<p>Well, in that case, I’m not sure. What HYP are doing is no different from what US-based international charity (and therefore tax-free) foundations are doing. For example, if I start a charitable NGO based in the US to support victims of, say, victims of Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan, then that NGO would be tax exempt even though all of the benefits would, by definition, flow to needy foreigners. Nobody is going to tell me that just because I’m exempt from US taxes, I should only be providing benefits to Americans and am not allowed to help the people in Taiwan.</p>
<p>“One could also argue the other way: if research truly is so profitable, then why not do much more of it, and then just provide undergraduate education of charge - both to the students and to the taxpayers? That would mean ascribing all of the costs of the entire university onto the ‘research customers’. That is certainly no more unfair than ascribing all of the costs onto the undergrads.”</p>
<p>To some extent that is exactly what has been going on. I’m not sure were all this talk of allocating all costs to undergrads comes from. If they are just taking university and dividing it by undergrad count , they certainly are overestimating the cost. Last time I saw a number Wisconsin estimated it “cost” about $15,000-$20,000 on average for undergrads. For instate the state paid about half and the students and OOS students and research profits made up the difference. Give them $3 Billion in research funding and they might be able to end instate tuition and reduce OOS to the instate levels today. Or if the cut the undergrad enrollment to UVa levels of around 14,000 they could nearly do it today.</p>
<p>As to the value of research products–many are of great general benefit–pretty much everyone needs vitamins and might need or has a family member that could need heart medication or in the future stem cell therapy. Most university research is at the basic non product level and benefits a large population. More efficient engines, crops and computers–good for everyone, weather research–the same, etc.</p>
<p>The fact is, students pay only a fraction, less than 30%, of the bills. That OOS students pay a somewhat larger fraction of that 30% than do in-state students who are partially subsidized by $400 million in legislative appropriations will come as no surprise to anyone. But your rhetoric about “who pays the bills” seems calculated to spread disinformation, namely the mistaken impression that OOS students are somehow being ripped off at public institutions. The fact is, like all students at elite privates, OOS students at the top publics are paying only a fraction of the actual cost of their education.</p>
<p>The assumption of the above is we actually know what the average cost of undergraduate education is at a particular research university when, as I pointed out, it is meaningless to talk about the ‘average cost’ of a joint product, particularly when the product in question is a relatively minor piece of the entire joint set. Like I said, most professors at research universities spend relatively little of their time teaching undergrads - the vast majority of it is spent producing research, for that is what you are rewarded for doing as an academic. One needs to simply ask a typical professor at a major research university such as UM to compare how much time does he actually spend involved in undergraduate teaching vs. how much time he spends on research. I think we all know the answer to that. </p>
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<p>I strongly suspect that ‘most’ university research is not at the basic level and benefits nobody, for the simple fact is that most university research is involved in topics for which no products are ever possible. </p>
<p>What you seem to be talking about is strictly natural science or technology research which arguably does benefit society (although projects such as MKUltra and Harlow’s Pit of Despair are highly questionable.) However, let’s face it, most faculty of a typical university are not in the natural sciences or engineering. Most faculty are in the humanities or social sciences departments for which rarely does anything resembling ‘basic science’ take place and for which the value to society of research is highly questionable. Does society really benefit if an English professor discovers a new way to deconstruct Joyce? {Or put another way, out of all of the time that has been spent by all of the English faculty and PhD students in conducting research, what are the outcome products that have clearly benefited society?} The value of much of the economics research of the last few decades has been called into question by many economists and policy makers in the wake of the financial crash; Krugman has called much of that research useless at best and dangerous at worst. Similarly, many of the most destructive and subversive social movements in world history such as Fascism and Communism can trace their roots to and/or were spearheaded by academics. {Note, to be fair, like I said, there is plenty of science and engineering research that is arguably highly dangerous.}</p>
<p>But in any case, the point is not to debate the value of different types of research, but simply to point out that undergraduate education is a joint product and it is therefore difficult to attribute average costs to such a product. Most university faculty at the major research universities are not hired with the primary goal of teaching undergrads, but rather to do research. While research may be a legitimate endeavor, it is unclear as to why the costs of that research should be ascribed fully to either the undergrads or to state taxpayers.</p>
<p>The VAST majority of research money goes to medical and sciences. Humanities get zilch and social sciences just a little more. Not even close. Go dig around the NSF research reports. They breakout spending by field.
The english prof is doing his stuff on his own dime with maybe a $4000 travel grant to look at dusty books in Europe if he’s lucky.</p>
Quite frankly, I think we would be more productive if this were true. A decent textbook would make a fine replacement for many high school teachers.</p>
<p>That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what happens to the time spent. You hire professors of humanities and social science, pay their salaries, yet the vast majority of their time will be spent not teaching undergrads, but on research. Let’s face it: if these professors were spending less time on research, they could spend more time actually teaching undergrads. Put another way, those departments could simply employ fewer professors and just have the ones that remain teach more. </p>
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<p>He’s not doing it on his own time: he’s being paid a salary with the expectation of performing research. Let’s face it: if a newly minted English PhD went on the academic job market and said he wasn’t really interested in research and just wanted to teach, no research university would want to hire him for a tenure-track junior faculty position. Once he’s hired, then as a junior faculty member, he will be expected to complete research as that will be the main determinant as to whether he is promoted to tenure. At the top research universities, such junior faculty will likely be spending the vast majority of their working hours on research, certainly far more than they would spend teaching undergrads. Heck, many departments will require that junior faculty only teach undergrads one semester a year, allowing them to devote the other semester and a full summer solely to research or perhaps grad-student teaching/advising.</p>
<p>Take Asst. Prof Emily Thornbury of the English department at Berkeley. She’s not teaching any undergrads this semester. Her only assigned teaching load is a graduate level seminar. She is therefore expected to be devoting the vast majority of her time this semester on research. Nor is she an atypical example: the undergrad teaching loads of almost all tenure-track faculty at any major research university - whether in technical or nontechnical disciplines - is relatively light, because it is understood that the faculty will be spending most of their time on research. </p>
<p>Research, just like undergrad education, is a joint product which means that it is equally difficult to compute an average cost for either activity. But the point is simply to emphasize that universities engage in plenty of activities that have nothing to do with undergrad teaching, and it is therefore a fair question to ask why the undergrads (or the taxpayers if a state school) should be ascribed with the total costs of the university. </p>
<p>If we agree that this should not happen, then it is deeply misleading to argue that undergrads do not pay the full cost of their education, because nobody actually knows what that cost truly is. Like I said, it is impossible to compute the singular cost of a joint product. Just because I buy bacon but not pork or ham doesn’t mean that I’m getting an excellent deal just because I didn’t pay for the whole pig.</p>
<p>Frankly, the crux of the problem is the brilliantly devious marketing strategy that academia employs. Somehow, academia has convinced the world that strong undergraduate teaching and research ought to be sold as a package deal even though I am aware of no empirical studies that demonstrate significant synergies between these two activities. {Now, certainly, there are plenty of synergies between research and PhD education, but regarding undergrad education the relationship is fleeting at best.} Academics then attempt to convince undergrads that they are not bearing the full cost of their education, conveniently ignoring the fact that the costs of research were bundled into the package as a joint product without consent from the student. That’s like trying to convince people that they are receiving a thrifty deal on bacon because they’re not paying for the cost of the whole pig, conveniently ignoring the fact that the food processors are also selling pork, ham, and rinds.</p>
<p>Hawkette’s figure on the state of Michigan’s subsidy to the University of Michigan includes about $100 million that goes to the University’s satellite Dearborn and Flint campuses—primarily undergraduate institutions with few if any OOS students, little or no research effort, and very few graduate students. </p>
<p>If you look at the Ann Arbor campus, the state is getting a terrific bargain: for a relatively modest investment of $319 million annually in taxpayer funds—or about $35 per capita annually—the state is getting a steep tuition discount for 16,900 in-state undergrads at one of the nation’s leading universities, an economic powerhouse with a $5.2 billion annual budget (Ann Arbor campus only) that provides thousands of mostly high-paying jobs and generates additional billions in spin-off and ancillary economic activity, for the foreseeable future the most important engine of economic growth in the state. I don’t think Michigan taxpayers need to worry about whether this is money well spent. That’s phenomenal leveraging.</p>
<p>I disagree. I believe it is doable - Cost Accounting 101.</p>
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<p>Easy. Take the good Professor’s salary, benefits + rent & lights and allocate it 100% to the grad division. Or, 25% if she teaches a course next semester. Or some other allocation. Take ALL the professors at Cal and do the same. Cost accounting ain’t rocket science…</p>
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<p>Again, where is the proof that this is happening? Otherwise, strawman…</p>
<p>I seriously doubt that most humanities profs spend as much time on research as science and medical. Most science profs produce dozens of articles and papers while the typical newly tenured English prof will have a book and a few articles. Very few asst profs only teach one grad class a semester.</p>
<p>It’s a cheap shot and almost certainly misleading to single out any individual faculty member’s teaching assignments for a single year and depict it as representative. The faculty member in question might be on leave, either as part of a regular leave program, e.g., a sabbatical or a scheduled reserach leave afforded to tenure-track faculty at many institutions to build up their scholarly portfolio in prepration for a tenure decision. She may be visiting at another school which then would be paying her salary for the semester she’s away. She may be on a research “buy-out” in which she pays her own salary out of externally generated research grants (this does happen in the humanities, too). She may be on medical leave. She may have taught an unusually large number of courses in previous semesters and “banked” the credits to give her more time for research this particular semester, if her school has such a policy. None of those circumstances would be apparent to you, looking in from the outside. Cheap shot all around.</p>
<p>Come on now. The proof is every time that an administrator of any research university somehow ‘claims’ that an undergrad costs $x to educate - where x generally ranges from $40k-100k, but is always more than the student is paying - and therefore argues that the student is receiving a discount. The glaring flaw in that logic is what I have been discussing throughout this thread: that you can’t calculate an average cost to produce a joint product.</p>
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<p>If that is the case, then you would have no problem putting it up to a state-wide vote then, right? </p>
<p>Besides, that accounting is also greatly misleading for that only includes operating costs - you are ignoring the value of the fixed capital of the university itself, which includes the value of the buildings and of the land itself, as well as the intangible brand capital of the university. Put another way, if the state of Michigan were to sell the entire UM campus, perhaps to a private university system, the state would surely garner tens of billions of dollars, which would surely tide the state over during the current statewide financial crisis. </p>
<p>Is that a radical notion? There was a time when nations thought it radical to privatize telecom firms and national airlines due to their perceived status as public utilities necessary to foster economic growth. Nowadays, most telecoms and airlines in the developed world are private. I therefore don’t see why it would be such a radical notion to privatize a public university. Heck, as we all know, many of the most successful universities in the United States are private. Nor does a state necessarily need a public university to foster economic growth. The Northeastern United States historically has been and to this day still is the richest region of the country despite having relatively unremarkable public universities. </p>
<p>But anyway, the point is that the state of Michigan forgoes a windfall every year by not selling UM. I’m not saying that the state should sell UM. But we should recognize the fixed-capital value of the school. To do otherwise would be similar to me claiming poverty because my income can’t cover my bills, conveniently ignoring the fact that I own a nice mansion that was passed down to me from my ancestors. Gut-wrenching as it may be, selling that mansion is an option.</p>
<p>Hence, consider this thought exercise. What if we put up for a statewide referendum the idea of privatizing UM whereupon every state taxpayer would receive a share of the proceeds? Note, it wouldn’t even need to be a complete referendum: the state could encapsulate a contract that states that the privatized entity would still need to provide admissions preference with tuition discounts to x number of Michigan state residents every year into perpetuity. But the actual UM infrastructure - that is, the dorms, the buildings, the stadium, etc. - would now be owned by a private entity. </p>
<p>{If privatizing the entire university is still too radical of a notion, then let’s consider a smaller option. As a specific case in point, I don’t really understand why the university, and by extension the state taxpayers, necessarily need to own Michigan Stadium. Many of the best sports venues in the world are owned and operated by third parties. Perhaps if the state of Michigan were flush with cash, it could do as it wished. But Michigan’s state finances are sundered, and desperate times calls for desperate measures.}</p>
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<p>Little or no research effort, you say? Then why do they emphasize the importance of research in their job specs for tenure-track positions?</p>
<p>For example, consider this opening as an assistant professor at UMD. Notice how it requests that the candidate’s responsibilities include ‘development of an independent research program’.</p>
<p>Or consider this position at UMFlint. Notice how it specifically requests a ‘proven record of peer reviewed, published research, with promise of further publication of high quality research’.</p>
<p>Now, I’m sure it’s true that UMFlint and Dearborn professors probably do spend less time on research than do UMAnnArbor profs. But to say that ‘little or no’ research is being done is far from the mark.</p>
<p>^^^^Nice fantasyland read…You do realize that Michigan stadium/sports are not funded by the taxpayers of the state of Michigan right? In a way they are already privatized. In that respect, it’s a pleasure to go into a huge arena and not see one bit of commercialism inside the stadium. Not sure if there are too many places like that anymore.</p>
<p>No, in fact, it is rocket science. In fact, that’s why some people actually earn PhD’s in cost/managerial accounting. Put another way, if cost accounting was really so easy, then why is there an entire academic community devoted to studying it? </p>
<p>Again, the specific problem here is that research and teaching are truly joint products for which it is nigh impossible to actually separate the two tasks, for those tasks instigate externalities upon each other, whether positive or negative. It has always been the argument of academia that teaching actually informs research and vice versa, in that being a better teacher actually makes you a better researcher. Whether that actually happens is a different story, the issue is that it is theoretically possible. Perhaps the externality runs only one way: maybe becoming a better researcher makes me a better teacher but not vice versa. Or maybe the externalities are inverted: perhaps spending more time on teaching makes me a better researcher, but spending more time on research actually makes me a worse teacher. Taking it up another level, maybe the degree of externality is contingent upon other factors: maybe senior faculty enjoy positive externalities, but not junior faculty. </p>
<p>What complicates the issue even further is that reward system is not commensurate with the time allocated amongst various tasks. If you spend 25% of your time teaching, that’s not to say that your teaching load will carry a 25% weighting during your tenure review. {Frankly, at many research universities, your teaching load probably carries a near 0% weighting for the purposes of tenure.} What that then means is that faculty will then rationally choose to weight their effort accordingly, as opposed to their time. They may be spending 25% of their time teaching, but clearly nowhere near 25% of their effort. This is no different from how all of us have been stuck doing things we don’t really want to do, so while we may be spending the time doing it, we spend as little effort as possible on the task. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if teaching and research could truly be separated and if effort were truly proportion to the time spent, then you could simply assign time percentage factors. But you can’t. That’s what makes them a joint product.</p>
<p>Nice fantasyland read. You do realize that Michigan Stadium is owned by the university, and therefore the state, right? It doesn’t matter whether they themselves funded it or not, they still own it. They therefore do have the rights to privatize it. </p>
<p>Similarly, if I own a mansion, then I can sell it. It doesn’t matter whether I paid for the mansion myself. Maybe I inherited it from my parents. But the bottom line is that I hold the title deed. Therefore I can sell it. It doesn’t matter how I got it. </p>
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<p>Yeah - maybe it’s nice for you. What about the state taxpayers who actually own the stadium, especially those who don’t get admitted to UM? What do they get out of the deal? Not everybody in Michigan gets to go to UM. So why should they be required to give up some money just so that you can enjoy an advertising-free experience?</p>
<p>Then take any junior faculty remember at a top research university, and investigate exactly how much undergrad teaching he performs every year. It is in fact well understood that most faculty will be teaching no more than a handful of undergraduate courses during the year, and that he will be expected to spend the bulk of his time researching. </p>
<p>I would argue that the true cheap shot is to ignore the well-understood fact that research universities are devoted mostly to research and to imply that faculty actually spend most of their time and effort actually teaching undergrads. They do not, and this is a topic that should be so well understood that I am frankly surprised that I have to state it here, as if I needed to point out that the sky is blue. To argue otherwise: *that’s truly a cheap shot all around. *</p>
<p>But since you apparently wish to argue otherwise, consider the following quotes:</p>
<p>* During my years as a tenured faculty member at UCLA, I never saw a junior faculty member whose contract was not renewed because he was not a good teacher. But I saw many who were terminated because their research was not of the quantity or quality that was expected – regardless of how good they were at teaching. It was strictly publish or perish.</p>
<p>UCLA was not at all unique in this. It is common at both state and private universities for the “teacher of the year” award to be regarded by some as the kiss of death. That is because so many people who have received this award have also been terminated. *</p>
<p>The Baker Award, designed to promote undergraduate education, is now seen by many as the “kiss of death” – any professor recognized for his or her excellent teaching is suspected of shirking research responsibilities and might be denied tenure, as Wolfe was.</p>
<p>That presumes that the joint product does in fact produce positive externalities. I strongly suspect that the externalities are actually negative: that having profs spend effort both teaching and researching makes them worse at both, relative to if they were just doing one or the other. Given that hiring, promotion, and general professional prestige within the world of academia is mostly determined by research output, the rational and dominant strategy is for the professors to then spend as little effort as possible on teaching. Hence, it is still an open question as to why then should the undergrads be ascribed the entire costs of the university, just like a bacon customer should not be ascribed the cost of the entire pig. </p>
<p>As to those who wonder whether that ascription is actually happening, again, consider the sentiment expressed in post #14:</p>
<p>The fact is, students pay only a fraction, less than 30%, of the bills. That OOS students pay a somewhat larger fraction of that 30% than do in-state students who are partially subsidized by $400 million in legislative appropriations will come as no surprise to anyone. But your rhetoric about “who pays the bills” seems calculated to spread disinformation, namely the mistaken impression that OOS students are somehow being ripped off at public institutions. The fact is, like all students at elite privates, OOS students at the top publics are paying only a fraction of the actual cost of their education. </p>
<p>The above quote makes two assumptions: #1, that we know the ‘actual’ cost of undergraduate education, and that #2 - it is more than what the undergrads, even OOS undergrads or undergrads at private schools, are actually paying. I question the entire premise of that logic, for we don’t actually know the costs of educating an undergrad, because of its joint product nature. </p>
<p>I’ll pose the same question that I posed before that has heretofore been dodged by my detractors: if it is really true that colleges are ‘losing’ money on educating undergrads (because the costs of providing that education truly do exceed the price they pay), then why exactly do schools compete so hard to recruit undergrads? Why would schools want to deliberately lose money? Shouldn’t schools be trying to repel undergrads from coming, if undergrads are so unprofitable?</p>
<p>so you have absolutely zero proof for your assertion, which quite frankly is surprising sakky. Normally your points are extremely well supported. Too bad.</p>
<p>btw: cost accounting is taught at juco level. So yeah, it’s pretty easy. Heck, I’ve even taught it!</p>
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<p>Follow that Junior around with a stop watch and track his/her time for a day, a week, a month, a semester – you choose. Divide that time period into hours, multiply by salary + benefits + overhead (for rent, lights, and other indirect costs), and voila…</p>
<p>This is wrong, or at least seriously misleading. The University of Michigan is not a creature of the legislature, like a state park. Under Michigan law it is a constitutionally autonomous entity. The University was founded in 1817, pre-dating the State of Michigan by 20 years. Under a succession of state constitutions, the University is run by an elected Board of Regents and a President appointed by the Regents—all constitutional officers, with the sole authority to manage the University’s finances, assets, and educational policies. </p>
<p>The only sense in which Michigan Stadium or any other asset of the University, real or personal, is “owned by the state” is that these assets are owned by the University of Michigan, an autonomous arm of the state created by the state constitution. The only body empowered to sell off Michigan Stadium or any other asset of the University is the Board of Regents, acting on behalf of the University. The only body entitled to the proceeds of any such sale would be the University, as the sole owner of the asset. The legislature has no more right to sell Michigan Stadium and pocket the proceeds than to sell Kalamazoo College (a private LAC) or my mother’s house. And the only way that could change would be by an amendment to the state constitution, effectively dissolving the University—and under the Michigan Constitution, that can happen only by a vote of the people.</p>
<p>The only constitutional role the legislature plays in the University’s finances is to “appropriate moneys to maintain” the University, and to “be given an annual accounting of all income and expenditures” by the University. The legislature doesn’t get an equity stake in return for those appropriations, and its financial oversight role is a limited one—it may criticize, yell, and scream if it likes, but the Regents, not the legislature, call the shots. The only way the legislature could “privatize” the University is by ending appropriations—a move that has been discussed in the legislature, given the depth of the state of Michigan’s fiscal crisis and the increasingly minor role the state plays in University finances, though possibly of dubious legality, given the legislature’s constitutional duty to “appropriate moneys to maintain” the University. But if that sort of privatization were to happen, the University wouldn’t fail, and its assets wouldn’t revert to the legislature or to any other branch of state government. It would continue to be a “public” university in the sense that it is created by the state constitution, and governed by publicly elected state constitutional officers, the Regents. But its assets would remain its own, and it would continue to have autonomy over its finances, budget, assets, and educational policies. In short, it would be operationally private, insofar as not state-supported, but legally public, insofar as created by the constitution and governed by elected constitutional officers.</p>