[KennyBlanken]

I'm sick of lies and misrepresentations from people who clearly don't know what they're talking about, talking like schools are greedily taking away poor Petey PhD's hard-earned grant money.

First off: grants from most places factor in the administrative overhead. That is negotiated between the school and the grant org. For the NIH, it averages fifty percent. The school/university is very restricted in what they can bill a lab for; for example, I worked somewhere that we couldn't charge for storage because that would have violated NIH's rules on double-billing, because the storage cluster was paid for via administrative overhead.

Chances are when someone says "I got a $1M grant to study bubblegum's effects on the gall bladder", they actually got $1M plus another $500,000.

Second, that money isn't being greedily stolen. That overhead help pays for, directly or indirectly, things like (notice I said "like", because I am not an expert in the exact rules around what can and cannot be paid for via overhead):

* the building

* the real estate the building sits on

* the utilities to keep the building lit and comfortable (which in the case of life/bio/chemistry sciences can be an enormous challenge given how much airflow lab space needs, which is far greater than office airflow...and then there's biosafety / chemical hoods)

* security, both equipment and staff (which can be substantial if the university or school does biomedical research in any sensitive areas such as stem cells, animal research, infectious disease, etc). This includes monitoring for equipment failure (for example, sample storage systems often have dry contact alarm hookups so that if they fail, security or facilities finds out ASAP and can alert people)

* the utilities to power equipment, such as -80 freezers (just one of which can use more energy than a US household)...most of us would also go pale if we saw the power bill for some physics labs) and other "utilities" like vacuum, purified water, etc.

* construction, maintenance, cleaning...both staff and supplies

* grounds maintenance, everything from mowing the lawn to leaf and snow removal

* technology costs - telephone and networking infrastructure and staff, server admins for everything from websites to email to storage to computational clusters, desktop support staff

* business administration, which includes, but is a lot more than just, payroll/benefits/HR. Grant writing/administration is often its own entire department, because you need people who not only know how to submit the paperwork, but frankly, also follow faculty around badgering them to fix or submit paperwork on time - faculty are incredibly lazy about this.

* all the services the lab's grad students, staff, postdocs, and faculty use and don't think anything about, like shuttle busses, the library, and so on.

[PheonixPharts]

Regarding your first point, was the parent comment edited or did you miss this part as they clearly address this issue:

> (50-100%! btw this doubles the "cost" of the grant, it doesn't lessen the amount the professor gets).

Parent comment isn't making the claim that "schools are greedily taking away poor Petey PhD's hard-earned grant money."

Rather bemoaning the fact that academic success (and even entry into the field at all) is very, very closely tied to the ability to generate revenue and more so the corollary that quality of research performed always at best takes a back seat, or at worst becomes a liability if it gets in the way of bringing in more money.

[bachmeier]

I think they were probably replying to exmadscientist, not thelittlenag.

[WoodenChair]

> First off: grants from most places factor in the administrative overhead. That is negotiated between the school and the grant org. For the NIH, it averages fifty percent.

You write as if a 50% administrative overhead is healthy. In non-regulatory captured industries it's almost unheard of. Even most non-profits that are considered the best by Charity Navigator have administrative overheads of <20%.

[jltsiren]

First, charities are closer to research funders than grant recipients. They are more likely to hire contractors to do the actual work or just send the money instead of doing the work themselves.

Second, academic overhead rates are usually stated relative to direct costs. A 50% overhead rate means 1/3 of total costs.

Third, it's not just administrative overhead, but it's also used for paying for facilities and the services required for using and maintaining them. The actual administrative overhead, for administrative services and facilities used by the administration, is usually below 20% of the total.

[cycomanic]

It's funny how you accuse others of misrepresentation but are yourself misrepresenting.

Regarding overheads yes they pay for some of these things, but they also are clearly being used to prop up ever increasing administrative bodies (whose salaries have often grown disproportionately compared to academic staff).

Just some examples (and they are in physics/engineering and not the US so specifics are not directly comparable).

Professors had to pay the their salary + overheads on the percentage they worked on the project (those percentages often add up to to more than 100%, while not reducing teaching load).

Regarding rent, one of my colleagues compared the rates to rent in the prime location in the city centre and they were significantly higher. This is despite the fact that the buildings were often paid through large grants (who were often written by academics) and land was owned by the university.

In another case, I know of some universities were the biggest business unit was the real estate management unit (they were lucky as a university with significant land in the CBD of one of the most expensive cities in the world. In that country the university could not charge the academics for rent (funding rules), so instead the academics were put in the smallest space possible because renting out was more profitable. The money from renting also never was used for running the university.

Regarding paperwork, you call academics lazy. What I have seen is that almost all systems around reporting are designed to make life for the administrators easy, while academic time is treated as free (as academics don't get paid overtime). As examples, as an academic if you spend money e.g. when travelling for a conference you have to keep the receipts to justify spending (no issue with that). After you had to fill out the accounting categorisation fields for every $ you spend, scan the receipts and send the originals and the scanned receipts plus some form that had to be filled in online but also printed (finance couldn't print apparently) to finance. The spending had the to be approved by at least one other academic (head of lab, school or faculty). A friend was made to write a statuary declaration I front of a justice of the peace, because a $6 receipt from subway didn't say it was a sandwich.

For a similar example from teaching. I was responsible for the final year projects in an engineering degree. The university required all grades to be in the system two weeks after end of term. Because the grade in this program depended on a report which was handed at the end of term and all academics were extremely busy with grading their own courses, it was essentially impossible to collect the grades before the deadline. What that meant is that for every student we had to fill out a grade amendment that had several pages. While I had admin help to fill the form, I still had to check every page, initial the page and sign the document for >300 students.

Admin at university is absolutely insane and not designed with the academics in mind.

I'll stop this rant here, because it's already way too long, but I just had to reply because the post above just reeks of how many "centralised admin" seem to think of academics as a cost centre that is lazy and doesn't do any work. At my university I know that when there were redundancies admin were complaining that they didn't fire the professors, because they don't do anything anyway.

[FireBeyond]

A corollary to your story, from my partner who started as Payroll at a university and now is the Accounting Manager, reporting to the Financial Controller.

> prop up ever increasing administrative bodies (whose salaries have often grown disproportionately compared to academic staff).

Over the four years she has been there, faculty have received 3 3-5% annual raises. Staff have received ... 1 1% raise.

Faculty and staff were allowed to start working remotely where appropriate during COVID, or "expand the use of a home office".

Faculty got a $7,000 stipend to "set up a home office". Staff got ... nothing.

Faculty also lobbied for "increasing flexibility for students" by "offering all classes all terms", regardless of enrollment. In practice, this has lead to numerous professors and adjuncts getting paid for teaching a class that often has 2 or even 1 student enrolled.

> As examples, as an academic if you spend money e.g. when travelling for a conference you have to keep the receipts to justify spending (no issue with that). After you had to fill out the accounting categorisation fields for every $ you spend, scan the receipts and send the originals and the scanned receipts plus some form that had to be filled in online but also printed (finance couldn't print apparently) to finance. The spending had the to be approved by at least one other academic (head of lab, school or faculty). A friend was made to write a statuary declaration I front of a justice of the peace, because a $6 receipt from subway didn't say it was a sandwich.

And the counter to this is how for many departments getting hold of their company card statements is like pulling teeth. They just try to tell Finance "just pay the bill, thanks". And then audits find faculty paying for flights for their partners on the university card... or first class upgrades... or very liquid lunches.

In fact, the university recently found themselves in a near 8 digit budget deficit, with every department overrunning. And then faculty tried to throw Finance under the bus - "How could this happen?"

Finance's answer - "Because your departments generally refuse to do purchase orders and an approval process. The first time we hear of most of your expenses is when you hand us an invoice and say 'we bought something, please pay for it'". It also ignores the reality that for the most part, Finance is a facilitator, not an arbitrator. Faculty are adults - if they're given a budget (which they largely come up with themselves), then stick to it.

Things easily go both ways.

[bachmeier]

> Faculty got a $7,000 stipend to "set up a home office". Staff got ... nothing.

That's a very unusual university. I have never heard of such a thing. During covid, it was common for faculty to take large pay cuts, but not staff. The $7000 you mention is less than my pay was cut. Staff were unaffected.

> They just try to tell Finance "just pay the bill, thanks".

I don't believe this if you are talking about a US university. That's just not how it works.

> And then audits find faculty paying for flights for their partners on the university card... or first class upgrades... or very liquid lunches.

That's why there's no such thing as "just pay the bill, thanks". They don't pay without knowing what it's for. First and foremost, they have to confirm it's legal. After that, they have to confirm they're in compliance with tax laws. I'm not even getting into state laws if it's a public university and all the other potential problems. Paying a bill without knowing what it's for would simply never, ever happen at a US university.

[FireBeyond]

Without outing her university, I will add the (possible) caveat of "private Catholic university".

> During covid, it was common for faculty to take large pay cuts, but not staff.

The only real benefit to staff during COVID's early days was in the (where else) athletics department (and this is very much not a sports school), where all the coaching and related staff were kept on at full pay, and only "required" on their own recognizance to "spend time keeping up with relevant information in your field".

> That's why there's no such thing as "just pay the bill, thanks". They don't pay without knowing what it's for.

The various schools thought process is "We (the school) knows the bill details, supervisor signed off, so, Finance just needs the sum total and to send payment".

[cycomanic]

The university your partner works at sounds like non of the universities I have worked at or heard of.

Regarding home office, when covid hit we went to all online teaching with a lead time of a few weeks (changing an in person course to online teaching is not straight forward). There was no funding for setting up the home office and rules around covid meant that you couldn't even deduce your office at home from taxes.

Even when we went to hybrid teaching there was no central support for kitting out lecture halls with cameras/microphones etc. Academics often used some research (or personal) funds for purchasing cameras etc.

About flights and misuse of funds. I find it hard to believe that people could purchase flights with their cards at all universities I have been at you had to use the approved travel agent for flights. Also the only people allowed to fly business were high level management/admin, no matter where funding was from. Also I don't have an issue with submitting receipts, however I don't see why I have to spend the time on scanning receipts which I also have to send in as original. Moreover why do I need to know freaking tax codes for a train ticket or some lab consumables? Isn't that exactly what finance's job is?

[Fomite]

"And the counter to this is how for many departments getting hold of their company card statements is like pulling teeth. They just try to tell Finance "just pay the bill, thanks". And then audits find faculty paying for flights for their partners on the university card... or first class upgrades... or very liquid lunches."

I've never been at a university where I've been able to tell the finance office "Just pay it" without pushback.

[Fomite]

"Professors had to pay the their salary + overheads on the percentage they worked on the project (those percentages often add up to to more than 100%, while not reducing teaching load)."

They better not have. This is actively illegal. One of the major activities of our grants office is making sure you don't go over ~ 95% effort (you also can't write grants while supported on a grant).

[glitchc]

Total bs, all of this. Thank you for conveniently ignoring the major sources of revenue for a university, namely tuition, in particular international tuition, govt. funding and endowments. Overhead from grants is a tiny line item in comparison on the balance sheet.

The overhead is basically a tax on research and robs professors of valuable resources. It only goes to pay an ever-growing, over-bloated admin staff. This is coming from someone who has first-hand knowledge from both sides of the equation.

[OfSanguineFire]

There are countries where students are not charged tuition (or, if tuition is charged, it is meagre) and there overhead from grants is most definitely seen as important revenue.