Down here on planet earth? 
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Down here on planet earth?
This is a hypothetical from the perspective of a family that desperate to get their kid into a prestigious college that they’re already spending $10k on research.
Obviously, most people would never spend that kind of money on college admissions.
But if you’re spending money on $10k pay-for-play research, you could probably afford to spend $50k on college admissions counselling (obviously most college counselling is much cheaper, I’m thinking top end).
What is your definition of upper-middle class?
I know that my family would be considered upper-middle and many of our friends are, too. Most have to work hard to pay for 4 years of college for multiple kids, let alone pay the $60,000 you are suggesting for research and consultants.
Even the friends I have who are affluent (annual income of several million and net worths that are tens of millions or more) aren’t doing what you are suggesting. I have heard of some who do, but most seem to rely on research opportunities and other advantages they get through private school and pay much less than you are $60,000+ for consultants and essay coaches.
Even the friends I have who are affluent (annual income of several million and net worths that are tens of millions or more) aren’t doing what you are suggesting. I have heard of some who do, but most seem to rely on research opportunities and other advantages they get through private school and pay much less than you are $60,000+ for consultants and essay coaches.
I wasn’t suggesting that on average, college consulting costs $60,000.
I was saying that’s a maximum (the user I was responding to was implying that doing pay-for-play research/paying for counselling could be an indicator of being a future donor). And even if you take that ‘maximum’ figure, $60,000+ is nowhere near the kind of figure you’d need to be a development admit.
Most college counselling will obviously cost much, much less than $60,000.
We live in a high COL area with lots of hyper competitive college applicants. The independent college counselors here are pretty expensive… I was quoted 35k by one of them (this is about how much we were hoping to spend for a year of college, so I said no… 
)
I guess it could be more expensive than that somewhere? But I doubt many are charging 50k…?
I think our family income would by most measures fall in the “upper-middle-class” range, and those numbers sound astronomical. We did zero college counseling or test prep (other than what was offered by the school for free and a book of practice tests) because we couldn’t justify the cost, and we did pay for some summer enrichment programs, but nothing that cost even close to $10,000. Those costs are not “well within the reach” of any upper-middle class family in my circle of friends.
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I think different area have different definition of upper-middle class. I read somewhere that 100k in NYC roughly equals to 30K somewhere in middle west. By that logic 300k would be considered middle, and 500k is upper middle? For an income of 500k per year, 50k-100k counselling fee might not seem that big of a deal. My 2c.
Universities need to continually add to their donor base. Most development officers realize that the 5million+ donor families are few and far between. But they still need families that have the ability to donate in the upper thousands+.
I think it is ridiculous to pay 10k for any kid to do research. However, a family willing to drop that kind of cash might also be a good year end giver. I am sure there are algorithms out there with the analysis.
Just a reminder that median household income is $71k. Yes that means 50% of American households earn less than $71,000 per year.
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Agreed. $300k is not middle class regardless of where you live.
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Currently in med school. I’m just surprised that people are surprised. 90% of the medical “research,” even at top places, are shoddy papers just designed to pad resumes. Just review papers and meta-analyses. Completely pointless. Most of the surgery “research” is pointless fluff. That being said, they are good learning experiences.
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A family who is considered to be middle class while making $500K in a high COL area is going to have correspondingly higher costs for housing, taxes, utilities, etc. A counseling fee that is 10% to 20% of that income is still a big deal.
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I very much doubt that scbools are looking for kids whose families have the capacity to spend only $10k a year.
My parents have been working for nearly 30 years now and they’ve managed to save a significant (>$5m) amount.
I can tell you, that didn’t seem to help me with college admissions at all and it would have been obvious that I wasn’t poor.
I can imagine most top schools get lots of kids who apply who are on the wealthier end of the spectrum including those who are much, much wealthier than that.
I think doing research is probably correlated with an interest in academic research and future research success even if it is pay-for-play.
Adding, There are a number of profs who offer fee based research experiences directly to the public, no need for an intermediary like propublica.
It seems to me that the number of profs doing this is increasing, but that’s just anecdotal…I don’t know of any resource that has a database of all of them.
Any professors here who can comment on how taking a “pay to play” contract would be viewed by an ethics panel? Would it even be something they care about?
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Just to be clear: propublica is a non profit news agency - they do not provide the pay-to-play research opportunities mentioned in their article.
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Tagging @ProfSD, @ColdWombat and @dfbdfb.
Oops my bad, I meant Pioneer et al. I will edit my post.
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I’ve honestly not heard of profs who directly offer fee-based research experiences to the public (e.g., high schoolers). It would be viewed very poorly in my professional circles. I would be appalled if any of my colleagues did that. I don’t consider it ethical.
Of course, my brain’s output is mine (IP thorniness aside). So I could be a consultant in my free time, offering my time/expertise to outside parties in exchange for money. That’s typically quite expensive and customers include companies, lawyers, etc.
But a high schooler doesn’t need my expert opinion on anything. They’d hire a less expensive person for anything they’d actually need, such as tutoring or advising. If they want to do research in my lab, they’d be there via the university or another official program. They can work as a volunteer, or I can pay THEM. They can’t pay ME directly to work in my lab. Since I’m a biologist, (nearly) all my projects require physical resources.
Depending on the discipline/school, a “pay to play” scheme for high school “research” may run afoul of faculty guidelines or even laws. My lab resources are purchased by my institution and federal funding bodies. I didn’t purchase any of it with my personal money, except my laptop which I specifically want to be my own. If I were receiving money from an outside party to use any of my academic lab resources, that would all need to go through the university – I couldn’t get paid directly.
I happen to know a professor who is currently in deep doo-doo with their institution and federal agencies. It involves billing things related to federal grants to their company, which then goes to them personally. They are about to get busted, and their career is over.
You have to be super careful with this stuff. And it’s just wrong, besides. I also saw that tweet about the emails. I have yet to get one of those (though I get the publishing ones every day). If it isn’t a phishing scam, and money is truly going to profs, it’s gross and I hate it, and so would my colleagues. I can imagine that some people who are unscrupulous or really hurting for money would do it, and it’s too bad. If you want to make a self-employed career out of advising high schoolers, go for it. Just don’t do pay to play as an academic researcher.
Most people don’t understand the reality of high schoolers doing academic research. I think this explains it quite well, and is relevant to high school research (scroll down to the sections called “science fairs” and “starting research”).
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