8 ms·
Colleges and universities are like little countries, rarely answer to anyone and focused on their own insular practices.
by j45 3y ago
Colleges and universities are like little countries, rarely answer to anyone and focused on their own insular practices.
- loceng 3y agoIt was only in the last few years did I realize the massive endowments many universities have make them ripe targets for bad actors to make their way into administration.
- 93po 3y agoThe few very large unis i looked into all made massively more money off investment returns than any operational income. the year i reviewed for the university of texas system showed they could have charged zero tuition that year and still make a profit there are absolutely kickbacks for people in control of those endowments choosing specific investment options with their many billions of dollars
- sonicanatidae 3y agoMy partner works at a major U in the US. Top 200ish. They are solely focused on revenue. Teacher pay rarely raised, but that new upgrade for the stadium at a cool $120m, seems like a great idea. FFS, her dept went past the paper budget for one semester, about 5 years ago. The resolution? Do without paper until the next semester. That's what students insane tuition prices bought them. Apathy over education.
- atlasunshrugged 3y agoWhy are they so focused on that? It seems like a great way to drive a school into the ground.
- Spooky23 3y agoHonest graft. Awards and recognition for leaders. Where ethics rules are loose, fancy trips and steak dinners, etc.
- 93po 3y agobecause the people controlling those endowments make tens of millions off of kickbacks and care a lot more about that than the school. additionally, all schools are operating in the same shitty way, they're all getting expensive and shitty and degrees are fairly non-optional for a lot of career paths so it's a captive market
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- scottyah 3y agoIt's just so easy to track money as a measurement of success, all the other goals are too intangible that they tend to get left behind
- dehrmann 3y ago> Teacher pay rarely raised There's an oversupply of most PhDs, so there's no need to raise their pay. And that's for professors. Grad students that teach are practically free.
- xattt 3y ago> There's an oversupply of most PhDs Which PhDs are in undersupply?
- golergka 3y agoAI researchers, by the looks of what tech is willing to pay for them.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoIronically, she stopped at a Masters, after this same university forced her to restart her phd thesis 3 TIMES, due to changing staff. She worked on it one semester, then they changed her major professor. Worked on the 2nd one another semester, and they again changed her major professor. Considered a 3rd time and she just threw her hands up and said, fuck it, which I don't blame, at all. She's still a full-time faculty member, has written/designed 3 courses for them, that are taught by herself and others to this day, and gets kudos every semester from students she's taught. The college system is slightly less uncaring than the government. The big difference is the college system drains 20 years of your future income with insane pricing and if you get shit on due to THEIR changes, that's just your happy ass.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago3 times is crazy. 3 times in one year is absolute insanity. I'd simply apply to a new university if I had a shred of interest left after that.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoThey killed any feelings of finishing it. They are thorough in crushing dreams. The best part about all of it? She got to PAY for the semesters that the school itself trashed.
- Spivak 3y ago> but that new upgrade for the stadium at a cool $120m, seems like a great idea. This doesn't have anything to do with universities specifically. There's always money for endeavors that have positive ROI. You can tell what a person, group, business or institution actually values by the things they spend money on that are true losses.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoWhen a university focuses on everything except education, there is a problem.
- golergka 3y agoThis just means that's what their customers, who pay the tuition, care about more.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoYes and no, I think. If it was laid out, that their education would suffer, because the resources that might be put towards it are now put into Sports Team, I suspect they would balk more.
- jkestner 3y agoAnd here I thought I could stop buying supplies for our teachers when my kids go to college.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoIt's no longer crayons and construction paper. It's just reams of regular old copier paper now, but the same thing.
- strangattractor 3y agoI would occasionally visit some of my high school friends attending William and Mary in Va (in the 80s). One year the school decided the football stadium needed upgrading so the team could play football in a more competitive division. The students protested - saying they were happy going to watch their not so great team and they did not want to see the school divert interest from academics. The stadium was not built. The school listened to the students. The problem is many schools are now status symbols similar to an iPhone. People go to them precisely because other people cannot afford them. There are many schools that can provide a similar undergraduate experience - William and Mary for example - but simply do not have the cachet. The alumni, the students, professors and administration all want the prestige. It doesn't have to be that way if people would stop buying into the BS.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoThat's just it. The University that my partner teaches at is already in the top of 2 fields and a major player in a 3rd. They already had reasons for people to attend without adding another 50k seats to a stadium that already had more than that.
- hanniabu 3y agoAnd they still have the nerve to call alumni for donations
- woah 3y ago> there are absolutely kickbacks for people in control of those endowments choosing specific investment options with their many billions of dollars This is a form of corruption that is present whenever anyone manages an investment fund, and not only specific to school endowments. This is why investment managers are licensed, and taking this kind of bribe could result in criminal penalties.
- yieldcrv 3y agoA lot of people are looking for an all controlling force in the country or world instead, I see a lot of demigods that rule their domain, curating complete autonomy as long as they stay within the confines they finessed
- foobarian 3y agoAnybody working in University IT can attest to this :-)
- pastacacioepepe 3y agoYou don't need a formal conspiracy when you have an elite with converging interests.
- godelski 3y agoThere's a joke from a comedian I forget if it is L̶o̶u̶i̶s̶ ̶C̶K̶ George Carlin o̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶. But basically is along the lines that you don't have explicitly collude when you all come from the same backgrounds. The interests are aligned already. It's pointing out that representatives need to actually be from representative populations of people. But he did it in a funny way, this comment really isn't. Edit: thanks lo_zamoyski. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
- bena 3y agoThat's true of a lot of things. You really can't allow a system to police itself. Once you allow that, you've essentially given them carte blanche to run a fiefdom.
- scottyah 3y agoBut all the other systems are just systems too, and even a system of systems is just a system... Unless we have a God at the top there's no escape from the fiefdoms
- j45 3y agoSystems for the many, vs the few can be quite different. It can be different than systems designed for the few instead of the many
- bena 3y agoBasically a system cannot be accountable to only itself. There must be an outside entity that can hold the system accountable. However, even if you have two systems accountable to each other, once they realize that there's no third party that's holding the gestalt accountable, they're free to play tit-for-tat and essentially become a single entity. It's kind of why "internal affairs" doesn't really work in police departments. They are part of the same system. If internal affairs clears the police, the police won't mess with internal affairs. And I'm not saying there are easy solutions to implement. Because even if you have an entire web of systems configured in such a way that cooperation among some would be detrimental to the others so they would have incentives to keep each other in check, it would only take a sustained imbalance of power in order for the cooperators to neutralize the others so that they could create their own fiefdom. But anywhere you do have a system that is only accountable to itself, you have a system that is likely rotting from the inside.
- bo1024 3y ago"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem." -Douglas Adams. Insularity is both the strength and weakness of academia. Unfortunately, I feel we are sliding toward the worst of both worlds: an administrative "ruling class" that is insulated from consequences, but also allowed to constrain and control the educators/researchers.
- swagempire 3y ago[flagged]
- throw4847285 3y agoThey're more like hedge funds that do some light educating on the side. Especially ones as rich as Harvard.
- specialist 3y agoThat's an unfair assessment. Harvard et al also launder reputations, incubate reactionary movements, serve as a finishing school for the rich and powerful, stoke credentialing (eg grade inflation), and accelerate social inequity. For starters.
- ratsmack 3y agoJust like so many organizations within government, universities have no accountability... status quo rules.
- Der_Einzige 3y agoUhh, reactionary movements are incubated in Christian right wing schools, not by Harvard professors writing yet another book about post modernism.
- JacobThreeThree 3y agoEven hedge fund partners have to pay capital gains tax. Not Harvard!