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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious how people "know" that there is fluff and administrative bloat? I was an administrative staff person at a university- if you asked the professors, they might say that our department was bloat simply because many don't like dealing with us. Yet, they (and only a few with loud voices) were the first to scream if they didn't receive immediate attention.
Additionally, research projects are all different and need something different to succeed- so someone's large travel budget may be for essential national and international collaborations. Someone's large supply budget may be supporting a critical lab. Workshops and training budgets are important for states/areas that are historically underfunded and are trying to train K-12 teachers and engage students in areas like STEM so we see more rising talent.
This all makes me sad- we are not that far from a universal flu vaccine, Alzheimer's research may be reaching a critical success point, and currently 20% of our population will die from cancer- it's being researched at many universities on all fronts.

Great question.

Let's hire an Assistant Dean of Staff Management to find out.

/s

"Administrative bloat" is an incredibly well documented issue in higher education. Like, I really don't even know how to answer your question because there's so many sources and statistics out there about skyrocketing administrative costs/number of non-instructional staff at universities. It's like asking "I'm curious how people "know" that the US has industrialized over the years"...because it's just a fact that is known to anyone that pays a modicum of attention.

I'd rather reduce the White House Bloat. There's a lot of Bloat in the Casablanca. Some of it likes playing golf. Bloated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1

MAGA trash and the fake D trolls love to push their lies, but the rest of us can see what is really happening here.

No, liberal Dem here and I think colleges have been broken for years, and need revamping

What TF does that have to do with what the orange turd is doing?

This isn’t the solution to anything.

You’re either a troll or dumb AF.

Classy.

Uh, Trump is reacting to an overall sentiment that these schools have gone off the rails. And many people - even Dems like me- agree.

Trump has gone off the rails. He can't even run the country. Stephen Miller is doing it all as we saw on the Signal chat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My college did not take any federal Funds. We had sports, but we have profitable ones, my year the basketball team went to Final Four.

When I say direct the school of course students got Financial Aid from FASFA etc and since a Catholic University we paid no property tax.

But we did just fine as we did not have research stuff and it was a commuter school at time. No Dorms so Campus at night just a few Security Guards, same as weekends. No big costs.

Plus a lot of priests did not even get paid. Our President of School had no salary.

mathwise the year we went to Final Four we had a lot of games on natonal TV. CBS paid us a million a game back them per game on national TV. Plus we were selling 20,000 seats a game at the Garden for like $20 bucks each for home games.

Tuition was only $4,000 a single televised basketball game could support 250 scholarships.

And our cafeteria and security guards we used to pay very low salaries but gave free tuition to their kids. We had several retired cops working with kids in school.

This is all pre hiking tuition prices and gvt. funding. They ran the school to be afordable.


I knew a few SAHMs who worked in Cafeteria or secretary to get kids school paid for.

That business model broke 30-45 years ago most schools as they became big business models with high tuition

Which college is this?

The college is St. Johns (not the cool one) and every number the PP posted is off by orders of magnitude. They post this frequently, which tells you all you need to know about the relevance of these discussions.

You seem hysterically protective of universities. Why?

No, they don't seem hysterical.

DP

[Anonymous]

The funny thing is that everybody in the 'professors are overpaid and lazy and they shouldn't have tenure crowd' is that they are finding out that the opposite isn't too great either. Talking to a friend who told me that her daughter started a degree at the local state university (not flagship) and 'all her professors are adjuncts and no one knows her name and they all teach at like five different universities and don't have offices and don't have any time to meet with her.' Friend then goes on to say that all the feedback her daughter got on her work appeared to be generated by AI, and how is her daughter ever supposed to get a letter of recommendation, etc. Well, that's what happens when your university doesn't get funding from your state and becomes tuition dependent and tuition driven. That's what happens when your state does away with tenure and doesn't pay professors a living wage and so they can't hire anyone. It's really weird. You don't want professors to be treated like professionals, granted any autonomy or to have any of those 'perks' like conference funding or an office -- but you also don't want your child taught by an impoverished individual who is overworked and tired and doesn't have an office. Funny, you can't have it both ways.

[Anonymous]

Meh. We’re $38 trillion in debt. Gotta cut n gut somewhere.

[Anonymous]

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.

This. A "new idea" isn't welching on a grant that has already been awarded and whose research is in process with people hired, space secured, equipment leased/conrtacted, etc. Also, I highly doubt that the PP was either a moderate Dem or someone who voted for Harris.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious how people "know" that there is fluff and administrative bloat? I was an administrative staff person at a university- if you asked the professors, they might say that our department was bloat simply because many don't like dealing with us. Yet, they (and only a few with loud voices) were the first to scream if they didn't receive immediate attention.
Additionally, research projects are all different and need something different to succeed- so someone's large travel budget may be for essential national and international collaborations. Someone's large supply budget may be supporting a critical lab. Workshops and training budgets are important for states/areas that are historically underfunded and are trying to train K-12 teachers and engage students in areas like STEM so we see more rising talent.
This all makes me sad- we are not that far from a universal flu vaccine, Alzheimer's research may be reaching a critical success point, and currently 20% of our population will die from cancer- it's being researched at many universities on all fronts.

Great question.

Let's hire an Assistant Dean of Staff Management to find out.

/s

"Administrative bloat" is an incredibly well documented issue in higher education. Like, I really don't even know how to answer your question because there's so many sources and statistics out there about skyrocketing administrative costs/number of non-instructional staff at universities. It's like asking "I'm curious how people "know" that the US has industrialized over the years"...because it's just a fact that is known to anyone that pays a modicum of attention.

I'd rather reduce the White House Bloat. There's a lot of Bloat in the Casablanca. Some of it likes playing golf. Bloated.

IKR? Not to mention all the lawsuits they are costing us, and what are those Musk dropout kids getting paid? Also, I'm curious if all the Trump appointees are working on the same salaries as previous positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The funny thing is that everybody in the 'professors are overpaid and lazy and they shouldn't have tenure crowd' is that they are finding out that the opposite isn't too great either. Talking to a friend who told me that her daughter started a degree at the local state university (not flagship) and 'all her professors are adjuncts and no one knows her name and they all teach at like five different universities and don't have offices and don't have any time to meet with her.' Friend then goes on to say that all the feedback her daughter got on her work appeared to be generated by AI, and how is her daughter ever supposed to get a letter of recommendation, etc. Well, that's what happens when your university doesn't get funding from your state and becomes tuition dependent and tuition driven. That's what happens when your state does away with tenure and doesn't pay professors a living wage and so they can't hire anyone. It's really weird. You don't want professors to be treated like professionals, granted any autonomy or to have any of those 'perks' like conference funding or an office -- but you also don't want your child taught by an impoverished individual who is overworked and tired and doesn't have an office. Funny, you can't have it both ways.

So what is the answer? Some admin bloat is ok?
Some corporatizations of universities and grad school is ok? To an extent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The funny thing is that everybody in the 'professors are overpaid and lazy and they shouldn't have tenure crowd' is that they are finding out that the opposite isn't too great either. Talking to a friend who told me that her daughter started a degree at the local state university (not flagship) and 'all her professors are adjuncts and no one knows her name and they all teach at like five different universities and don't have offices and don't have any time to meet with her.' Friend then goes on to say that all the feedback her daughter got on her work appeared to be generated by AI, and how is her daughter ever supposed to get a letter of recommendation, etc. Well, that's what happens when your university doesn't get funding from your state and becomes tuition dependent and tuition driven. That's what happens when your state does away with tenure and doesn't pay professors a living wage and so they can't hire anyone. It's really weird. You don't want professors to be treated like professionals, granted any autonomy or to have any of those 'perks' like conference funding or an office -- but you also don't want your child taught by an impoverished individual who is overworked and tired and doesn't have an office. Funny, you can't have it both ways.

So what is the answer? Some admin bloat is ok?
Some corporatizations of universities and grad school is ok? To an extent?

Yes, you can just take a bludgeon to funding and wipe it all away with zero thought. You need to apply judgment and nuance to what you want to do away with. There is some bloat but not everything is bloat. Think about what you most want to protect - teacher quality/mentoring/students, certain kinds of high profile research, etc - and incent and reward that and do not cut everything.

[Anonymous]

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.

alot of these "researchers" no longer teach and have their students do all the work

not only do these researchers get Gov money but they also get Corp $

signed former Lockheed employee who sent $ to my Alma Mater (a public uni). If we didn't send $ to the uni to do some of this grunt work, we would have instead hired these students to do internships or PT work local to our office.

[Anonymous]

I say it is the return to normal college life. My oldest sister first to go to college in family I did a few college tours with her back in 1976/77.

College was bare bones, no AC in rooms, No fancy gyms, no fancy places to eat. No real sports Campus, no funding international students. Looked like a prison with hospital HS cafeteria level food.

Tuition was way cheaper. Nearly all students driving distance school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article should be paired hand-in-hand with Stanford’s “War on Fun,” which details how Stanford admin have gone after student’s ability to actually enjoy their college experience: https://stanforddaily.com/2022/10/24/inside-stanfords-war-on-fun-tensions-mount-over-universitys-handling-of-social-life/ . College is a lot more dead post-Covid than it used to be.

Students should not waste time on frivolous activities. They are there to study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. We’re $38 trillion in debt. Gotta cut n gut somewhere.

Maybe we should start with Trump's weekly visits to Mar A Lago and the golf games. Or maybe the cost of keeping Melania in NYC.