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I have an agreement and a disagreement with your take: * I agree that reducing salaries for academics will only make the currently misplaced incentives worse.

I have an agreement and a disagreement with your take: * I agree that reducing salaries for academics will only make the currently misplaced incentives worse. It will deprive society from the valuable research that more competent and talented folks would have done. In my mind, the key point in all these budgetary conversations is the ballooning bureaucratic/administrative layer that is eating up more and more of the budget and making it harder for universities, as collectives of teachers and researchers, to adapt to the evolving priorities of the real world. * I disagree that there should be less researchers. Fewer academics, maybe, but we definitely need more people who can make a lifestyle out of entirely or partially doing research. My admittedly anecdotal impression is that for every "not exactly scientifically smart" person who secures tenure, there are a handful of would-have-been-great researchers who just get fed up and leave academia despite having the passion, competence, and the willingness to even make a few sacrifices. IMHO we have cornered ourselves into a false dichotomy (broad strokes here, there are exceptions of course): either (a) you are an academic, you have to pull 60 hr weeks to do any meaningful research, and you have to deal the ossified structural issues of academia, or (b) you are out in the wild, make a lot more money, but you spend your 40 hr weeks towards maximizing short-term profits of your employer. I would think were there a viable alternative to this dichotomy that many passionate and competent people would happily make some reasonable sacrifices (in pay, work hours) to engage meaningfully in much-needed research.

ramraj07 7y ago
As someone who has now experienced both sides of the dichotomy (80 hr weeks underpaid and overworked in academia, 40hr weeks bored out of mind doing coding), a compromise would be great. Personally I'm hoping to keep my job to pay the bills and start a garage lab and pursue my passions in science. It'll severely be underfunded, but I'm hoping to conceive things that can be done with machines that hopefully costs only as much as a boat would. Further, Richard hamming is on to something [1] when he suggests that great science happens when resources are scarce. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
wegs 7y ago
I don't think reducing salaries will have any effect on the caliber of academics. There are a ton of graduate students, postdocs, and research scientists glad to work for less. Most are just as qualified as the faculty who supervise them. Likewise, the quality at faculty at elite schools and state schools is identical; the key difference in research output comes from access to resources. Money isn't everything that motivates people. And you want to get exactly the kinds of people who are motivated by curiosity, not power and prestige. The salary needs to be enough to live on without financial stress. On the other hand, it doesn't need to guarantee anything beyond cafeteria-grade food, basic housing, and a beat-up old car. Benefits are important too. Things like university medical, insurance, and retirement policies reduce the risk profile. Academics shouldn't be distracted or stressed by financial constraints, but neither should they be motivated by them.

ramraj07 7y ago

As someone who has now experienced both sides of the dichotomy (80 hr weeks underpaid and overworked in academia, 40hr weeks bored out of mind doing coding), a compromise would be great. Personally I'm hoping to keep my job to pay the bills and start a garage lab and pursue my passions in science. It'll severely be underfunded, but I'm hoping to conceive things that can be done with machines that hopefully costs only as much as a boat would. Further, Richard hamming is on to something [1] when he suggests that great science happens when resources are scarce. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html

wegs 7y ago

I don't think reducing salaries will have any effect on the caliber of academics. There are a ton of graduate students, postdocs, and research scientists glad to work for less. Most are just as qualified as the faculty who supervise them. Likewise, the quality at faculty at elite schools and state schools is identical; the key difference in research output comes from access to resources. Money isn't everything that motivates people. And you want to get exactly the kinds of people who are motivated by curiosity, not power and prestige. The salary needs to be enough to live on without financial stress. On the other hand, it doesn't need to guarantee anything beyond cafeteria-grade food, basic housing, and a beat-up old car. Benefits are important too. Things like university medical, insurance, and retirement policies reduce the risk profile. Academics shouldn't be distracted or stressed by financial constraints, but neither should they be motivated by them.