1. Undergraduate education benefits from low-paid lecturers and teaching assistants.
2. NSF's operating model is based on low-paid graduate students and postdocs.
3. Universities (at least until recently?) took a significant cut (for example 50%) off the top of NSF (and other) grants as overhead, but their overhead rate is significantly lower than typical government contractors in industry.
4. If you are a grad student and ever want to become (more) depressed (for both present and future prospects), read an NSF (or similar) grant for the project you are doing all the work for, and see how the funds are allocated.
5. Universities also underpay their professional athletes in "money" sports such as football and basketball.
6. Administration growth has outpaced enrollment growth (and faculty expansion etc.) for decades. So undergraduate education may "break even", but it's still paying an army of non-teaching administrators.[1] (Universities defend themselves by saying that regulatory compliance is more expensive now, etc.)
1. Yes, and yet it still only breaks even. The claim was that it's hugely profitable.
2. NSF operating model is based on maximizing the number of supported graduate students, not maximizing support per student. As someone who was a low-paid graduate student, I have sympathy for the perspective they are low-paid. But I also support graduate students now and I understand how expensive it really is.
3. Yes, but at least at my university, the overhead they get from grant funding isn't enough to actually cover research overhead. So research operates at a loss despite the negotiated overhead rate. Research is very expensive.
4. In my experience, graduate students are often involved in writing grant proposals. They also tend to lack the depth of experience necessary to really interpret budgets.
5. Sure, but I didn't really talk about sports programs in relation to academic funding, because sports usually funds itself and proceeds don't go over to pay for academics.
6. Sure, but you say "non-teaching administrators" as if they don't serve the academic mission. For example, in my department we have a non-teaching administrator who helps with advising. In our college, we have an office of tutoring which is very popular with students, and includes many non-teaching administrators. Access to resources like these lead to better student outcomes, but they do cost money.
2. NSF's operating model is based on low-paid graduate students and postdocs.
3. Universities (at least until recently?) took a significant cut (for example 50%) off the top of NSF (and other) grants as overhead, but their overhead rate is significantly lower than typical government contractors in industry.
4. If you are a grad student and ever want to become (more) depressed (for both present and future prospects), read an NSF (or similar) grant for the project you are doing all the work for, and see how the funds are allocated.
5. Universities also underpay their professional athletes in "money" sports such as football and basketball.
6. Administration growth has outpaced enrollment growth (and faculty expansion etc.) for decades. So undergraduate education may "break even", but it's still paying an army of non-teaching administrators.[1] (Universities defend themselves by saying that regulatory compliance is more expensive now, etc.)
[1] https://stanforddaily.com/2024/03/13/behind-stanfords-double...