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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Times World Rankings

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

This has more to do with graduate research.[/quote]

And Michigan comes out ahead once again.[/quote]

As well it should, it spends over a half a billion of your tuition dollars on research every year.  Funny they don't put that in brochures.[/quote]

More likely US tax dollars and private sector partnership dollars, not tuition dollars, but if you understood University research, you would know that.[/quote]

No, you don't understand research.  Those are separate sources. The major sources are externally funded federal, private externally funded, and internal.  Internal usually depends heavily on tuition or state appropriations.  The reason internal is needed is that external does not cover full costs.

[b]You can read this from a former provost:  https://www.changinghighereducation.com/2016/08/the-high-cost-of-funded-research.html
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He claims that for every 1000 external funds there is a $300 internal expense--and his accounting is quite tilted to his conception--counting for instance overhead expenses that are multi-use, not considering faculty lines in typical ways etc. [b]But research grants still then provides 70% more revenue than it costs. [/b] A good portion of this goes directly to the university.  Professors don't get to keep any of their grant money (save for summer salary if they use the money for that) so the revenue goes to paying graduate stipends and tuition and undergraduate work-study students, purchasing equipment that lives on in the university, paying overhead costs (which are also used for many purposes) travel for presenting on research and buying out time that the university would otherwise be paying them as a full-time employees.

And ultimately his claim seems to be not that he has evidence that tuition is used to pay the portion of the internal costs of research but that it might be. And all that is not considering that professors participation in research is what makes them knowledgeable and current and capable of teaching, and that student participation in research is important to their education.

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No, the grant typically covers 70% of the total cost.  He was a provost at two top 25 schools.  Perhaps he knows what he is talking about.[/quote]

But the "cost" of the grant are a lot of expenses that also go into university coffers.  I conduct university research. I understand what he's saying and have direct experience.  He's correct that external funded research doesn't provide all the money that people think it does, and sometimes institutions overreach with internal funds, but everyone plays around with these numbers.  Every grant comes with an indirect amount which goes directly to universities (can be around 50% of the budget), but what is not counted as indirect ALSO benefits the university by paying student wages and faculty salaries and lab expenses.  A[b]ll he's arguing is that external research is not the full win it seems to be because institutions spend money to get the money. But it's still an overall win because otherwise the institutions would be spending money to not get the money, not have graduate TAs to teach courses, have to pay full faculty salaries etc.[/b]   [/quote]

I'm sure the university thinks it is an overall win, or otherwise they wouldn't do it.  But I think you misunderstand what he is getting at.  The university has to spend money to get money as you say.  On average it is about $30 for every $100 of external grant.  The bulk of that $30 the university has to come up with comes from the general fund.  The primary sources of the general fund are (for a state university) tuition and state appropriation.   Due to the structure of the university (graduate professional schools keep their tuition revenue and graduates in Arts and Sciences are subsidized), [b]the burden of the cross-subsidy to fund research falls on the undergraduates.  They are getting the shaft. [/b] Researchers and graduate students benefit.  So as a PP said, you should consider carefully when choosing a big research university for undergraduate education.

So you may say the undergraduates still may benefit due to the overall university receiving more money.  Some research was done on the UC system a while ago.  It found that approximately 1/3rd of faculty time was spend on research, 1/3rd on graduate education, and 1/3rd on undergraduate education.   With this breakdown, undergraduate students are  paying more than the actual cost of education.  The UCs get a subsidy from the state, but given the way the university actually uses that money, the undergraduates don't benefit.

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