Student Loans and the SAVE plan

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TheBeagle

TheBeagle

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Mist said:
Those research grants bring in revenue that fund and grow the research programs, and therefore grow the standing of the department vs other competitive research organizations, but they don't actually fund the undergraduate education in that department. In fact, grant money is heavily regulated and accounted to make sure it's paying specifically for what the grant is written for and not being spent on other things.

It's amazing what you people think you know.
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Yes, no shit it's heavily regulated. Obviously you can't directly pay a gender studies prof with a research grant from the Env Sci prof. But the school takes their cut off the top for indirect costs, that number is usually 50-60%. Some of those indirect costs are legit - maintenance staff, electricity, etc. But there is a giant black hole of fuckery that can and does happen where the money for those indirect costs doesn't go to the program that was awarded that money. If you think otherwise you are naive and completely blind to the corruption that infects our Universities. Also those regs only apply to Federal funding, private funding agencies can attach their own strings, or none at all.
 
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C

Captain Suave

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TJT said:
I mean failure like you wanted a physics degree so you could work as a physicist researching quantum mechanics or whatever. Not that you wouldn't have a career.
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Ahh. Well, anyone who banks on that is delusional. That's like playing high school basketball expecting to make it to the NBA. Cutting edge research physics is some super fucking rarified action.
 
Kaines

Kaines

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TheBeagle said:
Yes, no shit it's heavily regulated. Obviously you can't directly pay a gender studies prof with a research grant from the Env Sci prof. But the school takes their cut off the top for indirect costs, that number is usually 50-60%. Some of those indirect costs are legit - maintenance staff, electricity, etc. But there is a giant black hole of fuckery that can and does happen where the money for those indirect costs doesn't go to the program that was awarded that money. If you think otherwise you are naive and completely blind to the corruption that infects our Universities. Also those regs only apply to Federal funding, private funding agencies can attach their own strings, or none at all.
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This true, and we know that revenue generating portions of a University fund the non-revenue generating parts. Look at athletics. Football and basketball fund all kinds of shit-tier women's athletics.
 
Mist

Mist

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TheBeagle said:
Yes, no shit it's heavily regulated. Obviously you can't directly pay a gender studies prof with a research grant from the Env Sci prof. But the school takes their cut off the top for indirect costs, that number is usually 50-60%. Some of those indirect costs are legit - maintenance staff, electricity, etc. But there is a giant black hole of fuckery that can and does happen where the money for those indirect costs doesn't go to the program that was awarded that money. If you think otherwise you are naive and completely blind to the corruption that infects our Universities. Also those regs only apply to Federal funding, private funding agencies can attach their own strings, or none at all.
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But it's still not going to the cover costs of educating the department's undergraduate students.

Yes, it's revenue, and revenue is good, but that's not the same thing.

Anyway, research schools have very fucked incentive structures. The best researchers are generally not the best instructors, yet they teach, despite often hating it and being bad at it. This is yet another reason why people should strongly consider community colleges first.
 
sleevedraw

sleevedraw

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Most of my best instructors had masters instead of PhDs. I feel like their heads are normally a little more grounded and focused on application, which is what the majority of people want to get out of their degrees anyway.

Either:
1) Have every degree teach "one tier down" from whatever degree they hold (i.e. masters teaches baccalaureate, doctorates teach masters),
2) Recalibrate Ed.D. into a practice doctorate that focuses on teaching after attaining a masters in a particular subject area, while PhD continues to focus on pure research
Or some combination of the two, IMO.
 
TJT

TJT

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PhDs that are not Medical or Juris take like 8 god damn years to do. You'd be a complete idiot to pursue one unless you were dead set on working in academia or being a brain trust for a major corporation. But most that do that would know in advance their PhD job prospects.
 
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Control

Control

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TJT said:
PhDs that are not Medical or Juris take like 8 god damn years to do. You'd be a complete idiot to pursue one unless you were dead set on working in academia or being a brain trust for a major corporation. But most that do that would know in advance their PhD job prospects.
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It may not be the same for all universities and fields, but anyone in business/IT should check into euro phds if you want to go that route. Shorter, paper-based, and possible to get research positions that pay an actual reasonable wage.
 
Gravel

Gravel

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Mist said:
The flipside is that all those shitty degrees heavily subsidize the extremely expensive STEM programs. But the government could easily just subsidize them more directly.

That said, everyone that says "the waste of time general education" is usually an idiot. Almost all of those are general education requirements are to improve your communications skills and ability to work with other people. Having met engineers with neither skill, they don't generally contribute nearly as much to the success of their overall organizations as they do in their own minds. Companies are not driven forward by lone geniuses quietly doing their work, even though the autists want that to be true. From the outside, those people are seen as weirdo creeps who don't document their work and are more concerned about making themselves look valuable by siloing important information in their heads instead of contributing knowledge and mentoring people. If you ever find yourself thinking "if I write down and effectively communicate what I know, my employer will fire me" then you're probably part of the problem.
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I'm confused by your statement here.

You say general education isn't worthless, and your proof is you know a bunch of engineers who have shitty communication skills and ability to work with people. Are you working with a bunch of engineers that don't have college degrees? Shouldn't all of them have taken those general education classes that supposedly would impart those soft skills on them?

Seems to me like you're just giving more reasons why the general education classes are, in fact, a giant waste of fucking time.
 
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Aldarion

Aldarion

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Its amazing anyone could look at the educational system in the US and conclude the general non-subject-related courses arent a complete fucking waste of time.

Even funnier coming from a committed leftist like Mist, since this is a US centric thing. Canadian and European systems are almost entirely subject matter focused. Don't yall want us to be more like Europe?

Its one of the top 3 or 3 things wrong with post secondary education in the US. My five fucking semesters of English literature didnt make me a better communicator; they just got me out of taking other equally bullshit classes that had similarly nothing to fucking do with biology. It was all a collossal waste of time and money. I'd estimate half the courses I've taken in my life had nothing to do with anything in my major or field of study.

Then again, iirc Mist is a big fan of teacher certificates so its probably best to inverse his opinion on anything related to education.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Aldarion said:
Its amazing anyone could look at the educational system in the US and conclude the general non-subject-related courses arent a complete fucking waste of time.

Even funnier coming from a committed leftist like Mist, since this is a US centric thing. Canadian and European systems are almost entirely subject matter focused. Don't yall want us to be more like Europe?

Its one of the top 3 or 3 things wrong with post secondary education in the US. My five fucking semesters of English literature didnt make me a better communicator; they just got me out of taking other equally bullshit classes that had similarly nothing to fucking do with biology. It was all a collossal waste of time and money. I'd estimate half the courses I've taken in my life had nothing to do with anything in my major or field of study.

Then again, iirc Mist is a big fan of teacher certificates so its probably best to inverse his opinion on anything related to education.
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I disagree. First I doubt you took 5 semesters of English lit unless you are an English/lit/writing major.

That being said, the IFP/AA/General Ed or whatever it's called in the school serve a purpose. It's to teach the dumbfucks all the shit they failed to learn in high school. Since you're a professor (iirc) nothing I am about to say should surprise you. Freshman who haven't taken eng comp I yet and don't know what the intro/body/conclusion is. Who don't understand the most basic of punctuation. That a paragraph is more than one sentence. Fuck MLA, I'm talking basic composition fundamentals. I dealth with this every semester I was a GTA.

Now, if you want to dump the 5 or 6 electives that make up the IFP/AA then I'm ok with that. But Eng Comp 1&2, College Algebra and intro to Stats, a bio science, a hard science, a couple of humanities classes and a lit class or two all serve a purpose.
 
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Fucker

Fucker

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Mist said:
Those research grants bring in revenue that fund and grow the research programs, and therefore grow the standing of the department vs other competitive research organizations, but they don't actually fund the undergraduate education in that department. In fact, grant money is heavily regulated and accounted to make sure it's paying specifically for what the grant is written for and not being spent on other things.

It's amazing what you people think you know.
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You didn't even go to college.

Just shut the fuck up and quit larping about your imaginary life.
 
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Fucker

Fucker

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Sanrith Descartes said:
From biology degree to building swimming pools. That is so America right now.
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I got a science degree and ended up running part of a business. College classmate was English major and is now working his way up at Intel. Most of the people I knew ended up in something other than their undergrad study except for the obvious thing of going to law/med school.
 
Mist

Mist

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Sanrith Descartes said:
That being said, the IFP/AA/General Ed or whatever it's called in the school serve a purpose. It's to teach the dumbfucks all the shit they failed to learn in high school.
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Exactly. An engineer should know how to write effective business communication. A journalist should understand basic research methods and statistics and be able to read a fucking graph and understand what it means. An artist should be able to do both of the above. Everyone should understand what the Bell Curve represents. Everyone should understand how the American economy and system of investment works, along with basic principals like supply and demand. Everyone should understand basic computer programming, so they don't believe that computers magically 'think things' and 'do stuff.'

Classes on "how do your taxes" are a little stupid because it constantly changes, but some better idea about basic financial education has merit. PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW HOW TO CHANGE THE OIL IN THEIR CAR.

Ideally, this would all be done in high school. You should not be able to leave until you can demonstrate that you know the above. But it isn't, therefore college or at least community college. Everything wrong with college is really the fault of high schools being fucking awful and having incredibly low expectations of what students should be able to learn.
 
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Control

Control

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Mist said:
An artist should be able to do both of the above. ... You should not be able to leave until you can demonstrate that you know the above. But it isn't, therefore college or at least community college.
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Um, do you think college teaches everyone all of those things? What % of new art degree graduates do you think can do all of those? What % of new art degree graduates do you think can do any of those?
 
Mist

Mist

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Sanrith Descartes said:
Mist Mist so at this point I feel obligated to ask about your post-high school education history.
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Too much but most of it was free because I worked for the university or the community college. 12 years bouncing between the two in various roles. Graduated with multiple useless degrees, but a really good understanding of what higher education gets right and wrong.

4-year college is just not a good use of time or money for most people, period.
 
Mist

Mist

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Control said:
Um, do you think college teaches everyone all of those things? What % of new art degree graduates do you think can do all of those? What % of new art degree graduates do you think can do any of those?
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Both of my best friends in college got art degrees. They definitely learned all of that stuff at our university. They're both very successfully self-employed, with their own art businesses, including multiple published books. Additionally, one was a professional animator in Japan for a while, the other is a syndicated cartoonist.
 
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