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>These funders aren't going to pay $1M per student, but they might very well pay $40k. So...the university sets tuition at $40k, takes that money when it can, a
by ameister14 9y ago
>These funders aren't going to pay $1M per student, but they might very well pay $40k. So...the university sets tuition at $40k, takes that money when it can, and waives it when it no one else will cover it. Clearly, some kind of funding is required to put on courses, organize seminar series, and things like that.
In the article, the author claims that Yale charges 67% fees for overhead from the grant, and that this does not include the money they take for tuition. Wouldn't that pay for seminar series and courses?
- mattkrause 9y agoIn some sense, a dollar is a dollar, so sure. However, overhead rates are supposed to cover expenses that are related to the research and difficult to parcel out. For example, ordinary janitorial work is funded by overhead because it's not obvious how much (e.g.) bathroom use is attributable to each individual research project. Similarly, the library, admin staff, etc all facilitate specific research projects, but in a fairly diffuse way. Although you could try to make the same argument for seminar series (it improves the overall intellectual tenor of the place), I doubt it would fly because it's not essential to any specific project. There are insanely specific rules--negotiated between the government and each university--about what and how much can be charged to specific accounts.