I was just making an offhand remark about how R&D gigs in industry for math/cs might be 'easier' to come by because their salary doesn't necessarily compete with lab costs.
The point is that all of this funding scarcity is artificial. its all agame to make you run like a hamster on a wheel. there is no capex needs for liberal arts, only modest opex. but no matter, none of those guys are "funded" either. they all are pitching projects for grants just like the STEM counterparts. Its basically a sociology experiment at this stage.
From what I've read, including the above link, there is some general skepticism about this claim. The code audit that followed the allegations seemed to help iron out even more bugs, making openBSD even more secure.
But I would be cautious about wanting to work in the world of thinktanks and policy institutes. Thinktanks, like policy makers, are influenced heavily by the ideology of the donors who support them.
One way you could make a significant, positive impact on society (without compromising your conscience, I hope!) is to volunteer at your local homeless shelter.
I understand your point. I do spend some time volunteering - but I'd like to work for a thinktank, at least for a while. It would be a good experience, assuming it is an impartial organization. Thank you for your answer.
Administrators are setting the priorities of expenditures. In so-called "fiscal emergency," administrators have opted to cut academic programs and freeze hiring in teaching while at the same time increasing expenditures on bureaucracy. The article cites abundant examples.
Still, according to the article's own numbers, if we reset the administrative fraction of the budget to 1947 levels, we would only shave 6% off of costs; this hardly explains much of the huge increase in inflation-adjusted tuition since then.
Administrators can be frightfully bad at capital allocation. They don't have much incentive to spend wisely, and they are often disconnected from what really matters to a university. Also, the more admins you have, the louder their voice will be, and the more misdirected intellectual firepower they will have making reports about how their decisions are the best.
IIRC, the real cost is often building, and IT. There's also money getting wasted by academics, because they have to follow too many rules. If you give academics a budget, and tell them to spend it wisely, they will probably do so. Give them a list of rules, and they will follow the rules, even if it means they waste a lot of money.
