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What is 'wrong' with this? Academics at these research labs are still doing academic work, including teaching and mentoring colleagues. The main 'issue' is lik

What is 'wrong' with this? Academics at these research labs are still doing academic work, including teaching and mentoring colleagues. The main 'issue' is likely that some college administrator is not getting their cut. Oh pity the poor colleges... how will they fund their over-the-top, debt-financed facilities and football teams?

hasty_pudding 3y ago
I've read that football teams are actually a revenue generator for universities. However you're absolutely right about insane amounts of wasted money on bureaucracy.
- jojobas 3y ago
  Revenue maybe, but profit? They do it for "prestige".
- jimbokun 3y ago
  They are only revenue generators for the semi-pro teams with big TV contracts.
  - DragonStrength 3y ago
    Which includes most of our best public engineering schools. Big 10 and SEC schools pump out a whole bunch of engineers.
    - lbrandy 3y ago
      > most Well... "a few" is probably more accurate. https://twitter.com/tjaltimore/status/1763571057703723344?s=46&t=kiBDOwwp2utSbyjtjSZcbw https://twitter.com/tjaltimore/status/1763571057703723344?s=...
      - joshuamorton 3y ago
        You've subtly changed the argument here. That's the athletic department as a whole. At my alma mater, which is on that list as one where the athletics department costs 500-1000 per student, our football team (which is consistently mediocre) and basketball team were, as far as I know, profitable, and subsidized other D1 sports. I believe that cost also covers the funding for things like intramural sports, the student athletics complex (gym), and various other athletics adjacent things that are student-services shaped, and not D1-sports shaped.
- anon291 3y ago
  football teams are a revenue generator for the top few universities that have football teams worth following. For all the strivers out there, they're not.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  There is not a single school in my state that makes a "profit" on any of it's sports programs. Anything outside of D1 has no chance in hell on making money from sports. Meanwhile these 3rd rate sports programs keep getting sanctioned for giving athletes under the table scholarships, which isn't allowed in lower tier schools.
croes 3y ago
What wrong with worse researchers and worse teachers?
- munk-a 3y ago
  Because this is the internet I can't be certain if you're being sarcastic or not but in case you aren't... a lot. Life isn't a pursuit of profit and if people's training is solely devoted to that they'll miss out on a lot of the stuff that actually matters.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    What are people missing by working privately? The stuff that matters is outside of work
epistasis 3y ago
Housing prices that restrict the ability of an economy to function will strangle that economy. That's the main issue. Nobody cares about some "cut" that a college administrator would get (how? how much?). Any economy that prices out its labor is doomed.
- oglop 3y ago
  The fuck are you talking about. We price out labor constantly and it seems to make the economy better. Also things really can’t be priced by labor. By that logic, a 10,000ft pile of shit would be priced at the cost of labor I paid people to build it. No one is going to buy that mountain of shit. The labor had only a part to do with the cost. Everything works that way.
  - oglop 3y ago
    Yeah downvote me more. Marx was a moron and labor doesn’t make the cost of a product. You would have to be intellectually disabled to not see that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  > Any economy that prices out its labor is doomed. I have heard this claimed a great deal, but has it ever happened in a major city (heard of it in some tiny rural towns)? The places with high housing costs are some of the most productive economies out there. Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, etc. should be experiencing the worst possible labor shortages were this the case.
  - NotMichaelBay 3y ago
    I don't know of examples on a massive scale but I know there are lots of firefighters (and probably police) that live 1-2 hours away from their station. They are priced out of the neighborhood and even neighborhoods surrounding the one they serve.
keiferski 3y ago
There’s a little thing called the profit motive. Universities aren’t perfect but few other institutions have deliberate spaces for non-commercial work.
- jimbokun 3y ago
  US universities are becoming for profit institutions using non-profit status to cook the books.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    Ivy league schools in particular are essentially just endowment funds with some teachers around to keep their non-profit status. There are plenty of great educational institutions out there but the most prestigious ones are suffering from their success and attracting money-minded management that is more focused on growing their investment portfolio and handing out juicy bonuses than attracting good staff and ensuring a good educational environment. And even with all that universities still have better a more altruistic profit alignment than most private firms.
    - blackhawkC17 3y ago
      > There are plenty of great educational institutions out there but the most prestigious ones are suffering from their success and attracting money-minded management that is more focused on growing their investment portfolio and handing out juicy bonuses than attracting good staff and ensuring a good educational environment. People keep trotting this line but without any substantial proof. Harvard's highest paid employee is a faculty member, David Malan, of the popular CS50 course earning $1.6 million annually [1]. It's always been faculty members earning even more than the President. I assume you're counting Harvard Management Company, the firm managing Harvard's endowment. Yeah, the CEO earns $9 million annually, which is quite high [2]. But there's a catch; were he in the private industry managing a $50 billion+ fund, he'll easily clear $50 million+ in annual compensation, if not $100 million depending on the performance. The endowment managers operate differently from the institution, and salaries are actually much lower than in the private sector. Maybe you want to complain about inequality, sure, but that's another thing entirely. They're paying the least they can to get expert fund managers.. 1- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/42103580 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421... 2- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237361259 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237...
brnt 3y ago
Not all universities are overfunded Ivy League. A risk of proprietary research is that the company can hoard knowledge, exploitation thereof, etc. It's the suboptimal quadrants of the prisoners dilemma.

hasty_pudding 3y ago

I've read that football teams are actually a revenue generator for universities. However you're absolutely right about insane amounts of wasted money on bureaucracy.

jojobas 3y ago
Revenue maybe, but profit? They do it for "prestige".
jimbokun 3y ago
They are only revenue generators for the semi-pro teams with big TV contracts.
- DragonStrength 3y ago
  Which includes most of our best public engineering schools. Big 10 and SEC schools pump out a whole bunch of engineers.
  - lbrandy 3y ago
    > most Well... "a few" is probably more accurate. https://twitter.com/tjaltimore/status/1763571057703723344?s=46&t=kiBDOwwp2utSbyjtjSZcbw https://twitter.com/tjaltimore/status/1763571057703723344?s=...
    - joshuamorton 3y ago
      You've subtly changed the argument here. That's the athletic department as a whole. At my alma mater, which is on that list as one where the athletics department costs 500-1000 per student, our football team (which is consistently mediocre) and basketball team were, as far as I know, profitable, and subsidized other D1 sports. I believe that cost also covers the funding for things like intramural sports, the student athletics complex (gym), and various other athletics adjacent things that are student-services shaped, and not D1-sports shaped.
anon291 3y ago
football teams are a revenue generator for the top few universities that have football teams worth following. For all the strivers out there, they're not.
mrguyorama 3y ago
There is not a single school in my state that makes a "profit" on any of it's sports programs. Anything outside of D1 has no chance in hell on making money from sports. Meanwhile these 3rd rate sports programs keep getting sanctioned for giving athletes under the table scholarships, which isn't allowed in lower tier schools.

croes 3y ago

What wrong with worse researchers and worse teachers?

munk-a 3y ago
Because this is the internet I can't be certain if you're being sarcastic or not but in case you aren't... a lot. Life isn't a pursuit of profit and if people's training is solely devoted to that they'll miss out on a lot of the stuff that actually matters.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  What are people missing by working privately? The stuff that matters is outside of work

epistasis 3y ago

Housing prices that restrict the ability of an economy to function will strangle that economy. That's the main issue. Nobody cares about some "cut" that a college administrator would get (how? how much?). Any economy that prices out its labor is doomed.

oglop 3y ago
The fuck are you talking about. We price out labor constantly and it seems to make the economy better. Also things really can’t be priced by labor. By that logic, a 10,000ft pile of shit would be priced at the cost of labor I paid people to build it. No one is going to buy that mountain of shit. The labor had only a part to do with the cost. Everything works that way.
- oglop 3y ago
  Yeah downvote me more. Marx was a moron and labor doesn’t make the cost of a product. You would have to be intellectually disabled to not see that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
MattGaiser 3y ago
> Any economy that prices out its labor is doomed. I have heard this claimed a great deal, but has it ever happened in a major city (heard of it in some tiny rural towns)? The places with high housing costs are some of the most productive economies out there. Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, etc. should be experiencing the worst possible labor shortages were this the case.
- NotMichaelBay 3y ago
  I don't know of examples on a massive scale but I know there are lots of firefighters (and probably police) that live 1-2 hours away from their station. They are priced out of the neighborhood and even neighborhoods surrounding the one they serve.

keiferski 3y ago

There’s a little thing called the profit motive. Universities aren’t perfect but few other institutions have deliberate spaces for non-commercial work.

jimbokun 3y ago
US universities are becoming for profit institutions using non-profit status to cook the books.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Ivy league schools in particular are essentially just endowment funds with some teachers around to keep their non-profit status. There are plenty of great educational institutions out there but the most prestigious ones are suffering from their success and attracting money-minded management that is more focused on growing their investment portfolio and handing out juicy bonuses than attracting good staff and ensuring a good educational environment. And even with all that universities still have better a more altruistic profit alignment than most private firms.
  - blackhawkC17 3y ago
    > There are plenty of great educational institutions out there but the most prestigious ones are suffering from their success and attracting money-minded management that is more focused on growing their investment portfolio and handing out juicy bonuses than attracting good staff and ensuring a good educational environment. People keep trotting this line but without any substantial proof. Harvard's highest paid employee is a faculty member, David Malan, of the popular CS50 course earning $1.6 million annually [1]. It's always been faculty members earning even more than the President. I assume you're counting Harvard Management Company, the firm managing Harvard's endowment. Yeah, the CEO earns $9 million annually, which is quite high [2]. But there's a catch; were he in the private industry managing a $50 billion+ fund, he'll easily clear $50 million+ in annual compensation, if not $100 million depending on the performance. The endowment managers operate differently from the institution, and salaries are actually much lower than in the private sector. Maybe you want to complain about inequality, sure, but that's another thing entirely. They're paying the least they can to get expert fund managers.. 1- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/42103580 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421... 2- https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237361259 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237...

brnt 3y ago

Not all universities are overfunded Ivy League. A risk of proprietary research is that the company can hoard knowledge, exploitation thereof, etc. It's the suboptimal quadrants of the prisoners dilemma.