[kevinalexbrown]

Because the article just offers a single example, and seems to center on the lack of available tenure track positions, I'm going to take a more holistic view that gets at the major issue: is current research funding at the appropriate level?

What would happen if we increased research funding by X percent? How did we settle on the current funding levels? I would be curious to see a reasonable source for this. A cursory google search mostly returned opinion pieces that we should increase funding for science. I agree, but hard(er) numbers would be better. It would be great to see a back-of-the-envelope ROI for X percent funding increase in T time. Obviously funding can be applied in many ways, and the ROI is difficult to measure, but someone must have studied it.

For the immediate future, the US remains the best place for research. But dominance can begin to change before the effects become obvious, like a large company that's still profitable long after it's become irrelevant.

[HillaryBriss]

the article notes that US universities take 50% of a professor's research grant as operating overhead! (in China it's 10%.)

maybe US universities are just not efficient enough. maybe US universities are basically bloated, government subsidized fat-cats that cannot compete in the global marketplace.

[deong]

The university system was the envy of the world when it was run like a government program. It was only when we started running them like businesses that the system has gone pear-shaped.

[HillaryBriss]

i was going to say "maybe US universities are basically bloated, greedy corporate fat-cats that cannot compete in the global marketplace."

but it raised a question i couldn't answer: how do such unproductive blobs of corporate greed survive at all? i mean, if it's not government subsidies. is it some sort of protectionist regulatory regime (e.g. sort of like the TBTF Wall Street banks enjoy)? some kind of collusion? a secret cartel?

[dnautics]

there's a strong argument that the university system was destroyed when it was started to be run like a government program.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science