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Liberal arts degrees subsidize the hard science and engineering degrees since the per-credit-hour tuition is the same but the guy doing gender studies is way ch

Liberal arts degrees subsidize the hard science and engineering degrees since the per-credit-hour tuition is the same but the guy doing gender studies is way cheaper than the girl using the microbiology lab.

Bostwick 15y ago
STEM degrees subsidize the liberal arts degrees by bringing in grants and research money.
- _delirium 15y ago
  This is generally not true; the overhead charges from grants and research money just about pay for the added cost of the (much) higher faculty salaries, travel, research equipment, and the increasingly onerous grant application and accounting/auditing/reporting processes, but not for undergraduate education. In fact it's usually prohibited to cross-subsidize education with research grants, and funding agencies are surprisingly strict about this, doing things like auditing whether computers bought on a grant are used in teaching a course (not allowed). In many cases grant overhead doesn't even pay for the cost of research; only the top-tier research universities are particularly successful at pulling in enough, and big enough, grants to do that (see this from Georgia Tech's former Computer Science dean: http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-sure-fire-ways-to-lose-money-on-research/ http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-su...). The liberal arts, meanwhile, are so cheap to teach that in many cases they are actually making money, i.e. their expenses are lower than tuition fees, and the remaining tuition is used to cross-subsidize science education: http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humanities-really-155771.aspx http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humani...
nobody3141592 15y ago
STEM students subsidize liberal arts by creating a world in which somebody whose only skill is art history can live without starving to death or dying of a childhood disease
- noblethrasher 15y ago
  It will (hopefully) turn out that way but right now you're being a bit selective in your consideration of the STEM contributions.

Bostwick 15y ago

STEM degrees subsidize the liberal arts degrees by bringing in grants and research money.

_delirium 15y ago
This is generally not true; the overhead charges from grants and research money just about pay for the added cost of the (much) higher faculty salaries, travel, research equipment, and the increasingly onerous grant application and accounting/auditing/reporting processes, but not for undergraduate education. In fact it's usually prohibited to cross-subsidize education with research grants, and funding agencies are surprisingly strict about this, doing things like auditing whether computers bought on a grant are used in teaching a course (not allowed). In many cases grant overhead doesn't even pay for the cost of research; only the top-tier research universities are particularly successful at pulling in enough, and big enough, grants to do that (see this from Georgia Tech's former Computer Science dean: http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-sure-fire-ways-to-lose-money-on-research/ http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-su...). The liberal arts, meanwhile, are so cheap to teach that in many cases they are actually making money, i.e. their expenses are lower than tuition fees, and the remaining tuition is used to cross-subsidize science education: http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humanities-really-155771.aspx http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/bottom-line-shows-humani...

nobody3141592 15y ago

STEM students subsidize liberal arts by creating a world in which somebody whose only skill is art history can live without starving to death or dying of a childhood disease

noblethrasher 15y ago
It will (hopefully) turn out that way but right now you're being a bit selective in your consideration of the STEM contributions.