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I do not believe that sharing costs of facilities and equipment is so difficult that research universities can't handle it while every condo association in the

I do not believe that sharing costs of facilities and equipment is so difficult that research universities can't handle it while every condo association in the US somehow manages to pull it off. I do not believe you that this is aggressively negotiated down by the government because private research grants come with much lower indirect costs percentages. > Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. Well I guess we just have to pay for endlessly expanding bureaucracy then, because apparently expecting research universities to be somewhat efficient with their resources is "absurd." > If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait...

mrtesthah 1y ago
>Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait... Sure, that's Congress' job. The executive branch's current attempts to reduce it via executive order have no basis in law and therefore are not valid.
Tadpole9181 1y ago
You're clearly not involved even remotely in academia and are just parroting bullshit you saw on your news outlet. What's even the point when you can just declare "no, it's totally a problem and they can just magically make money appear and I'm totally aware of the negotiation process for grants". Good Lord.
- fallingknife 1y ago
  I can see I've hit a nerve here. But it's ok. I understand that the fact that private research grants contain indirect percentages less than half of the federal rate and yet still the universities not refuse them is a very difficult thing for you to argue against. It's understandable that you would resort to appeals to authority and ad hominems when you can't present a logical argument.
  - brokeAstronomer 1y ago
    There are fixed costs associated with running research labs and facilities. Just because private funding can (sometimes) come with lower allocations for overheads doesn't mean that research can continue at pace without the public grant overheads. The vast bulk of research money is public not private. While I will happily concede that there is always room for improvement with how we fund research, your suggestions are impractical and would heavily handicap existing efforts.
    - fallingknife 1y ago
      I guess the problem is that I just don't trust them. It's a bunch of university administrators and government bureaucrats (two groups I trust on the level of used car dealers) spending other people's money. I think the solution to this is transparency. If these universities want to continue getting tax exempt status and generous overhead allocations out of taxpayer funds, then they should be required to release their budgets to the public. It they are actually spending all that money on reasonable research costs, then fine, but I want to see the receipts.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - lompad 1y ago
        You are fundamentally misunderstanding the balance of power here. In your mind it seems to be "those people come pleading for money so they can do research, giving it is essentially charity"- but it couldn't be further from the truth. Most top-tier researchers can do their science anywhere. If you don't make stuff easy and comfortable enough to hold them, they'll just leave the country. A significant chunk of science spending is an attempt to bribe researchers to stay. Drop that and other countries are going to get those invaluable people. I can tell you that several major EU universities have started massive outreach programs and are starting to snatch all the top researchers from the US. The damage this will cause to the US' scientific leadership is not even quantifiable, it's completely insane. Shooting your own foot because you "don't trust bureaucrats". Oh well. Anyway, at my university the first few top researchers already arrived, this is going to be exciting in european research. If you guys don't want this massive advantage, we'll gladly take it.
Fomite 1y ago
> Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait... These rates are negotiated with the federal government. There's already a mechanism for this.

mrtesthah 1y ago

>Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait... Sure, that's Congress' job. The executive branch's current attempts to reduce it via executive order have no basis in law and therefore are not valid.

Tadpole9181 1y ago

You're clearly not involved even remotely in academia and are just parroting bullshit you saw on your news outlet. What's even the point when you can just declare "no, it's totally a problem and they can just magically make money appear and I'm totally aware of the negotiation process for grants". Good Lord.

fallingknife 1y ago
I can see I've hit a nerve here. But it's ok. I understand that the fact that private research grants contain indirect percentages less than half of the federal rate and yet still the universities not refuse them is a very difficult thing for you to argue against. It's understandable that you would resort to appeals to authority and ad hominems when you can't present a logical argument.
- brokeAstronomer 1y ago
  There are fixed costs associated with running research labs and facilities. Just because private funding can (sometimes) come with lower allocations for overheads doesn't mean that research can continue at pace without the public grant overheads. The vast bulk of research money is public not private. While I will happily concede that there is always room for improvement with how we fund research, your suggestions are impractical and would heavily handicap existing efforts.
  - fallingknife 1y ago
    I guess the problem is that I just don't trust them. It's a bunch of university administrators and government bureaucrats (two groups I trust on the level of used car dealers) spending other people's money. I think the solution to this is transparency. If these universities want to continue getting tax exempt status and generous overhead allocations out of taxpayer funds, then they should be required to release their budgets to the public. It they are actually spending all that money on reasonable research costs, then fine, but I want to see the receipts.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - lompad 1y ago
      You are fundamentally misunderstanding the balance of power here. In your mind it seems to be "those people come pleading for money so they can do research, giving it is essentially charity"- but it couldn't be further from the truth. Most top-tier researchers can do their science anywhere. If you don't make stuff easy and comfortable enough to hold them, they'll just leave the country. A significant chunk of science spending is an attempt to bribe researchers to stay. Drop that and other countries are going to get those invaluable people. I can tell you that several major EU universities have started massive outreach programs and are starting to snatch all the top researchers from the US. The damage this will cause to the US' scientific leadership is not even quantifiable, it's completely insane. Shooting your own foot because you "don't trust bureaucrats". Oh well. Anyway, at my university the first few top researchers already arrived, this is going to be exciting in european research. If you guys don't want this massive advantage, we'll gladly take it.

Fomite 1y ago

> Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait... These rates are negotiated with the federal government. There's already a mechanism for this.