5 ms·

What a Rorschach blot. Comments range from AI to immigration to doomsday results for USA. The admins statement in TFA speaks more to financial policy and grant

What a Rorschach blot. Comments range from AI to immigration to doomsday results for USA. The admins statement in TFA speaks more to financial policy and grant declines. Unfunded students are much less likely to accept an admission. That's just a fact of life.

mcmcmc 5mo ago
They have $27 billion in their endowment. They are choosing not to fund those positions when they easily could on their own.
- ryandrake 5mo ago
  At this point, these well-endowed universities are essentially Private Equity firms, each with a university hanging off the side as a minor, semi-profitable department within the firm.
  - AndrewKemendo 5mo ago
    Precicely this Everything is a bank for the rich. The people who “invested” in the endowment would rather burn their money than let someone use it without getting a multiple return on it
  - JoeNuts 5mo ago
    Universities get ~40-50% of their funding from the government. Private equity doesn't quite fit.
    - dhosek 5mo ago
      Is that across all universities? Because I would guess that, for example, University of Illinois gets a much larger portion of its funding from government sources than University of Chicago (which would be one of those well-endowed universities which, incidentally, just cut tuition to zero for undergrads from families making less than $250K).
      - mcmcmc 5mo ago
        University of Illinois is also a public school. University of Chicago is private, as is MIT.
        dhosek 5mo ago
        Which is precisely why I made that comparison.
      - deleted 5mo ago
        [deleted]
      - JoeNuts 5mo ago
        This study estimates that government spending is 40% of public university revenue, ~10% for private schools. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cud/postsecondary-institution-revenue https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cud/postsecondary...
- elteto 5mo ago
  Fund them to do what exactly? Come up with their own research ideas? You got the pipeline backwards. The government picks the research areas/priorities then allocates funding for those, and universities apply and compete to get grants. _Then_, once a grant is given to a school, is funding for labs and graduate students allocated. If the government has no interest in doing research and provides no funding then schools don’t have projects to work on and no money to hire graduate students.
  - loeg 5mo ago
    That is how it usually works, but again, MIT has tens of billions of dollars. They could literally write their own grants.
    - snark42 5mo ago
      Much of those billions of dollars are contractually limited in how they can use both the principal and gains so it's really not that simple.
    - counters 5mo ago
      A sizable chunk of the endowment likely has legal restrictions that limit how funds can be spent. E.g., they could be earmarked for undergraduate scholarships or a specific lab at a specific department. The endowment isn't a slush fund. It's also worth noting that the structural costs of research are far larger than what any single institution would be able to shoulder. For instance, MIT has extremely limited supercomputing resources under their own maintenance. Researchers would typically use such resources from centralized places funded by the NSF or DOE, where larger pools of money can be assembled. And of course this doesn't even get into the reality that the annual operating costs of somewhere like MIT likely far exceeds the investment returns generated by the endowment. You might as well argue that companies should never take venture capital - e.g. if they can't finance their growth through profits alone then they shouldn't raise any money. The whole point of grants or investment is to subsidize and incentive work which has payoffs on much longer timescales than what market dynamics can sustain alone.
- corygarms 5mo ago
  Wow you just made me realize that Elon Musk net worth is roughly 30x the value of the entire MIT endowment fund.
- pettycashstash2 5mo ago
  [dead]
- jancsika 5mo ago
  Chancellor mcmcmc: We have a $27 billion endowment. We can easily fund these positions. Chancellor mcmcmc, 2027: We have a $26 billion endowment. We can easily fund these positions. (Unrelated note: all freshman-level math courses have been moved to Temporary Building #17.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2028: We have a $24.8 billion endowment. And congratulations to Chancellor Trump! (Note: all freshman humanities classes have been moved to Temporary Building #17.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2029: We have nearly $23 billion in our endowment. We can easily fund these positions. (Note: due to recent outages, all students residing in purple zones should use their personal data plans until further notice.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2030: We have nearly $21 billion in our endowment. We can easily fund these positions. (Note: Due to wait times at the Student Supplement Center, please consult your family practitioner for all supplement-related issues.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2031: We have plenty in our endowment, frankly. Probably more than anyone's ever seen-- billions, with a "b." We can easily fund these positions and honestly, many, many others. (Note: all classes currently scheduled in Temporary Building #17 will be rescheduled at a location TBD.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2032: It is with deep regret that I inform the students and faculty that I will be resigning at the end of this year's streamcast. It's been such an honor to... Edit: clarification :)
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - mcmcmc 5mo ago
    Are all your comments this abrasive and obtuse? Obviously chucking a million at every grad student every year to do whatever they feel like is poor financial decision making. If the university is funding the research, they can retain the IP and reap the financial benefits. It’s a private for-profit organization. Endowment aside, they have hundreds of millions in surplus operating income. What do they need public funds for?
  - elevation 5mo ago
    > We have a $27 billion endowment. We can easily fund these positions. > Chancellor mcmcmc, 2027: We have a $26 billion endowment. With that much capital, even conservative management should exceed $100M in interest annually, meaning they could have a $100M+ budget indefinitely. That's enough money to give a couple thousand employees a six figure salary while reserving 2x the salary amount for overhead like benefits, facilities and research efforts.
fastaguy88 5mo ago
There are no un-funded graduate (PhD) students in the sciences and engineering at MIT (or any other top-ranked graduate program). The number of graduate student admissions is directly tied to the amount of external funding. If the faculty do not have the grants, their departments cannot admit students.
- BeetleB 5mo ago
  Isn't that what the article is saying? Less research funding == Fewer admissions. > The number of graduate student admissions is directly tied to the amount of external funding. Minor quibble: It's not merely external funding. In many sciences (math, physics, chemistry), it's common for the department to promise funding through non-research means for a number of years. In my top school, I think physics students were guaranteed TA funding for 2 years (until they pass the qualifying exams and find a professor). Math students are almost always funded as TAs (the department guaranteed 6 years). It's mostly engineering departments that don't do this.
  - fastaguy88 5mo ago
    While it is true that departments often fund their graduate students for the first year (or possibly 2) out of their own budgets, their budgets are largely determined by the generosity of their Deans (who got the money from indirect costs from grants) or their own indirect costs. And they will not be admitting students if they do not see a clear path for them to be externally funded after their first year or two.
    - BeetleB 5mo ago
      Oh yes. As I said, the math department guaranteed 6 years. If they can't guarantee it, they won't admit the student. The engineering departments, however, admitted students regardless of funding as long as they met the bar. On the application they'd ask the candidate if they wanted the admission to be contingent on funding. Universities like MIT that admit only if they have funding for engineering are the outliers. Usually they're private universities.
- 5mo ago
bensyverson 5mo ago
Sounds like everything is fine then
willis936 5mo ago
I was recently shown a grad office door covered with home grown memes. There was a printout of a disassociating cartoon teddy bear taped on top in the center with the caption "unfortunately the vibe continues to deteriorate". People might pick their preferred explanation, but there is little doubt that [things in the world] are successfully demoralizing academics.
d00mScroll 5mo ago
[dead]
dnnddidiej 5mo ago
This beating aroud the bush doesn't help: > We’ve already seen clear signs that policy changes affecting international students and scholars are discouraging extremely talented individuals from applying to join our community. Whose policy? What policy?
- pbhjpbhj 5mo ago
  Presumably that you'd have to be white as driven snow and have a Confederate-flag carrying Jesus holding an assault rifle tattooed on you to avoid ending up in a detention center awaiting deportation to some foreign hellhole prison.
- intended 5mo ago
  Why? The point was made very clearly; everyone who is in academia or research knows. People who are unaware or uninterested will move on and not be affected.
intended 5mo ago
The article is politely calling out the effects of the current regime in Washington and indicating that the government is finding other ways to not give funding to schools they don’t like. I am kinda surprised this wasn’t a prominent conversation point.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
  MIT started it. They cancelled Dorian Abbot in 2021. Federal funding is supposed to be in the interest of the American people. If you're adopting extreme left-wing politics at the institutional level, and shouting down political views associated with half the country, how exactly is giving you money in the interest of the American people? I wouldn't expect a far-right university to get federal funds. Why should a far-left university get federal funds? Furthermore: The US government is trillions of dollars in debt. MIT has billions in their endowment. I'm not sure a rich institution like MIT should be demanding funds from a government which is deeply indebted.
  - intended 5mo ago
    Thank you, I needed that. It is a great reminder that eventually these talking points will always swamp any communication channel. These talking points are such a great example of the effectiveness of organized groups versus individuals in the market place of ideas. It makes me appreciate the early days of the internet even more, and the good fortune to be alive in that moment.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
      I'm not part of an organized group. >It is a great reminder that eventually these talking points will always swamp any communication channel. I notice that some people will respond to arguments by saying: "Oh, that argument. I've heard it many times before." What's interesting to me is that they seem to think simply saying "I've heard that many times before" should suffice as a counterargument. Really, it should be the opposite: If you've heard it many times before, you've had plenty of time to think about it. If the argument is invalid, you ought to have a very good counterargument by now. So where's your incredible counterargument? Seems rather suspicious that you're unwilling to share it!

mcmcmc 5mo ago

They have $27 billion in their endowment. They are choosing not to fund those positions when they easily could on their own.

ryandrake 5mo ago
At this point, these well-endowed universities are essentially Private Equity firms, each with a university hanging off the side as a minor, semi-profitable department within the firm.
- AndrewKemendo 5mo ago
  Precicely this Everything is a bank for the rich. The people who “invested” in the endowment would rather burn their money than let someone use it without getting a multiple return on it
- JoeNuts 5mo ago
  Universities get ~40-50% of their funding from the government. Private equity doesn't quite fit.
  - dhosek 5mo ago
    Is that across all universities? Because I would guess that, for example, University of Illinois gets a much larger portion of its funding from government sources than University of Chicago (which would be one of those well-endowed universities which, incidentally, just cut tuition to zero for undergrads from families making less than $250K).
    - mcmcmc 5mo ago
      University of Illinois is also a public school. University of Chicago is private, as is MIT.
      - dhosek 5mo ago
        Which is precisely why I made that comparison.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - JoeNuts 5mo ago
      This study estimates that government spending is 40% of public university revenue, ~10% for private schools. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cud/postsecondary-institution-revenue https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cud/postsecondary...
elteto 5mo ago
Fund them to do what exactly? Come up with their own research ideas? You got the pipeline backwards. The government picks the research areas/priorities then allocates funding for those, and universities apply and compete to get grants. _Then_, once a grant is given to a school, is funding for labs and graduate students allocated. If the government has no interest in doing research and provides no funding then schools don’t have projects to work on and no money to hire graduate students.
- loeg 5mo ago
  That is how it usually works, but again, MIT has tens of billions of dollars. They could literally write their own grants.
  - snark42 5mo ago
    Much of those billions of dollars are contractually limited in how they can use both the principal and gains so it's really not that simple.
  - counters 5mo ago
    A sizable chunk of the endowment likely has legal restrictions that limit how funds can be spent. E.g., they could be earmarked for undergraduate scholarships or a specific lab at a specific department. The endowment isn't a slush fund. It's also worth noting that the structural costs of research are far larger than what any single institution would be able to shoulder. For instance, MIT has extremely limited supercomputing resources under their own maintenance. Researchers would typically use such resources from centralized places funded by the NSF or DOE, where larger pools of money can be assembled. And of course this doesn't even get into the reality that the annual operating costs of somewhere like MIT likely far exceeds the investment returns generated by the endowment. You might as well argue that companies should never take venture capital - e.g. if they can't finance their growth through profits alone then they shouldn't raise any money. The whole point of grants or investment is to subsidize and incentive work which has payoffs on much longer timescales than what market dynamics can sustain alone.
corygarms 5mo ago
Wow you just made me realize that Elon Musk net worth is roughly 30x the value of the entire MIT endowment fund.
pettycashstash2 5mo ago
[dead]
jancsika 5mo ago
Chancellor mcmcmc: We have a $27 billion endowment. We can easily fund these positions. Chancellor mcmcmc, 2027: We have a $26 billion endowment. We can easily fund these positions. (Unrelated note: all freshman-level math courses have been moved to Temporary Building #17.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2028: We have a $24.8 billion endowment. And congratulations to Chancellor Trump! (Note: all freshman humanities classes have been moved to Temporary Building #17.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2029: We have nearly $23 billion in our endowment. We can easily fund these positions. (Note: due to recent outages, all students residing in purple zones should use their personal data plans until further notice.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2030: We have nearly $21 billion in our endowment. We can easily fund these positions. (Note: Due to wait times at the Student Supplement Center, please consult your family practitioner for all supplement-related issues.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2031: We have plenty in our endowment, frankly. Probably more than anyone's ever seen-- billions, with a "b." We can easily fund these positions and honestly, many, many others. (Note: all classes currently scheduled in Temporary Building #17 will be rescheduled at a location TBD.) Chancellor mcmcmc, 2032: It is with deep regret that I inform the students and faculty that I will be resigning at the end of this year's streamcast. It's been such an honor to... Edit: clarification :)
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- mcmcmc 5mo ago
  Are all your comments this abrasive and obtuse? Obviously chucking a million at every grad student every year to do whatever they feel like is poor financial decision making. If the university is funding the research, they can retain the IP and reap the financial benefits. It’s a private for-profit organization. Endowment aside, they have hundreds of millions in surplus operating income. What do they need public funds for?
- elevation 5mo ago
  > We have a $27 billion endowment. We can easily fund these positions. > Chancellor mcmcmc, 2027: We have a $26 billion endowment. With that much capital, even conservative management should exceed $100M in interest annually, meaning they could have a $100M+ budget indefinitely. That's enough money to give a couple thousand employees a six figure salary while reserving 2x the salary amount for overhead like benefits, facilities and research efforts.

fastaguy88 5mo ago

There are no un-funded graduate (PhD) students in the sciences and engineering at MIT (or any other top-ranked graduate program). The number of graduate student admissions is directly tied to the amount of external funding. If the faculty do not have the grants, their departments cannot admit students.

BeetleB 5mo ago
Isn't that what the article is saying? Less research funding == Fewer admissions. > The number of graduate student admissions is directly tied to the amount of external funding. Minor quibble: It's not merely external funding. In many sciences (math, physics, chemistry), it's common for the department to promise funding through non-research means for a number of years. In my top school, I think physics students were guaranteed TA funding for 2 years (until they pass the qualifying exams and find a professor). Math students are almost always funded as TAs (the department guaranteed 6 years). It's mostly engineering departments that don't do this.
- fastaguy88 5mo ago
  While it is true that departments often fund their graduate students for the first year (or possibly 2) out of their own budgets, their budgets are largely determined by the generosity of their Deans (who got the money from indirect costs from grants) or their own indirect costs. And they will not be admitting students if they do not see a clear path for them to be externally funded after their first year or two.
  - BeetleB 5mo ago
    Oh yes. As I said, the math department guaranteed 6 years. If they can't guarantee it, they won't admit the student. The engineering departments, however, admitted students regardless of funding as long as they met the bar. On the application they'd ask the candidate if they wanted the admission to be contingent on funding. Universities like MIT that admit only if they have funding for engineering are the outliers. Usually they're private universities.
5mo ago

bensyverson 5mo ago

Sounds like everything is fine then

willis936 5mo ago

I was recently shown a grad office door covered with home grown memes. There was a printout of a disassociating cartoon teddy bear taped on top in the center with the caption "unfortunately the vibe continues to deteriorate". People might pick their preferred explanation, but there is little doubt that [things in the world] are successfully demoralizing academics.

d00mScroll 5mo ago

[dead]

dnnddidiej 5mo ago

This beating aroud the bush doesn't help: > We’ve already seen clear signs that policy changes affecting international students and scholars are discouraging extremely talented individuals from applying to join our community. Whose policy? What policy?

pbhjpbhj 5mo ago
Presumably that you'd have to be white as driven snow and have a Confederate-flag carrying Jesus holding an assault rifle tattooed on you to avoid ending up in a detention center awaiting deportation to some foreign hellhole prison.
intended 5mo ago
Why? The point was made very clearly; everyone who is in academia or research knows. People who are unaware or uninterested will move on and not be affected.

intended 5mo ago

The article is politely calling out the effects of the current regime in Washington and indicating that the government is finding other ways to not give funding to schools they don’t like. I am kinda surprised this wasn’t a prominent conversation point.

0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
MIT started it. They cancelled Dorian Abbot in 2021. Federal funding is supposed to be in the interest of the American people. If you're adopting extreme left-wing politics at the institutional level, and shouting down political views associated with half the country, how exactly is giving you money in the interest of the American people? I wouldn't expect a far-right university to get federal funds. Why should a far-left university get federal funds? Furthermore: The US government is trillions of dollars in debt. MIT has billions in their endowment. I'm not sure a rich institution like MIT should be demanding funds from a government which is deeply indebted.
- intended 5mo ago
  Thank you, I needed that. It is a great reminder that eventually these talking points will always swamp any communication channel. These talking points are such a great example of the effectiveness of organized groups versus individuals in the market place of ideas. It makes me appreciate the early days of the internet even more, and the good fortune to be alive in that moment.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 5mo ago
    I'm not part of an organized group. >It is a great reminder that eventually these talking points will always swamp any communication channel. I notice that some people will respond to arguments by saying: "Oh, that argument. I've heard it many times before." What's interesting to me is that they seem to think simply saying "I've heard that many times before" should suffice as a counterargument. Really, it should be the opposite: If you've heard it many times before, you've had plenty of time to think about it. If the argument is invalid, you ought to have a very good counterargument by now. So where's your incredible counterargument? Seems rather suspicious that you're unwilling to share it!