The End of College Life - Wash U Prof's article in the Atlantic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The cluelessness and stupidity on display in this thread makes it quite clear how we ended up with a low-IQ troll for a president.

I think the comments must come from college freshmen in a MAGA club.

Just vandals trying to tear beautiful things down for no reason at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What you don’t get is that this will just kill off most schools.

It won't kill off most schools, but it will force them to cut the flab and make choices on how to spend limited money. It will kill some schools, that is a much needed Darwinian fitness test.

They are cutting research, not “flab”.

MAGAs are dumb AF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What you don’t get is that this will just kill off most schools.

It won't kill off most schools, but it will force them to cut the flab and make choices on how to spend limited money. It will kill some schools, that is a much needed Darwinian fitness test.

They are cutting research, not “flab”.

MAGAs are dumb AF.

Look beneath the surface & see what this “research” is focused on, moron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am a college professor and I am just. so. sad. I had my first experience yesterday with a 'fascist adjacent' student challenging my authority in class, like something out of the Cultural Revolution. We had an assignment about Mid East politics and I had assigned them to read and discuss an op-ed that appeared in Al Jazeera. "I'm not reading Al Jazeera and neither is anyone else," he told me. "It's crap. It's not something we should be reading." I told him that he could fail the assignment but that it's important to get a well-rounded view of an issue, to read a variety of sources, and that Al Jazeera does a darned fine job of covering MidEast politics. But I suspect he will not be the last student to get in my face and try to take control of my class. A depressing future. I am glad I can afford to retire early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is so much waste on the college campuses of today particularly those that do research. I live in a Division 1 college town and have friends that work for the university and rarely have to step foot on campus. A lot of my friends frequently travel around the world going to conferences.

How is that a waste?

Zoom in to a conference.
Read a published paper?

It's not the same. In order to form the kind of relationship where you can co-author something with someone, co-write an article or a book, you need to have an actual relationship with someone. You're not going to develop that through zooming in to a conference. you actually need to have 'unstructured interactions'. you also need to know something about the culture where the conference is taking place. all of this is necessary even if you are jealous that we get to travel. So much of this MAGA stuff is at root driven by jealousy -- you're jealous of my academic schedule, my travel, my lifestyle. Maybe you should have worked hard and gone to grad school and published.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am a college professor and I am just. so. sad. I had my first experience yesterday with a 'fascist adjacent' student challenging my authority in class, like something out of the Cultural Revolution. We had an assignment about Mid East politics and I had assigned them to read and discuss an op-ed that appeared in Al Jazeera. "I'm not reading Al Jazeera and neither is anyone else," he told me. "It's crap. It's not something we should be reading." I told him that he could fail the assignment but that it's important to get a well-rounded view of an issue, to read a variety of sources, and that Al Jazeera does a darned fine job of covering MidEast politics. But I suspect he will not be the last student to get in my face and try to take control of my class. A depressing future. I am glad I can afford to retire early.

Omg I’m so sorry. Please stand strong. Please

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am paying careful attention and am very happy with the changes. These are much needed.

The people who are unhappy are those who are content to receive funds without needing to demonstrate any results.

Now the fun part - the supposed liberals who are "open" to new ideas and alternative viewpoints, think none of the above is an "acceptable" viewpoint. Because the above must have been written by a MAGA advocate and therefore not a valid view.

-A moderate democrat who voted for Kamala

Look the MAGA troll that always claims to be a dem is back. And as unconvincing as always.

This is why I am really really really loving what Trump is doing. I am going to really really really enjoy the next 4 years.

Knowing you guys are going to cry cry cry, is only going to make each day, really really really bright! Loving it!

Looking forward to a 3rd term and 8 more years!

Is there truly nothing else that makes your days bright? Really?

Have you ever seen a movie and enjoyed seeing the villain suffer in the end? It is very satisfying.

So in your mind, the villain in today's society is some dude writing math equations on a chalk board? And not the one dropping bombs on innocent civilians? Lay off the ketamine, babe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What you don’t get is that this will just kill off most schools.

It won't kill off most schools, but it will force them to cut the flab and make choices on how to spend limited money. It will kill some schools, that is a much needed Darwinian fitness test.

They are cutting research, not “flab”.

MAGAs are dumb AF.

Look beneath the surface & see what this “research” is focused on, moron.

Cutting the research doesn’t affect general spending. It just cuts the research. There aren’t “choices”.

Fcking idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If federal funding of research was being used to subsidize all this stuff, doesn’t this just prove that it was being misused? Why not just end the research that was being funded?

A fair question. I do not know the answer .

I think the answer is that part of his article is incorrect or misleading. The federal research overhead is subsidizing the nice quad. It is providing research oppryinities for undergrads in labs, and attracting top research talent that is then a resource for students (mostly graduate), which in turn attracts top grad students who help teach undergrad classes more cheaply. Without those grad school TAs teaching undergrad bio and chem sections, the schools need to figure out another solution that probably will pull money from the quad, or raise tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a foreign research scientist living in the US, who went to undergrad in Europe.

To be entirely frank, ever since I've lived in the US, I've been astonished at the amount of money that just gets thrown away on frivolities in every aspect of American life. It's a country of consumerist excess to a degree that is unfathomable in most other countries. US college campuses are no exception: yes, there are classes and professors and research. But there are also luxury facilities, for performances, sports and recreation, etc. I am all for investing in the serious things, that down the road will cure cancer, find sustainable and affordable energy sources, or other huge benefits of research. But massive sports facilities? Subsidizing all kinds of clubs and activities and trips? Enormous manicured campuses and tons of wasted space in buildings that translate to enormous A/C bills? That kind of luxury doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. Are we sure this is where we want to spend money?

My son attends a private university in the US, and will continue some his grad work in Europe. He's headed towards a European institute that world-renowned in its specialty. But the lecture halls will be 19th century (no A/C). The living situation will be bare-bones compared to his fancy dorm here. No sports or clubs. No sprawling lawns. The education, however, is top-notch, at a reasonable price for grad school.

I think Americans can rethink some of their expenses without reducing the pace of academic progress or impeding research in any way.

30 years ago America was more like Europe in that way. I went to top schools and my dorm had leaky windows that let in the draft (a one inch gap in the New England winter) and put furniture was at least 50 years old. When I did my graduate work at Yale, the buildings had not been seriously renovated in 100 years—we seriously still had a crank elevator with an open shaft. At least there was indoor plumbing I guess. At both schools, our food was frankly inedible-we used the same suppliers as the prisons. At some point about 20 years ago the schools all started throwing money at fancy facilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am a college professor and I am just. so. sad. I had my first experience yesterday with a 'fascist adjacent' student challenging my authority in class, like something out of the Cultural Revolution. We had an assignment about Mid East politics and I had assigned them to read and discuss an op-ed that appeared in Al Jazeera. "I'm not reading Al Jazeera and neither is anyone else," he told me. "It's crap. It's not something we should be reading." I told him that he could fail the assignment but that it's important to get a well-rounded view of an issue, to read a variety of sources, and that Al Jazeera does a darned fine job of covering MidEast politics. But I suspect he will not be the last student to get in my face and try to take control of my class. A depressing future. I am glad I can afford to retire early.

Several years ago we had a 20-something nanny who was taking college classes and working for us part-time. Every day her description of her classes was "I stood up and challenged this professor on his insensitivity to X group." Maybe your students have been going along with you for years, but my understanding is that students have thought they've been running the university for a long time. You just wouldn't notice it if you were more on the left like most professors and students. I mean, The Coddling of the American Mind has been in print for a decade now, right? Conservatives have been concerned about the stifling of free speech on university campuses for a very long time, if FIRE is any indication.

Maybe the First Ammendment and respect for experts matters on both sides of the political spectrum. I know there aren't many on the right who believe that any more, but I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but I just don't buy it. In 1997, the most expensive four-year private colleges cost $100,000 for everything. That's $199,000 in today's dollars. Today, the most expensive privates are $360,000. Put another way, if college was as expensive in 1997 as it was today, it would have been $180,000--80% more expensive. Where has this 80% increase in cost gone? Not to faculty--tenured faculty positions have been stable or even cut almost everywhere, replaced by temps. My daughter is a Freshman at a T10 research university and *all* of her STEM profs have been temps so far. The money has gone to three things: Administrative bloat; athletics; and buildings and amenities. It will be hard, but undergraduate colleges can easily find the solution to their problems by cutting the bureaucracy (Deans, Assistant Deans, VPs, etc.), freezing the absurd athletics programs that serve as a weird pipeline for rich kids whose parents can afford travel sports, and stopping new building construction. Kids will be fine--in fact they'll be much better off. They don't need to be bubble wrapped; they can live in crappy dorms like we did and be fine; and parents might realize that the whole travel sports thing for hopes of a D1 admit is an absurd, irrational, and deeply unfair money grab. A correction is badly needed, and college will be better for it when it gets back to its core mission: Education and becoming an adult through controlled adversity.

I agree with all this but it has nothing to do with what Trump is doing. The problem you identified is market driven — the colleges are competing for applicants based on this stupid stuff, and that can only change when the consumers change (or the ranking system changes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All Americans - liberal, conservative, and apolitical - should be very concerned about the future of college given how Trump & Vance are attacking it. It is arson with no architecture. They don't have a vision for fixing it, they just want it to die.

I am paying careful attention and am very happy with the changes. These are much needed.

The people who are unhappy are those who are content to receive funds without needing to demonstrate any results.

Now the fun part - the supposed liberals who are "open" to new ideas and alternative viewpoints, think none of the above is an "acceptable" viewpoint. Because the above must have been written by a MAGA advocate and therefore not a valid view.

-A moderate democrat who voted for Kamala

Researchers have to demonstrate results. Often they are contractually obligated to publish their results no matter what. They don’t have to demonstrate success. That is an important concept in science and engineering. You can’t guarantee success, nor should you, when trialing new concepts in basic and applied research.

An epic cope!

So many jackasses on this thread who understand nothing about doing research just yelling nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A recent paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that government investments in [R&D] accounted for at least a fifth of U.S. productivity growth since World War II.

Obviously why Putin instructed Trump to cut research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What you don’t get is that this will just kill off most schools.

It won't kill off most schools, but it will force them to cut the flab and make choices on how to spend limited money. It will kill some schools, that is a much needed Darwinian fitness test.

They are cutting research, not “flab”.

MAGAs are dumb AF.

Look beneath the surface & see what this “research” is focused on, moron.

Please enlighten us. Be specific.

The Trump admin is attaching education because it threatens his fascist plans. Period.

If they actually cared about improving efficiency or trimming the fat they wouldn't do what they are doing.

You are the moron.