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> The issue here is that PIs don’t have the money to support graduate students What happened to all the money the undergrads are paying?

jpadkins 5mo ago
someone has to pay for administrators!
- trelane 5mo ago
  > someone has to pay for administrators Turns out, this is also research grant money. Half or more of every grant usually goes straight to the university.as "overhead." The universities could change this so more finding went to researchers, but they have zero incentive to.
  - dhosek 5mo ago
    Much of that overhead is not going to admin salaries (although, as stated elsewhere in the discussion money is fungible) but covers things like the cost of buildings, labs, maintenance, etc.
    - shimman 5mo ago
      I had no idea the on-going costs of physical things did not decrease over time, what an interesting thing to know. Here I thought that after you build the building and paid off the building, then for funsies also bought all the land surrounding the building, that at some point it would drastically cheaper to maintain it; but what you're saying makes so much sense!
      - dhosek 5mo ago
        You have clearly never owned a home. The older the building, the more maintenance it requires.
        shimman 5mo ago
        That absolutely does not justify in taking a 50% vig, good lord.
        wallst07 5mo ago
        However is maintenance($) > demolishing and building new($)?
frickinLasers 5mo ago
Great question! Mostly it goes toward maintaining the campus and paying the admin folks. PIs are paid to teach, basically, and are expected to pull in the money to support their own research (and maintain their facilities and pay the admin folks).
- amarilio 5mo ago
  It goes towards MIT’s endowment, which is valued at over $27B, and grew $3B last year. There is no shortage of money.
  - andix 5mo ago
    > There is no shortage of money This is a general theme in the last decade. There is a lot of money, but it is more and more ending up in the pockets of the extremely wealthy. I'm really no communist, but we've reached a point where the system starts to crumble because of it. It also can't be in the interest of the billionaires. They also want to live in a safe country and use working public infrastructure (roads, airports, air traffic control). They even need a functioning academic ecosystem if they want their children to receive a real education, not just access to a few famous professors they can buy.
    - lovich 5mo ago
      You’ve got some copium in there. Why wouldn’t billionaires want a few famous professors they can buy to teach their children the same way Alexander the Great was taught by Aristotle. You don’t have to share the education time for your kids with the poor and think of how exclusive and how much status is advertises. As for everything else you said about it not being in the interest of the billionaires. Even if you are 100% correct they have enough money to pay someone else to deal with any frictions in life and not think about it. On top of that, if you look at their behavior, there’s a lot of similarities between the wealthiest in society and how they treat money, and how addicts treat heroin. Addicts frequently engage in self destructive behavior for the next hit.
      - 5mo ago
Ar-Curunir 5mo ago
Almost none of that goes into research funding. Researchers are funded largely by government grants.

jpadkins 5mo ago

someone has to pay for administrators!

trelane 5mo ago
> someone has to pay for administrators Turns out, this is also research grant money. Half or more of every grant usually goes straight to the university.as "overhead." The universities could change this so more finding went to researchers, but they have zero incentive to.
- dhosek 5mo ago
  Much of that overhead is not going to admin salaries (although, as stated elsewhere in the discussion money is fungible) but covers things like the cost of buildings, labs, maintenance, etc.
  - shimman 5mo ago
    I had no idea the on-going costs of physical things did not decrease over time, what an interesting thing to know. Here I thought that after you build the building and paid off the building, then for funsies also bought all the land surrounding the building, that at some point it would drastically cheaper to maintain it; but what you're saying makes so much sense!
    - dhosek 5mo ago
      You have clearly never owned a home. The older the building, the more maintenance it requires.
      - shimman 5mo ago
        That absolutely does not justify in taking a 50% vig, good lord.
      - wallst07 5mo ago
        However is maintenance($) > demolishing and building new($)?

frickinLasers 5mo ago

Great question! Mostly it goes toward maintaining the campus and paying the admin folks. PIs are paid to teach, basically, and are expected to pull in the money to support their own research (and maintain their facilities and pay the admin folks).

amarilio 5mo ago
It goes towards MIT’s endowment, which is valued at over $27B, and grew $3B last year. There is no shortage of money.
- andix 5mo ago
  > There is no shortage of money This is a general theme in the last decade. There is a lot of money, but it is more and more ending up in the pockets of the extremely wealthy. I'm really no communist, but we've reached a point where the system starts to crumble because of it. It also can't be in the interest of the billionaires. They also want to live in a safe country and use working public infrastructure (roads, airports, air traffic control). They even need a functioning academic ecosystem if they want their children to receive a real education, not just access to a few famous professors they can buy.
  - lovich 5mo ago
    You’ve got some copium in there. Why wouldn’t billionaires want a few famous professors they can buy to teach their children the same way Alexander the Great was taught by Aristotle. You don’t have to share the education time for your kids with the poor and think of how exclusive and how much status is advertises. As for everything else you said about it not being in the interest of the billionaires. Even if you are 100% correct they have enough money to pay someone else to deal with any frictions in life and not think about it. On top of that, if you look at their behavior, there’s a lot of similarities between the wealthiest in society and how they treat money, and how addicts treat heroin. Addicts frequently engage in self destructive behavior for the next hit.
    - 5mo ago

Ar-Curunir 5mo ago

Almost none of that goes into research funding. Researchers are funded largely by government grants.