iirc, there was another thread, recently, about research grants to universities being cut. Looking over this piece from “The Atlantic” from the 10th, I noticed this bit:
Maybe this was never about efficiency. American confidence in higher education has plummeted: Last year, a Gallup poll reported that 36 percent of Americans had “a great deal or quite a lot” of confidence in higher ed, a figure that had reached nearly 60 percent as recently as 2015; 32 percent of respondents said they had “very little or no” confidence in the sector, up from just 10 percent 10 years ago. These changes don’t have much to do with scientific research. According to Gallup, those who have turned against universities cite the alleged “brainwashing” of students, the irrelevance of what is being taught, and the high cost of education.
Seems that the propaganda campaign against “woke” and “DEI”, making a particular target of education, has made defunding education, except for football, acceptable to the mob. Very convenient, considering the “JCs” embrace of people on H-1B visas, who were educated at some other government’s expense.
Keep in mind that research universities do much of the true discovery in the US. Since Sputnik, that research has been funded mostly by govt research grants. Those funds pay for the graduate students and post docs who do the research (at least in the sciences). Prestige comes from university research and the ability to get those grants.
Teaching is a secondary consideration. When it comes to research the norm is “they that can do. They that can’t teach.”
Your comments on value of college education are a concern but miss target. Research and graduate school education are our future. Cuts there have long term implications.
I agree college education is too costly. We should learn to streamline that. DEI has gone too far. A winning football team attracts alumni donations and students. That part needs attention.
The reputation of research universities help their graduates earn top dollar.
But the people in charge, the ones singing the praises of employing H-1B holders, instead of USians, may think foreign researchers, funded by their governments, can do all the inventing, just as their government fund their people’s education. Then the “JCs” can buy all the inventions they want, and hire all the highly educated people they want, without paying for the research and education. Keep in mind, most “JCs” are in their 60s and 70s, and really don’t care what happens after they are gone.
Yes, and foreign students are often valued as college students. And often get advanced degrees in US universities. Many remain in the US where they find employment. And some become CEOs of major corporations.
Shutting down research at universities is a disaster.
In the late 90’s and just over the turn of the century I worked at Motorola, at the Somerset Design Center, working on PowerPC. This was the processor Apple used for many years, and was a subset of IBM’s POWER architecture.
Back then we would interview the occasional Indian candidate, who almost always got their bachelor and masters degrees here. As time went on they would start getting their bachelors in India, masters here. I told myself it won’t be long before they get all their degrees in India and that has been the case for some time now. Next step is they simply won’t come here at all. They will stay in India, employed at home.
All the major semiconductor houses have large facilities in India to compliment the US and European/UK facilities. And teams are no longer single-site anymore. At Oracle, on SPARC processor core, all of those people (just under 100) were in one building in Austin. I could speak to anyone by walking down a hallway and be in-person to discuss anything. It was a very productive way to work (and sorry, Zoom/Slack is a poor substitute for this).
These days it is common for a single team like that to be in 3 different regions.
Given how much part of the country really really does not like foreign workers, even the high skill high pay type, and the fact you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to work on the exciting high performance CPUs and GPUs, why leave your home country anymore?
This is something the JC’s who don’t want to pay to educate their labor force might not have counted on.
And we see that Tesla is now considering building a plant in India. That becomes logical if tariffs on goods from China becomes a burden.
India has long had infrastructure limitations. Highways and railroads crowded with people and livestock. IT work with results shipped by internet has worked well for them. Manufacturing for them could be the next phase.
Yes, education seems to have much improved in India. Many attended engineering schools in the US in the 60s. Education seem to be valued there. I hear admission to the best schools there is very competitive. And yes a developing economy should produce good job opportunities. And an opportunity to move back to India and be near extended family.
They are probably looking forward to the day. Probably twenty years ago, I envisioned a General Motors, where the only USians on the payroll, were the “JCs” in downtown Detroit. All the product would be entirely designed and built in China, but the “JCs” would be waving the flag and saying “buy American, buy GM” I have mentioned before, the coworkers of mine who insisted that where a car was actually built didn’t matter. It was all about where “all the money” went. The CFO spouted that narrative a lot, as he drove a Swedish built Saab, but “all the money” went to GM downtown.
Of course, the introduction of protectionist tariffs by the US can change that narrative. So now, all the “knowledge” work, the engineering and testing, can be outsourced to Korea or India, where the expensively educated people are, with the production work, that can be done by high school dropouts, returned to the US. Not as cost efficient for the “JCs” as offshoring design and build, but still gets the high cost education and research out of the US, so education for the Proles can be defunded down to “Bantu education”, as all the “JCs” need here are people to screw on lugnuts.
Make college athletics a separate, for-profit, business. The definition of a win-win for everyone. Tuition costs fall significantly because that money is no longer needed to support anything sports related.
I posted a table, a while back, that showed that, for the vast majority of universities, athletics were a financial loser, costing universities Millions per year. But, if all the money losing programs were closed, the handful of universities with profitable programs, would not have much of anyone to play. Can you imagine TV programming on fall Saturdays, if the four major networks did not have 6 hours, or more, each, of college football to show?
I also posted an article about one student, who, after extensive research, figured out that her annual tuition costs, for academic classes, included a four figure subsidy for the university’s athletic department.
Create a for-profit business (funded by pro athletics?) to syphon off college athletes with MORE MONEY. That is why they ARE “college athletes”, right? $$$$. NIL goes away and the business can REALLY profit offering year-round football and so on.
How much coverage do the NHL and MLB minor leagues get? Ever see wall to wall coverage, on national TV, of minor league ball games? If you made college football and basketball, officially, the NFL and NBA farm systems they really are, would they rake in the same amount of money?
The NFL and NBA like their taxpayer supported farm system. They won’t pay a nickle. How about making the gambling industry pay for it?
College is only MORE EXPENSIVE for the students and taxpayers. We have been assured, for over 40 years, the road to economic nirvana is through giving the “JCs” a free ride, at the expense of we mere Proles.
Several years ago there was an article about a Univ. of Washington female golfer (scholarship student) and economics major. She calculated that the University, spent over $500,000 on her with all the travel, coaching, etc. during the 4 years. And golf isn’t a revenue producer like football and basketball.
