UCLA & federal revenue

<p>In looking at this</p>

<p>University</a> of California Financial Reports</p>

<p>I see something a little odd. The total federal money that UCLA received from the government for 2007 was $612 million, the most of any UC. Compare that with Berkeley, which received $328 million.</p>

<p>Why do you think that the numbers are so different? Obviously, UCLA has more students, but the ratios don't match up.</p>

<p>I thought it might be because of medical schools. UCLA has a med school, whereas Berkeley does not have an official one (as UCSF has played that role); UCSD, too, has a major medical school, ranked right next to UCLA's for research, and it received $543 million in federal dollars.</p>

<p>But UC Davis too has a medical school and gets about what Berkeley does. In looking at rankings, though, UC Davis is ranked #49, whereas UCLA and UCSD are ranked in the top 15; consequently, they seem to get the most money.</p>

<p>USNews.com:</a> America's Best Graduate Schools 2008: Top Medical Schools - Research</p>

<p>UCSF also receives quite a bit -- $528 million, but this is solely for a med school. As a result, UCSF is ranked in the top 5.</p>

<p>"Medical center" expenses seem to make up about a quarter of their respective budgets, so I'm thinking that's why they receive substantially more.</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

<p>UCLA gets a lot for research I guess. It spends the #2 amount for it after Hopkins. That doesn't explain UCSF though...</p>

<p>Well, I would think that since med schools are so expensive to operate, and since UCSF is a med school (and by "med school" I mean "health science professional school") alone, it would receive substantially more.</p>

<p>They also receive patients and whatnot, don't forget.</p>

<p>I'm having difficulty researching federal government contributions to research universities... Heck, I don't know how I could possibly find anything related to breakdown of funds and how it's disbursed to departments of universities and where all of the research funding goes specifically.</p>

<p>whats odd? if ucsd got around as much as berkeley then it might have looked odd, but it makes sense as is. like you already pointed out, berkeley does not have a medical school so for it to receive around as much as ucsd or ucla would HAVE made it look odd. davis is not as major of a city as sd or la and probably does not attract the same quality of researchers that la and sd attract, and its the researchers that bring in the federal grants. and how does ucsf play some unofficial role as berkeley's medical school? to me they are completely different and plays no more of an unofficial role to berkeley as it does to any of the uc schools, be it berkeley or merced or riverside etc</p>

<p>

why would it get more because its a med school alone? UCLA has a med school AND it has to deal with undergrad and non-med school grad as well, therefore requiring more money to operate.</p>

<p>that would be like saying a cell phone that can only make calls should cost more than a cell phone that can make calls, take pictures, play music, go online, etc.</p>

<p>UCLA has a med school, dentistry school and nursing school.
UCSD has a med school and pharm school.
UCSF has a med school, dentistry school, pharm school and nursing school.
UCD has a med school.</p>

<p>because some of the federal money is from competitive grants, and better researchers get those federal grants that im assuming is part of the federal revenue to the university</p>

<p>In regards to medical funding, applications, and NIH grants:
[quote]
“NIH funding is a key measure of an academic medical institution's excellence,” said Claire Pomeroy, vice chancellor for Human Health Sciences and dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine. “It reflects the commitment and contributions of our research faculty and staff to advancing health in both our local community and around the world. Our achievement is a mark of both quality and potential, and I'm very proud of the entire school.”</p>

<p>Medical schools, teaching hospitals and other medical research institutions submit more than 40,000 funding applications to the NIH each year to support basic, clinical and translational research and to help train the next generation of physicians and scientists. Only one in four applications is funded.</p>

<p>UC Davis Health System received 242 NIH awards in fiscal year 2005, totaling $86,885,796. NIH funding represented nearly two-thirds of the total extramural research funding received by the university last year. Overall, the university's external grants totaled $120.6 million.

[/quote]
[Source.[/url</a>]</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/award/rank/medttl05.htm%5DHere's"&gt;http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/award/rank/medttl05.htm]Here's&lt;/a> a list of the "NIH Awards to Medical Schools by Rank."](<a href="http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/releases/archives/research/2006/nih_grants10-2006.html%5DSource.%5B/url"&gt;http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/releases/archives/research/2006/nih_grants10-2006.html)&lt;/p>

<p>And</a> more blatantly:
[quote]
Since the majority of biomedical research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the statistics compiled annually by the NIH are useful in determining which universities have strong research programs. The following are the top-ranked medical schools*‡ in the country in terms of total grants for the 2005 fiscal year. The amount of the research awards, in millions, is given in parentheses. The schools are sorted by dollar amount here, but you can also use the map below to view the top-ranked institutions by region.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, I don't have any information on the breakdown of grants for specific institutions and where they get these grants/funding. And finally, also in the perspective of the university's funding as a whole with special regard to where the research funding goes and then in which departments (assuming biomedical research with the presence of medical schools esp.).</p>

<p>VTECaddict: what I meant was, since UCSF is a med school by itself, perhaps the government is more willing to dish out more money, since its purpose is very specific. I'm not quite sure why it gets more, but the result is obvious -- it's an awesome med school.</p>

<p>I think we can agree, then, that the presence of a med school gains the university substantially more federal dollars.</p>

<p>But I still wonder -- even after you minus the medical center expenses from UCLA's total budget, it still receives much more federal money than does Berkeley, even though it has only about 5,000 students more. What else do you think it could be?</p>

<p>UCLA seems to spend a lot more on research. It's strange that Berkeley maintains "super research university" status, yet doesn't spend nearly as much on research as, say, JHU or UCLA. In other words, it's as highly cited, if not more cited, than universities that spend more on research. But I wonder to what extent Berkeley is vying for the research money -- it could be that UCLA just strives for more, or it could be that both work as hard to get it and Berkeley just gets less (doubted).</p>

<p>I can understand why operation/maintenance of plant costs more at UCLA (location, # students/faculty, etc.).</p>

<p>The two that raise its budget the most seem to be "academic support" and "auxiliary enterprises." Not completely sure what either of these really entail, concretely, but that's where UCLA has substantially more effort than Berkeley and probably why it gets more federal money.</p>

<p>i think you're looking at this the wrong way because the amount the government gives to run the facilities probably does not makes up nearly as much as the huge amounts of money they award to competitive researchers through grants. its not the medical center expenses that is important (if you click around, it shows that the operational cost is only around 1.6 million for ucla's medical center), but the fact that its present means there are more researchers, more access to clinical studies, better clinical collaborations, etc that makes them more competitive in getting the grants</p>

<p>while i was fishing around for research positions, i stumbled on some article about the new orthopedic hospital built at ucla and one of the things they touted was the rare ability to go directly from the lab into clinical trials that not all research universities can do. i walked around the building and it has huge lab rooms inside as well and is built adjacent to the new stem cell and biological research building that is just rows of labs</p>

<p>edit nvrmd about that 1.6 million thing, it was in thousands of dollars so its more like 1 billion. for "operation and maintenance cost" its shows 62 million for berkeley vs 82 million for la</p>

<p>and the amount the school "spends" on research is the amount the researchers bring in. if you look at the position openings at department websites, it requires you to have your own source of research funding</p>