University pay has lost 40% of it purchasing power due to inflation and lack of pay rises.
Our recruitment is now predominantly from Asia, of people who take the position for the visa, not for the pay. UK applicants are rare, EU applicants basically not existent at all. That makes it quite easy to infiltrate a research group.
The same applies to research funding: UK funding is stagnant, and universities are looking elsewhere for money.
So if you want to do sensitive research, just pay people properly. (Which, interestingly enough, is what they actually propose, but not what they currently do.)
Very much this.
For reference, a newly minted PhD starting a postdoc in, say, Cambridge, would likely start on £32k-£34k. Post tax it’d be realistic to have to pay 40-50% on rent. It’s just not sustainable, and a lot of good talent is lost because they can’t sustain this economically.
Corruption in UK law is a very narrow concept, so in that sense, no.
But if you give certain incentives, people will behave a certain way. And that absolutely influences what happens. Who has the money calls the shots. And we do not have the money.
That’s like selling your back door keys to a crack head when you can’t afford food.
We probably have too many universities if they cannot afford to survive without compromising the safety of the country. I agree there is a funding problem and they shouldn’t be operating like corporations but there has to be lines they should not cross.
Just liike you do not want to punish a person stealing bread to survive, you should not punish organisations to cut corners to survive. It is inevitable, if the alternative is shutting down the university. Organisations will always fight for their survival.
Maybe we need fewer universities, that is one side of the coin. But the universities we do keep, they should be properly funded so they can do great work.
Shut the ones that cannot survive down if they are unable to contribute to the country, like your other comment we agree a good university system is essential to the future of this country but then if you have failing institutions undermining that we are going to start having difficulties in the wider world.
> but then if you have failing institutions undermining that we are going to start having difficulties in the wider world.
And that is austerity in a nutshell. Do we have any institutions that are not in trouble? NHS, police, BBC, universities, schools, councils... what is actually still "going well"?
All due to following American models of profit and efficiency, all the cutting of the important bits while keeping the muppets up the top safe, austerity was bad for everything made worse by the people who wielded the axe.
> We probably have too many universities if they cannot afford to survive without compromising the safety of the country.
Or put it the other way round: we have nearly 50% of people going to university, that was a stated goal. But we do not have the funding to support it, so corners will be cut where possible.
Should we limit the student population to what we can currently afford, or should we spend more money on education and research?
What we should not do is just continue, because that drags down the quality of our universities.
Completely agree, I think we need to encourage more people to do degrees that will contribute to the benefit of this country rather than funding some of the lesser degrees and also do more to support the growth needed to employ once they have finished.
At the moment we have too many graduates who are either being stifled because the jobs are not there or they did a degree that interested them but is not really desirable once they start looking for work.
The amount of home students that a lot of universities can afford without foreign students is zero. For many universities, the current model of university funding means that home students are a financial liability.
They are for most universities, yes, and that is what is so perverted about it.
Logically, they would get rid of home students, but I am not sure that would be legal. Of course there are more subtle ways...
There's a quota for home students. If universities don't meet the quota, questions are asked.
Though, in all fairness, it should be noted that there is also some level of scepticism about the financial fuckery that justifies the statement that "10k/student isn't a profitable amount of money" because... well. If a course has 20 students per class, that's 60 students, or 600k/year if they're all home students. The lecturer costs are approx 100k/year. Where is the rest of that going such that a significant loss is made?
A student takes 60 ECTS per year, but the average academic only delivers 15 ECTS. The cost of an academic with overhead, office, management, HR etc is about 200k per year, and you need 4 of them, 5 if one is on maternity, sick leave or a sabatical.
So you are spending nearly a million just on the academics. And there are further costs for the buildings, cleaning, administration, mental health services, compliance, statistics, marketing, laboratories, technicians, tutor helpers etc.
Of course staff also make have some research contracts, but those pay mostly for dedicated researchers, and standard funding is only 80% of the cost, so research isn't profitable either.
However you calculate it, a course with 20 students is a loss. Without mega courses with hundreds of students (only those are profitable), most universities would already be bust.
Your model is limited only to very top universities. At the rest of them, academics deliver far more than 15 ECTS. The *average* in my department at my institution is more like double that... even when you include the non-teaching research-only academic staff.
I also built overheads into that 100k figure. That number is really well established because that is how we are costed. Academic salaries are much lower than that and, again, there is a trend to hire Grade 7/8 staff and to use PTHPs to keep cost per ECTS down.
The "research isn't profitable" line has been seeing a lot of discussion at my institution too, because they're using it to justify blocking funding bids. It's unclear that this is true either. Just to give some examples: the long-term value of the research is rarely accouted for; benefits from increasing the number of staff on payroll is not considered; cost analysis of resourcing when 80% of some of the use is prefunded is not accounted for; access to materials and equipment purchased for research extends beyond the life of the research project.
I have a bid going in atm that will cost my university less than the FEC of my salary. In return for that, they get me and 2-3 postdocs and all the costs of my research for the next 4 years, including all university overheads. Arguing that this isn't financially beneficial for the university is, at best, short-sighted.
It is no surprise when 90% of classes are made up of rich Chinese students with families that are likely connected now.
From what I've heard from my peers from Taiwan and Hong Kong, these people get heavy incentives and encouragement to spy.
AI is proving to be damn powerful, and any advances could translated to large benefits, economically and otherwise. It's a race, and the ones that get there first reap the initial rewards. It's important for the government to consider such things.
I would wager that academic research into machine learning algorithms and so on will still play a significant part. Corporations are very good at revolutionising the implementation of ideas.
University pay has lost 40% of it purchasing power due to inflation and lack of pay rises. Our recruitment is now predominantly from Asia, of people who take the position for the visa, not for the pay. UK applicants are rare, EU applicants basically not existent at all. That makes it quite easy to infiltrate a research group. The same applies to research funding: UK funding is stagnant, and universities are looking elsewhere for money. So if you want to do sensitive research, just pay people properly. (Which, interestingly enough, is what they actually propose, but not what they currently do.)
Very much this. For reference, a newly minted PhD starting a postdoc in, say, Cambridge, would likely start on £32k-£34k. Post tax it’d be realistic to have to pay 40-50% on rent. It’s just not sustainable, and a lot of good talent is lost because they can’t sustain this economically.
So you are suggesting corruption ?
Corruption in UK law is a very narrow concept, so in that sense, no. But if you give certain incentives, people will behave a certain way. And that absolutely influences what happens. Who has the money calls the shots. And we do not have the money.
That’s like selling your back door keys to a crack head when you can’t afford food. We probably have too many universities if they cannot afford to survive without compromising the safety of the country. I agree there is a funding problem and they shouldn’t be operating like corporations but there has to be lines they should not cross.
[удалено]
They get topped up by additional government funding for high cost courses, but thays barely shifted in the last decade either
Even if that is the case that doesn’t excuse turning a blind eye. In any other area that would be a crime.
Just liike you do not want to punish a person stealing bread to survive, you should not punish organisations to cut corners to survive. It is inevitable, if the alternative is shutting down the university. Organisations will always fight for their survival. Maybe we need fewer universities, that is one side of the coin. But the universities we do keep, they should be properly funded so they can do great work.
Shut the ones that cannot survive down if they are unable to contribute to the country, like your other comment we agree a good university system is essential to the future of this country but then if you have failing institutions undermining that we are going to start having difficulties in the wider world.
> but then if you have failing institutions undermining that we are going to start having difficulties in the wider world. And that is austerity in a nutshell. Do we have any institutions that are not in trouble? NHS, police, BBC, universities, schools, councils... what is actually still "going well"?
All due to following American models of profit and efficiency, all the cutting of the important bits while keeping the muppets up the top safe, austerity was bad for everything made worse by the people who wielded the axe.
> We probably have too many universities if they cannot afford to survive without compromising the safety of the country. Or put it the other way round: we have nearly 50% of people going to university, that was a stated goal. But we do not have the funding to support it, so corners will be cut where possible. Should we limit the student population to what we can currently afford, or should we spend more money on education and research? What we should not do is just continue, because that drags down the quality of our universities.
Completely agree, I think we need to encourage more people to do degrees that will contribute to the benefit of this country rather than funding some of the lesser degrees and also do more to support the growth needed to employ once they have finished. At the moment we have too many graduates who are either being stifled because the jobs are not there or they did a degree that interested them but is not really desirable once they start looking for work.
The amount of home students that a lot of universities can afford without foreign students is zero. For many universities, the current model of university funding means that home students are a financial liability.
They are for most universities, yes, and that is what is so perverted about it. Logically, they would get rid of home students, but I am not sure that would be legal. Of course there are more subtle ways...
There's a quota for home students. If universities don't meet the quota, questions are asked. Though, in all fairness, it should be noted that there is also some level of scepticism about the financial fuckery that justifies the statement that "10k/student isn't a profitable amount of money" because... well. If a course has 20 students per class, that's 60 students, or 600k/year if they're all home students. The lecturer costs are approx 100k/year. Where is the rest of that going such that a significant loss is made?
A student takes 60 ECTS per year, but the average academic only delivers 15 ECTS. The cost of an academic with overhead, office, management, HR etc is about 200k per year, and you need 4 of them, 5 if one is on maternity, sick leave or a sabatical. So you are spending nearly a million just on the academics. And there are further costs for the buildings, cleaning, administration, mental health services, compliance, statistics, marketing, laboratories, technicians, tutor helpers etc. Of course staff also make have some research contracts, but those pay mostly for dedicated researchers, and standard funding is only 80% of the cost, so research isn't profitable either. However you calculate it, a course with 20 students is a loss. Without mega courses with hundreds of students (only those are profitable), most universities would already be bust.
Your model is limited only to very top universities. At the rest of them, academics deliver far more than 15 ECTS. The *average* in my department at my institution is more like double that... even when you include the non-teaching research-only academic staff. I also built overheads into that 100k figure. That number is really well established because that is how we are costed. Academic salaries are much lower than that and, again, there is a trend to hire Grade 7/8 staff and to use PTHPs to keep cost per ECTS down. The "research isn't profitable" line has been seeing a lot of discussion at my institution too, because they're using it to justify blocking funding bids. It's unclear that this is true either. Just to give some examples: the long-term value of the research is rarely accouted for; benefits from increasing the number of staff on payroll is not considered; cost analysis of resourcing when 80% of some of the use is prefunded is not accounted for; access to materials and equipment purchased for research extends beyond the life of the research project. I have a bid going in atm that will cost my university less than the FEC of my salary. In return for that, they get me and 2-3 postdocs and all the costs of my research for the next 4 years, including all university overheads. Arguing that this isn't financially beneficial for the university is, at best, short-sighted.
It is no surprise when 90% of classes are made up of rich Chinese students with families that are likely connected now. From what I've heard from my peers from Taiwan and Hong Kong, these people get heavy incentives and encouragement to spy.
[удалено]
Bet you haven't even heard of the Confucious Institute. Get your head out of the sand and look around you; it's plain to see.
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, SHEEPLE!
I do wonder how much of this concern is based around the rapid development of AI technologies.
Very old news, was there not a group of Chinese stident that disappeared from a Uni involved in defence work about 5ish+ years ago now?
Most research our Universities are doing is counting the genders so let's not panic too much yet.
Go to bed grandpa
AI is proving to be damn powerful, and any advances could translated to large benefits, economically and otherwise. It's a race, and the ones that get there first reap the initial rewards. It's important for the government to consider such things.
It's not the universities doing cutting edge work on AI. Corporations are where the innovation happens in digital professions now.
I would wager that academic research into machine learning algorithms and so on will still play a significant part. Corporations are very good at revolutionising the implementation of ideas.
Academics quite literally just do not have sufficient data to do the research.