By the way, the claim that you attended college “without any government support” is ludicrous. Nearly all universities rely heavily on government subsidies and research contracts for their funding.

You never actually answered the question, anyway. What do you suppose these people would be doing with their time if they didn’t have research funded by stimulus money? I’m guessing either unemployed, or working in another job outside the university, and either way means someone is unemployed — either it’s them, or it’s the person who filled that other job when this person got the research grant.

Peace.
Rick Beagle

Mark – I did go to grad school and grad students (post-grad usually actually) get paid diddly-squat to help a prof with research. They do it for the love of the field and to get their degrees. Good that a foundation paid for you (or I could say you were a leech but I won’t go that far ). But universirty research is NOT about giving free education to grad students. Neither should the grants.

Mark, you SHOULD argue that it is or isn’t the BEST way! With that kind of money don’t you think government should get the best bang for the buck?!

Heaven help us when Obamacare passes!!

http://tinyurl.com/yfxogxl

Second, based upon your comments, I assume that neither MasterPo or Mr. TML went to graduate school in the sciences. You don’t seem to understand how grants impact students, faculty and staff.

Generally, if a professor or group of professors wins a grant, their proposal specifically spelled out exactly what they were going to do with the money, how many graduate students will be supported by the grant, what major equipment/instruments will be purchased, etc. As a result, the funding of a grant typically creates new, open positions for graduate students that previously did not exist (i.e., new jobs).

I don’t know how many jobs will be created from this funding. I do know that the $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation that paid for my graduate education supported multiple professors, about 10-12 graduate students and provided research experience to 5-10 undergraduate students. I would guess that at least several hundred graduate students will be supported by this funding at much better than minimum wage. In the end, you have highly educated scientists that graduate, get good-paying jobs, pay taxes and contribute to our national economy and global competitiveness for decades to come. Again, that does not include the useful information that is generated, the support jobs at the university that are at least partially funded, the instruments that were purchased (thus, stimulating the economy) and will remain at the university for future research, etc.

Listen, I am not arguing that this is necessarily the best way to stimulate the economy and bring us out of the recession. However, I do think it is ridiculous to state that these grants are “just to give university academics something to justify their own existence.”

MasterPo: Yes, some coherent thought about the subject we are discussing is much better than your mindless, empty slogans that add nothing to the conversation.

Besides, if you don’t like how the “job creation thing” is going, submit your own proposals. Take some ownership of the problem.

Peace.
Rick Beagle

Are they going to hire a couple of hundred currently-out-of-work researchers? Lab assistants? Build a new research building??

They will probably purchase some new lab equipment and supplies. I’ll grant that.

But who do you think is going to get the lion’s share of that $$$? It will be CURRENT researchers who will apply for the grant $$$ from the school when their research is done. Parhaps a few hundred grad students will also get min-wage research assistant jobs too who otherwise would have to put off their research or go else where.

Let’s say the school spends $7 million on new equipment etc. for the research work. Of the remaining $80 million if 500 new positions are created that’s a cost of $160,000 per job!!!!!!

How efficient is that??

ps- How long do you think the research will go? 5 years at best for most (which makes the pay only $32,000 per year – not very good IMO). What then?? Spend another $160,000 per person?!?!

(Mark – Was that good enough for you? Keep that hope and change comming!!)