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The War on Colleges/Cultural Revolution- Fareed Zakaria clip

A very interesting take from Fareed. This is one of the few on journalists on CNN I like.

Universities are in need of reform. As shooter posted about a semester of anthropology study abroad. No. We don’t need to fund that. Fund it out of your own pocket. Let’s take a scalpel to these professors and universities and cut out what is pure bullshit. And trust me it’s prevalent. Professors just creating work for themselves to justify their jobs. Great. But not with taxpayers dollars.

The attack on indoctrination and woke was a product of the protests and the window into our finest universities being led by people who can’t even talk.



Universities are yet another area worthy of reform. Love seeing it.
 
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Universities are in need of reform. As shooter posted about a semester of anthropology study abroad. No. We don’t need to fund that. Fund it out of your own pocket. Let’s take a scalpel to these professors and universities and cut out what is pure bullshit. And trust me it’s prevalent. Professors just creating work for themselves to justify their jobs. Great. But not with taxpayers dollars.

The attack on indoctrination and woke was a product of the protests and the window into our finest universities being led by people who can’t even talk.



Universities are yet another area worthy of reform. Love seeing it
Watch the clip Eppy posted.
 
Universities are in need of reform. As shooter posted about a semester of anthropology study abroad. No. We don’t need to fund that. Fund it out of your own pocket. Let’s take a scalpel to these professors and universities and cut out what is pure bullshit. And trust me it’s prevalent. Professors just creating work for themselves to justify their jobs. Great. But not with taxpayers dollars.

The attack on indoctrination and woke was a product of the protests and the window into our finest universities being led by people who can’t even talk.



Universities are yet another area worthy of reform. Love seeing it
Look I think there’s a common sense approach to this topic. I’m definitely not disagreeing there’s some areas that shouldn’t be funded by tax dollars. In fact it pisses me off that some these most well known schools have such enormous endowments and the money just sits there. I did learn over the weekend though from a financial advisor that you can only use 5% of an endowment per year. I’m a little out of my lane here as maybe there’s a good reason for that, but for universities to fund more of these projects the rules probably need to change. The other issue as has been discussed are the most important research projects losing funding while this attack on schools is taking place. Important research on cancer and other diseases will not be funded in this current environment. Doctors salaries will not be covered and the labatories that cost more than the salaries can’t be built. So what is the fix? We can’t continue to lead the world in research if it won’t be funded.
 
I’m all for carrying on with and increasing to the extent possible cancer and other impt funding. Anthropology abroad for brown students. No. And the endowments are restricted live off interest great. But let’s increase taxes on them. They don’t get to be a hedge fund that offers classes
Look I think there’s a common sense approach to this topic. I’m definitely not disagreeing there’s some areas that shouldn’t be funded by tax dollars. In fact it pisses me off that some these most well known schools have such enormous endowments and the money just sits there. I did learn over the weekend though from a financial advisor that you can only use 5% of an endowment per year. I’m a little out of my lane here as maybe there’s a good reason for that, but for universities to fund more of these projects the rules probably need to change. The other issue as has been discussed are the most important research projects losing funding while this attack on schools is taking place. Important research on cancer and other diseases will not be funded in this current environment. Doctors salaries will not be covered and the labatories that cost more than the salaries can’t be built. So what is the fix? We can’t continue to lead the world in research if it won’t be funded.
 
Look I think there’s a common sense approach to this topic. I’m definitely not disagreeing there’s some areas that shouldn’t be funded by tax dollars. In fact it pisses me off that some these most well known schools have such enormous endowments and the money just sits there. I did learn over the weekend though from a financial advisor that you can only use 5% of an endowment per year. I’m a little out of my lane here as maybe there’s a good reason for that, but for universities to fund more of these projects the rules probably need to change. The other issue as has been discussed are the most important research projects losing funding while this attack on schools is taking place. Important research on cancer and other diseases will not be funded in this current environment. Doctors salaries will not be covered and the labatories that cost more than the salaries can’t be built. So what is the fix? We can’t continue to lead the world in research if it won’t be funded.
There are also important First Amendment issues here, as Zakaria noted.
 
Look I think there’s a common sense approach to this topic. I’m definitely not disagreeing there’s some areas that shouldn’t be funded by tax dollars. In fact it pisses me off that some these most well known schools have such enormous endowments and the money just sits there. I did learn over the weekend though from a financial advisor that you can only use 5% of an endowment per year. I’m a little out of my lane here as maybe there’s a good reason for that, but for universities to fund more of these projects the rules probably need to change. The other issue as has been discussed are the most important research projects losing funding while this attack on schools is taking place. Important research on cancer and other diseases will not be funded in this current environment. Doctors salaries will not be covered and the labatories that cost more than the salaries can’t be built. So what is the fix? We can’t continue to lead the world in research if it won’t be funded.
Remember much of this boils down to who pays for it. I spend considerable time working with three universities. One owns a percentage of my main product. Every time we test even with them we pay a retainer, have a contract, and pay the hourly of students involved. Happy to do it. I love these university private partnerships. What I’m for reviewing is again bullshit soft research that is funded through fed grants that are nothing more than made up work so professors can have jobs

Shooter bitching about vaccine research. Let Pfizer subsidize it. They had record profits from vaccines. And now we hear there’s side effects and they’re immune from tort liability. All reward no risk
 
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I will add to this that I don’t want universities to become vocational schools. There’s benefit to the soft shit. Obviously. But it also adds expenses, bldgs etc, and what we fund does need to be examined critically.
 
I did. All of it. Some I addressed in response to eppy. Adding more voices to drown out left indoctrination is impractical. It’s like saying why don’t more loggers want to work at a gay bar.
I think a more apt analogy is the baby/bathwater one.

Trump/Musk are doing great harm.

 
I think a more apt analogy is the baby/bathwater one.

Trump/Musk are doing great harm.

Obviously an area in need of funding. But they too can become leaner and meaner. Have you ever been to duke? Maybe we don’t need cherry blossom season. I think how we imagine schools should be reimagined. No difft than gov

The biggest fck up with how all of this is transpiring is lack of notice. Targets need time to adapt respond etc. there’s a perversion to all of this that’s terrible
 
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If you guys are into Podcasts I enjoyed this old podcast from Malcomb Gladwell's Revisionist History Podcast. It discusses Philanthropy to Universities and Colleges and the endowments they have. I will copy the show description here. It's worth a listen.


In the early ’90s, Hank Rowan gave $100 million to a university in New Jersey, an act of extraordinary generosity that helped launch the greatest explosion in educational philanthropy since the days of Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers. But Rowan gave his money to Glassboro State University, a tiny, almost bankrupt school in South Jersey, while almost all of the philanthropists who followed his lead made their donations to elite schools such as Harvard and Yale. Why did no one follow Rowan’s example?

“My Little Hundred Million” is the third part of Revisionist History’s educational miniseries. It looks at the hidden ideologies behind giving and how a strange set of ideas has hijacked educational philanthropy.

 
I did learn over the weekend though from a financial advisor that you can only use 5% of an endowment per year.
This is not actually true. Trustees set policies around investments and spending for endowments. Normally, an endowed fund is capped at 4-5% spending so the endowment can grow over time, but a board of trustees can approve higher spending.
 
Zakaria’s criticism has some merit.


That said, this administration is still taking the correct approach. Federal Grant funding powering R&D is/was a massive competitive advantage as Zakaria said.

But the universities have shown they can no longer be trusted with the money. Tear the grants down to the studs, build back carefully and slowly.
 
Wait, so we fire all of the graduate students tomorrow, kill all of the lab mice, shut down the labs, but then expect to just start up again in a month... once we convince a teenager that research into ALS drugs isn't really "woke" and that the transgenic mice bred to develop human-like ALS symptoms are not really "transgender mice"?
 
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Wait, so we fire all of the graduate students tomorrow, kill all of the lab mice, shut down the labs, but then expect to just start up again in a month... once we convince a teenager that research into ALS drugs isn't really "woke" and that the transgenic mice bred to develop human-like ALS symptoms are not really "transgender mice"?
Or we pare down funding to what’s essential and eliminate the bs jobs program for shit taxpayers shouldn’t fund and have these profs and perpetual phd post doc students find alt funding or alt careers
 
Or we pare down funding to what’s essential and eliminate the bs jobs program for shit taxpayers shouldn’t fund and have these profs and perpetual phd post doc students find alt funding or alt careers
These universities will need to prioritize. Sounds like some of them are on the right track cancelling all-inclusive, anthropology trips.
 
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Or we pare down funding to what’s essential and eliminate the bs jobs program for shit taxpayers shouldn’t fund and have these profs and perpetual phd post doc students find alt funding or alt careers
Yep, you give them money and they'll find something to spend it on even if it's the sex life of a fly.
 
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... some of them are on the right track cancelling all-inclusive, anthropology trips.
Yeah all those posh all-inclusive resorts in villages in Nepal. Study abroad programs are cancelled for students not taking even one penny of Federal funding, since a small number of other students are indeed low income and were slated to receive partial assistance, such as a travel reimbursement. But you cancel it for some and you cancel it for all.
 
Yeah all those posh all-inclusive resorts in villages in Nepal. Study abroad programs are cancelled for students not taking even one penny of Federal funding, since a small number of other students are indeed low income and were slated to receive partial assistance, such as a travel reimbursement. But you cancel it for some and you cancel it for all.
Pay for it themselves or don’t go. Too bad.
 
Universities are in need of reform. As shooter posted about a semester of anthropology study abroad. No. We don’t need to fund that. Fund it out of your own pocket. Let’s take a scalpel to these professors and universities and cut out what is pure bullshit. And trust me it’s prevalent. Professors just creating work for themselves to justify their jobs. Great. But not with taxpayers dollars.

The attack on indoctrination and woke was a product of the protests and the window into our finest universities being led by people who can’t even talk.



Universities are yet another area worthy of reform. Love seeing it.

MM66. Is the following an accurate summary of the winning Pub playbook?

The Dems have a slight majority of college graduates most of whom have been brainwashed by woke professors (elitist ivory tower liberals whose power and influence require reform).

Meanwhile the Pubs have. a majority of the Americans with common sense. Furthermore, their leaders are often self made billionaire genius businessmen. Free enterprise employers living in the real world.
 
MM66. Is the following an accurate summary of the winning Pub playbook?

The Dems have a slight majority of college graduates most of whom have been brainwashed by woke professors (elitist ivory tower liberals whose power and influence require reform).

Meanwhile the Pubs have. a majority of the Americans with common sense. Furthermore, their leaders are often self made billionaire genius businessmen. Free enterprise employers living in the real world.
Yep.

But the price of crab legs needs to come down
 
This is not actually true. Trustees set policies around investments and spending for endowments. Normally, an endowed fund is capped at 4-5% spending so the endowment can grow over time, but a board of trustees can approve higher spending.

Pretty sure the 5% rule is a minimum.
 
Don’t you all think if the medical researches and those in STEM lose their funding there will be a major brain drain and find work in other countries. This could be a major opportunity for competing countries to gain market share in R&D. We’re opening the door for this to happen . Not to mention these researchers are gonna need to work somewhere. This could also affect tech like AI.
 
How do we feel about Zakaria’s last take comparing what’s happening to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in China? I’m not going to pretend I know enough about Chinese history to have an educated opinion. It’s the last part of the video if anyone wants to hear what he says about this. Would love to hear from any history buffs give an honest opinion.
 
If universities are teaching bullshit and indoctrinating students with nonsense, of course we should all want to address that issue. However, "teaching bullshit and indoctrinating with nonsense" could easily be rephrased as "teaching things I disagree with." And while it's still okay for us as individuals to be opposed to people teaching things we disagree with, it's not okay for the government to do it. Using loaded language like "indoctrination" is just a way to cover up the bare fact of promotion of violation of basic First Amendment liberties.
 
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If universities are teaching bullshit and indoctrinating students with nonsense, of course we should all want to address that issue. However, "teaching bullshit and indoctrinating with nonsense" could easily be rephrased as "teaching thinks I disagree with." And while it's still okay for us as individuals to be opposed to people teaching things we disagree with, it's not okay for the government to do it. Using loaded language like "indoctrination" is just a way to cover up the bare fact of promotion of violation of basic First Amendment liberties.
Did you watch the Fareed video? Precisely his point.
 
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5% minimum expenditure in grants AND operating expenses.

Correct, so long as the operating expenses meet the eligibility requirements. However, it should come as no surprise that what is and isn't eligible is a fairly common point of contention between NPs and the IRS.

I just pointed out that the 5% rule was a minimum -- because a couple of posters here seemed to suggest it was some kind of cap. No, the government wants them distributing funds rather than just continuing to sit on them....use it or lose it.

There is some leeway to carry it over. It's not rigid on a year-by-year basis.
 
Correct, so long as the operating expenses meet the eligibility requirements. However, it should come as no surprise that what is and isn't eligible is a fairly common point of contention between NPs and the IRS.

I just pointed out that the 5% rule was a minimum -- because a couple of posters here seemed to suggest it was some kind of cap. No, the government wants them distributing funds rather than just continuing to sit on them....use it or lose it.

There is some leeway to carry it over. It's not rigid on a year-by-year basis.
Thank you all for explaining this. I may have misunderstood what I had heard. I agree we need to see these endowments spend more.
 
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