Aside from funding administrators who behave inappropriately, this shifts power and control back in the direction of the actual scientists. It's often the administrators politicizing the work. Most scientists are good people just trying to make progress in their field, and most are more apolitical than the average person on the street (who is in turn far less political than the average administrator).
Indirect costs also result in teaching being treated as a barely necessary evil by both admin and profs. I saw the worst of it while a postdoc. Great reviews from students? You're clearly spending way too much time teaching! Now get back in your lab and turn out more grant proposals! Incentives are badly misaligned, students in STEM suffer.
I worked for a PI who told his undegrads constantly not to go to class that they would learn more working in the lab. He used these kids as free labor for his lab. They weren't doing projects, they weren't getting authorship; they were cleaning the lab and making reagents. I told them that they weren't going to graduate by working in the lab, they should go to class. I think people in the lay public would be shocked by what goes on in academia.
The rot really goes deep. Profs are hired with ZERO consideration of their teaching skills or desire to teach - they just need to have tons of publications and a high likelihood of continuing grant $ which the admin skims 50% or more of. As a student in engineering or bio or similar majors, it is blatantly obvious that most profs have no desire to be in class. Their “teaching” is awful. Many of them can barely speak intelligible English. They have no ability to help students become interested in and understand very difficult subjects. Instead they blandly regurgitate textbooks with no perspective and students are graded on how well they memorize and regurgitate themselves. And for this students pay $100k annually.
Aside from funding administrators who behave inappropriately, this shifts power and control back in the direction of the actual scientists. It's often the administrators politicizing the work. Most scientists are good people just trying to make progress in their field, and most are more apolitical than the average person on the street (who is in turn far less political than the average administrator).
This is likely one of Trump's better moves.
Indirect costs also result in teaching being treated as a barely necessary evil by both admin and profs. I saw the worst of it while a postdoc. Great reviews from students? You're clearly spending way too much time teaching! Now get back in your lab and turn out more grant proposals! Incentives are badly misaligned, students in STEM suffer.
I worked for a PI who told his undegrads constantly not to go to class that they would learn more working in the lab. He used these kids as free labor for his lab. They weren't doing projects, they weren't getting authorship; they were cleaning the lab and making reagents. I told them that they weren't going to graduate by working in the lab, they should go to class. I think people in the lay public would be shocked by what goes on in academia.
The rot really goes deep. Profs are hired with ZERO consideration of their teaching skills or desire to teach - they just need to have tons of publications and a high likelihood of continuing grant $ which the admin skims 50% or more of. As a student in engineering or bio or similar majors, it is blatantly obvious that most profs have no desire to be in class. Their “teaching” is awful. Many of them can barely speak intelligible English. They have no ability to help students become interested in and understand very difficult subjects. Instead they blandly regurgitate textbooks with no perspective and students are graded on how well they memorize and regurgitate themselves. And for this students pay $100k annually.