know of make you pay for electricity, gas, cleaning, grant admin, compliance, bookkeeping, etc. 3. How does overhead make it difficult to do convincing and novel research? In fact overhead helps it in my opinion. This idea that getting rid of overhead will somehow make anything better or have better value for the money is seriously misguided.

linkmotif 9y ago

My sentiment exactly. I tried leaving this comment the other day on another OCW-related post, but didn't have the patience to put together numbers like this. MIT is a cash monster that like all schools of its caliber at this point exists basically only to perpetuate itself. This institution sued Aaron Schwartz so hard and so relentlessly just to make the point that open knowledge is not their business. Giving them money is truly a waste of money when you can give that money where it might have some impact.

mathattack 9y ago

You catch my thoughts here. I'm torn between "This is a great resource, we should pay for it" and "Does MIT really need any more money?" This does seem to just be one aspect of their annual fundraising. Donors like to see their money go to specific targets, and this happens to be a feel-good one.

gravypod 9y ago
My opinion is, if you are an American tax payer, that you already have been paying for this. If you pay your taxes you pay for the NSF/DARPA/IARPA programs.
- skosuri 9y ago
  Really? You know NSF/DARPA/IARPA aslo fund private companies like Boeing and Lockheed. Are you saying you shouldn't have to pay for flights either because you pay taxes?

skosuri 9y ago

Just to clarify, because there is a lot of misinformation about overhead considering the Trump administration wants to cut it. 55% overhead means for every $1, another 0.55 gets routed to MIT (so about a 1/3 goes to overhead). Also, the overhead goes to real research. For example, my lab doesn't pay an electricity bill, or a heating/cooling bill, or a cleaning bill, or rent, etc. Also, you can get more exact numbers on MIT here [1]. [1]. http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html

gravypod 9y ago
What you are saying is true but I have two issues with it. 1) Most universities get federal funding for facilities. That's what the student's tuition and taxes are meant to pay for. Now I agree that won't make up the difference (right now I've got ~300 machines running my code on my school's super computer) but that means more then half of the money for the research doesn't go directly to the research. Your grant for curing kittens of sadness also has to fund the super top secret nerve gas researchers work down the hall. 2) Many universities require you to pay for utilities, working space, and other things and still take overhead! I know a few who I don't want to point out an laugh at directly but we all know unfortunate colleagues who work at these universities (a few of which are publicly funded). We, as researchers, shouldn't be so dismissive of the blatant pocket-lining that universities do just because maybe a quarter of it will go back to helping us. Overhead basically makes it extremely difficult to start research in "convincing and novel" aspects of research when few people (maybe under 50 in the world) understand that what you're doing has value. In R&D that's most of the things that people are working on. If you're not fortunate enough to have someone already established take you under your wing your great idea will never see the light of day.
- skosuri 9y ago
  1. I don't know where you are getting this but this is wrong. First of all tuition doesn't pay anywhere close to even breaking even at this point much less investment. Second MIT is a private university so I don't know where you are getting tax thing. Where do you get more than half of funding doesn't go directly to my research? I think you are misunderstanding overhead rates. For example, a 50% overhead rate means to spend a million dollars for my lab, I need to raise 1.5M. 2. Most universities that do that don't require you to pay for space, but will base the amount of space you have on grant dollars you bring in. None that I know of make you pay for electricity, gas, cleaning, grant admin, compliance, bookkeeping, etc. 3. How does overhead make it difficult to do convincing and novel research? In fact overhead helps it in my opinion. This idea that getting rid of overhead will somehow make anything better or have better value for the money is seriously misguided.