The Collapse of the University

 One wonders who is behind these actions. The Tech at MIT notes:

 Out of 1,708 ballots, 92.5% of members of MIT’s Graduate Student Union (GSU) voted yes to authorize a strike yesterday evening. During a strike, graduate workers and fellows would be expected to stop all work and “not cross the picket line.”  After six months of bargaining and 15 sessions with MIT, seven articles (5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 19, and 25) have reached a tentative agreement, while the majority remains in limbo or has been closed. However, central issues to the GSU’s campaign — union shop, establishing a three-year contract, wages, healthcare, and protections for international workers — remain at a standstill with the Institute.

 So let me try to get this correct. A Grad student will refuse to work on their thesis or perform Teaching Assistant duties to undergrads who are paying nearly $100,000 per year! 

This may very well  be the start of the collapse of the University system. Who are these people who are behind this. We have teachers unions who have been able to destroy Grammar and High Schools in the US while union leaders collect millions. 

This strike is a great way for some adversary to destroy US academic excellence. Remember that nothing is necessarily what it appears to be. In this case it may very well not be some "poor" grad students. 

And This is Science?

 

I was amazed by the interview in the NY Times of the so-called science advisor to the President. This person, a BA from Princeton in Poly Sci, not any apparent technical expertise, notes:

S.I. for science is going to be the biggest unlock for scientific discovery in the history of the world. It’s going to impact everything from material science to chemistry to math. In our plan, I think the belly button of it all is something called the Genesis Mission, the idea that we should build a scientific instrument in the federal government to be able to leverage S.I. for scientific discovery, and that’s what we’re building in our national labs. And we’ve opened it up, and now have access to it, from all of our agencies across the government. So if you’re doing very important health care work or biomedical work that requires superintelligence, you can access this instrument at the D.O.E., and the same goes for lots of other agencies. The core thing we want to do is provide S.I. as an enabling tool for whatever scientific discovery you want to make.

Great, just what we need, more Government Labs building stuff!

I had the good fortune to have known three Presidential Science Advisors: Vannevar Bush, Jerome Wiesner, and EE David. In my opinion this is not one of them. But I continue:

 So right now, American Ph.D. programs are geared toward this, at a minimum, five-year Ph.D. But they’re also tailored to try to optimize the curriculums in order to train students to be academics, and the numbers don’t play out. About 60 percent of people who get Ph.D.s do not end up becoming academics. So we asked ourselves: In that environment, shouldn’t we be trying to do a better job of training these young technologists and scientists to go out and actually be prepared for what they’re ultimately going to do in industry? So we launched a four-year Ph.D. program in partnership with universities and with industry, so that during the last year of your Ph.D. program — at year four — you’re at an industry lab. You do work in industry, and your dissertation is written on the work that you do at that company.

 This is a work study program, not a research training exercise. Now to be simple, my PhD took 18 months. I had an SM from MIT already and needed a few extra courses, but I stuffed it all in. I also was a junior faculty member as well as finishing my first book. Plus a few other things along with two children. I never could have done that in some work study program. 

With my MIT PhD I ran the gamut of academic, Government Advisor, Movie and CATV business, COO of mobile phone business, venture investor and operator, etc. The PhD allowed versatility and MIT, at the time (and that was during the Viet Nam War folks) allowed me to explore. 

The current so-called Science Advisor seems to follow the path of using neologisms to espouse new policies. PhDs are not "trained". They are educated and tested. You may "train" your poodle but please let's not insult the Academy, it already has a multitude of problems.  

Would it not have been better to have an experienced PhD in this position, say in Science or worse case Engineering like the three I have known! Instead we get an apparently inexperienced political entity.

Funding Science

 

In a short piece in Nature the authors discuss the increase in private funding or research, especially in the biotech arena. They note:

 

And US tech entrepreneurs have a penchant for experimentation in how they structure their investments, says Keith Yamamoto, vice-chancellor of science policy and strategy at the University of California, San Francisco. When it comes to philanthropy, private donors are more able to take risks with their investments than are government funding agencies, which are beholden to taxpayers to ensure that their money is spent wisely. “Public money limits your activities,” says Harold Varmus, a former director of the NIH, who has also been on advisory boards for the Gates Foundation and the CZI. “There is a freedom of motion that is associated with private money.” Some tech titans have experimented with various ways of structuring their grants. The Arc Institute, for example, boasts a “no-strings-attached” funding system that gives its investigators more freedom than do standard government grants awarded to biomedical researchers. Philanthropists are also able to fund long-term, interdisciplinary projects that can be difficult for government grants to take on. Convergent Research, a non-profit organization funded in part by Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, is forming ‘focused research organizations’ that bring teams together to solve important scientific or engineering challenges that could benefit a wide swathe of research. “We’re looking for the pieces of critical, fundamental infrastructure missing from a particular field,” says Anastasia Gamick, a co-founder and president of Convergent Research, which is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 Targeting research is a difficult process. One of my favorite targets was Multimedia Communications, now embodied in the current Internet world. But then many in management had no clue. A phone call was enough. Thus a good researcher will go for long term high impact work whereas the funders may have conflicting ideas. It should be interesting to see how this evolves.

 

 

Business Schools

 First let me state I have no MBA. In fact I had just one course in economics as a undergrad. But I spent a year at Columbia as a visiting Professor at the Business School and a couple of years at NYU/Poly. Now how did that happen?

Simple, I think. In the late 70s at  I was at COMSAT and Gene Jilg, a VP of Satellite Systems, asked me to write his business plan. Never did one. Especially the financials. So one Friday I went to a local bookstore and bought a book on Finance. Read it over the weekend and on Monday I started the financials. You see as an MIT EE PhD these were just simple equations and I just asked around for the data. Done in a few weeks. 

At Warner I had plans for  interactive video, managing a staff of a few dozens, marketing, tech, valuation. Then deals. Again not a single business school class. 

The NY Times notes:

The modern business school is designed to promote dealmaking, simplification and optimization. This mind-set has escaped containment and has spread to the wider world. Business-educated elites increasingly populate political leadership, bringing with them a transactional view of public life. One investigation found that out of 45 current heads of state who had studied in the United States, 10 were business majors, and six of those also earned M.B.A.s. President Trump, a Wharton undergraduate, has treated foreign policy and government itself as extensions of deal making and personal gain. Surely, not every business graduate governs this way. But recent research by the Nobel laureate economist Daron Acemoglu and colleagues shows what tends to happen when you put an M.B.A. in charge. In both the United States and Denmark, firms that appointed managers with business degrees cut wages and reduced labor’s share of income. Yet these companies didn’t become more productive, nor did they grow sales, investment or employment any faster. What registers as managerial acumen turns out to be wealth transfer — value moved away from workers and toward profits, shareholders and executives.

 In contrast I have seen High School Grads in retail have a better understanding of the customer, inventory, and turnover than many a B School grad. I gained more insight by doing than by studying. It was getting in the line of fire and surviving. The most complex one is selling a new business. One has to be a dream merchant of sorts, and then defend your proposed valuation. I do not think you get that in class. 

It is a bit like Med School. Two years of "theory" then two years of real people, death, fear, mistakes, and cures. There are no pre-cooked case studies. There is a 2AM ER case of a 65 year old mother and her 38 year old daughter, her pain but more so her fear. It is the 12 year old with Leukemia and you must tell the parents, see their horror about their child. Creighton wrote a great book, 12 Patients, his last two year at Harvard. It was not academic class, it was life and death. There is nothing like that in B School. 

Thus one wonders if B School has value.  

Unionized Grad Students

 

The MIT Tech discusses the Graduate Students Union. They note:

Since April, MIT’s bargaining team and its graduate student union (GSU) have held multiple meetings to negotiate a second collective bargaining agreement, reaching tentative agreement on three of 26 proposed articles. The original contract expired on May 31, leaving around 5,000 graduate research assistants, teaching assistants, and Instructor-Gs working under the terms of the expired agreement. After months of stagnant bargaining, the GSU launched a pledge on September 9 to strike if necessary. In a press release dated Sept. 11, 2026, the union announced that over 1,000 graduate workers have signed. It is not clear when exactly the GSU is planning to strike, but the last bargaining session in the month is planned for September 25.

Now back in my day, mid 60s, you never would have time for this.We were all to busy on our research. We all got the same salary, $400 per month, plus MIT Health Service. You survived, barely and worked 24 by 7! If you were lucky, as a junior faculty, you got a day a week for outside consulting, and that could be $125 a day. You could double your salary. But it still was 24 by 7!

More than half of these folks are foreign students, getting free tuition, and almost $5,000 per month! Plus they want full health care. Many may need complex medical care, costly as well.

Just the site of this massive group, in my opinion, of proto-Marxists, is terrifying (namely the appear to be class oriented, Grad Students vs the Institute). So do we have a problem with higher education, you betcha! 

But the bottom line in the "old days" was that you tried to be better, more creative, ahead of the crowd. The last thing you sought was group compliance.  Frankly you tried not to be equal as a group. You tried to be better as an individual. Unions, as I have experienced, are possibly good if the class of people are doing the same task. Say a bus driver, chicken plucker, garbage collector. But an MIT Grad student is doing a one of a kind, research, pushing the frontier forward.

The Old Days of Teaching

 

Back in the days when I was teaching (MIT, Columbia, GWU, Poly NYU) I used chalk and blackboard. Each lecture had a theme, a point I wanted to get across, and my writings became props for what I wanted to say.

I kept a look out for every students eyes, did they follow or did I get MEGO, "my eyes glazed over" syndrome. I interacted with those so afflicted. In effect each lecture was a one act play with a single actor, and the script was painted on the blackboard. The holding of the chalk, the dust on my jacket, the little comments to see how many were still awake.

Now the advantage was in engineering you gave exams to have the student "show that" in detail. That meant receiving long had written exposes of what they hopefully knew. An A was 90 and above etc. You could not curve the grades a whole lot. They were what they were. 

 Now in an interesting piece in CATO's web site:

 Teachers, like many professionals, have expressed concerns about how AI might change or replace their jobs. AI can certainly help students in ways we traditionally associate with teachers, but it can also expand the reach of a good teacher. Education has evolved with many technologies, and the best teachers have evolved with it. Great teachers won’t be replaced by AI; they’ll be the ones who carefully adapt to it.

 Indeed, AI can't catch the "I'm lost" look in a students eye, not can it perform so as to both get the point across as well as create human interaction, by definition.

Yale and Its World View

 I almost went to Yale for Grad study. I had a great fellowship and it was close to New York. But I have to admit I did not like New Haven. So back to Cambridge and the MIT of the 60s with left over WW II shacks for my offices.

Now out of Yale comes some Professor for reasons unknown has this thing about older people. In essence what this gentlemen seems to be saying is that  older folks have made wealth and that they should not have it, it should be distributed to the younger people. It is not because they don't deserve it, they have earned it, but some how it lacks some form of equity.

Now let me comment of such equity. Back in the late 50s and early 60s at university, I had no phone, no Internet, no  car, nor TV, one pair of shoes, two sports jackets, four shirts, six socks. Oh yes a winter coat and a sweater! I lived with three room mates in an apartment costing $120 per month for all 4 and made my own meals, eating just twice a day! When I moved into my New Jersey house the interest rate was 18.5%, yes it would be cheaper to use a credit card back then! Thus every nickle counted.

Now this Professor states:

To a gobsmacking extent, seniors, with their high rates of participation, dominate elections, especially the  apparently boring local and off-cycle ones. The median age of actual voters these days — meaning that equal numbers of voters are older and younger — is about 52, and on the way up. Outside presidential contests, it is 55 or 56; in primaries, it is 65. Even older funders disproportionately finance the races. The most common age of donors in recent elections can run as high as 70. Finally, older Americans are backed by the best-funded advocacy group in world history — the AARP — and enjoy the most governmental benefits by a vast degree. The government is bought and paid for by those who are up in years and is organized for their sake. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is only the most recent exacerbation, cutting down the welfare state — except elder entitlements — to make up for lost taxes.  

Perhaps this fellow just missed the DSA races recently. You know, Medicare for All etc. He then states:

Older people are also hoarding jobs. Following the abolition of mandatory retirement in most professions, older people are choosing to stay in some of the best positions, accumulating more money and blocking pipelines. The average age of CEOs and professors alike has gone through the roof. The United States, which has the highest wage inequality by age in the world, has seen the numbers gallop: Between 1979 and 2018, the pay gap between those over 55 and under 35 has increased by 61 percent. In those same years, the proportion of older people in the workforce has also exploded: The share of workers over 55 rose a shocking 88 percent.

 Two point here. First, think Silicon Valley! Not too many old folks there. This type of false statement seems to invade his entire presentation. The last insulting statement is:

The elderly possess the choicest real estate in great cities. The housing crisis, now well-known, is partly a story of old people refusing to downsize as they age. The age group most likely to own a home in America, at a rate of over 80 percent, is 70 to 74, with those 75 and older second highest. Shockingly, the age of the median homebuyer leaped from barely 30 in 1981 to 53 in 2022. The failure of abundant supply is also partly the fault of the elderly, since their political mobilization arrests development and blocks new builds. In defense of their incomes, wealth, homes, or land, they have driven tax revolts so that they don’t have to contribute to the common good.

 My home was bought in 1981 but I was going on 40! Finally this person states:

While gerontocracy is hardly the only source of our difficulties, no one interested in how injustice and social strains are shaped and reproduced in America today should ignore how deep it goes. Gerontocracy has to be assessed properly, for the sake of a new intergenerational political compact. In the end, taking it seriously is essential for treating everyone appropriately and fairly.

 So what does he suggest? Kill off the old folks? I did not see that, yet. In my opinion and my experience the major problem with the younger generation is that they spend when they should not, spending drives up costs and reduce available capital. In 1960 I ate on $5 per week! The young generation could not buy a cup of fancy coffee for that today. 

 

 

This is why?

 

The NY Times notes:

 Declines this fall also appear to be stacking on top of losses in Ph.D. student capacity from last year. The A.A.U.D.E. collected data for fall 2025 and found that, for the 42 schools that responded, new enrollments dropped by 11 percent from the previous year. Enrollments and admissions are not the same, but tend to be good proxies for each other in doctoral education. The central takeaway, A.A.U. officials said, is that the data shows two years of a “substantial reduction in the number of Ph.D. students being admitted and ultimately enrolled at major research universities.” Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a message to the campus in May that, while Congress restored some agency cuts, the money was “not actually flowing to M.I.T. the way it typically has.” She said new federal research awards were down 20 percent and also cited the effects of a new tax on the school’s endowment.

In my opinion this is one reason why. Students must take Humanities courses such as (you must take 8 of these things!):  

 21W.764J Computational and Experimental Writing Workshop

21W.765J Interactive Narrative

21W.766 Writing Fantasy

21W.770 Advanced Fiction Workshop

21W.771 Advanced Poetry Workshop

21W.773 Writing Longer Fiction

21W.774J Playwriting Methods

21W.776J Screenwriting

21W.780J Writing the Full-Length Play

21W.786J Social Justice and The Documentary Film

21W.790J Short Attention Span Documentary

CMS.150J Black Matters: Introduction to Black Studies

CMS.301 Game Design Methods

CMS.303J DJ History, Technique, and Technology

CMS.305J Rap Theory and Practice

CMS.306 Making Comics and Sequential Art

CMS.307 Critical Worldbuilding

CMS.308 The Visual Story: Graphic Novel, Type to Tablet

CMS.309J Transmedia Storytelling: Modern Science Fiction

CMS.335J Short Attention Span Documentary

CMS.336J Social Justice and The Documentary Film

CMS.338 Innovation in Documentary: Technologies and Techniques

CMS.339 Virtual Reality and Immersive Media Production

CMS.344 Spatial Sound: Culture, Theory, and Practice

CMS.352J Japanese Cinema

CMS.374J Transmedia Art, Extraction, and Environmental Justice

CMS.418J Gender in the Visual Arts

 

Plus MIT instituted and continues its DEI program with Commissars in each Department ensuring compliance (Think Hunt for Red October).  

So what do they do, blame Congress! Perhaps a mirror would help. For example who ever had put  the "toll booth" at all entrances really started the ball rolling.

 As a Note the 1961 MIT catalog stated:

The M.I.T. program in humanities and social sciences has several objectives. It seeks first to develop attitudes and skills basic to a life of effective thought , action, and appreciation as a responsible citizen and broadly educated human being. Secondly, it seeks to provide some understanding of man's experience at key points in his history and of the human problems which must be the concern of every civilized  man. Thirdly, it seeks to provide some sense of the intellectual discipline involved in a particular area in the humanities or social sciences, some cutting in depth in a field outside the student’s professional specialization. Finally, it seeks to develop skill in accurately and effectively communicating facts and ideas orally and in writing. Every candidate for a Bachelor's degree must take eight term subjects in the humanities and social sciences; normally these are distributed over the eight terms of his residence, one to each term. All  ndergraduates may take, if they choose, two additional humanities or social science subjects in place of two  professional electives. In his first two years each student takes a series of four subjects: INTRODUCTION TO THE HUMANITIES (21.01, 21.02) and MODERN WESTERN IDEAS AND VALUES (21.03, 21.04). Through intensive work with original texts he is given training in critical reading, a sampling of the liberal disciplines; notably history, philosophy, and literature and a foundation for more advanced study in these and related fields. Frequent written exercises, with criticism from his instructors in scheduled conferences, give him an opportunity to improve his writing ability.

Notice the drastic difference. It lacks focus, stresses "woke" elements, and most likely has faculty less appropriate for science and engineering.

What are they talking about?

 

In a Science article the authors, some folks from a Southern Business School, opine on how R&D should be conducted. The recognize that research is now well established in the University, Venture funded entities are able to convert that research into services and products, and large corporations can often, but not always, industrialize these entities. The fail to note than many start ups continue to grow independent of a third party, but let that slide.

They then state:

 One lesson is clear: The American research university is the indispensable foundation for innovation. Industrial research in America arose partly because university research was underdeveloped, but over time, the two flourished together, reinforcing each other. It is not necessary to choose between universities, start-ups, and corporate laboratories. Instead, the institutions that connect them must be strengthened, and the scientific foundations that make those connections possible must be protected.

My question is simple: what are the institutions that connect them? I spent a few years after having done my own start ups and tried to go to the university and then commercialize them. Not a single success. The university research often lingers in the valley of death, where the researcher holds on to the idea but simultaneously wants to keep their academic position. That is a bad example of the wing-walkers rule, never let go of something until you have a firm hold of something else. The result may be half of you stays on the two aircraft. 

I wonder why these academics postulate some undefined solution. It appears they have no hands on experience. At the best, one may license a patent from an institution. However that can be a painful process, I also have done that. You often are still stuck with the researcher. The problem is that researchers live in silos. Thus they may have a great technology, but have no idea as to how to manufacture it. I would get a test tube worth but need tons!

This three step process is weak. Lots of great ideas and technology but getting it to a viable start up phase is complex. The worst I have ever seen was MIT starting its VC fund. A university should not be in the position of choosing winners and losers. Research is research. It is not product development. It lacks the ruthless hand of management. 

A Reason Why Tuition is so High!

 In reading a recent MIT News brief they lauded a new employee whose job is:

... associate director of student organizations and programming for the Student Organizations, Leadership, and Engagement Office (SOLE) in the Division of Student Life (DSL), empowers and equips students to lead and serve not only during their time at MIT, but also as they venture into their professional lives. With enthusiasm and a global mindset, she is dedicated to helping students thrive and reach their goals.  

Well there goes another couple of hundred thousand, How long has this organization been around. Do MIT students have time for this stuff, I never did.  

 

Down with the Old?

 

The NY Times has a piece by some Yale Prof. Not surprisingly he proposes:

 Ageism has not ended, but that should not stop those questioning and seeking to rein in American gerontocracy.

Ageism is prejudice against older folk. Gerontocracy is the group of older who have been successful and prudent and have assets. Now this character is no saying "kill the old" but it comes close.

First home ownership. My current house bought in 1980 had a mortgage rate of 18.5%! It would have been cheaper on my credit card. I had to bear the Nixon/Johnson war tax if you will. Fortunately Reagan came in and put a halt to it.

Second, I drive a Honda. Not a BMW or Mercedes.

Third I worked seven days a week, and for several years by traveling around the world managed to get at times greater than 24 hours for a day.

Fourth, I have no country club, no country house, etc. 

Fifth, I saved wisely.

Thus due to my prudence I am in the gerontocracy. Perhaps this Yale Prof may be coming for me? This character further states:

Absolutely, but what your story misses is that older citizens are complicit in the lack of senior housing. We have very good studies of how land use decisions — typically at town meetings where there is a lot of white hair in the audience. Ironically, if we democratized land use we would serve elder citizens better — by building more age-appropriate housing for them, and more housing in general.

 Yep, ship me off to age appropriate housing...try NYC with the local Marxist! No wonder students, at Yale and elsewhere are so off center!

We have gone from "kill the rich" to now "kill the old"! Thank you US Universities.... 

Missing the Point

 

Stefanik, in “Poisoned Ivies”, provides a recount of the hearing of College Presidents regarding the antisemitic riots on campuses and the suppression of free speech. Regrettably, that is about all; it is detailed and limited to the confines of the testimonies with some minor examinations of causes and remedies. She examines several major universities and then summarily discusses what went wrong and what to fix. I think, from personal experience over the past sixty plus years, that her depth of coverage is a bit shallow. The book does help to understand what happened in the hearings but it fails to understand what were the deep causes of these situations. In my opinion and in my experience, this change for the worse in universities has been building for quite a while.

The book is divided into three sections. First a long recitation of the events surrounding multiple universities and their clumsy if not outright incompetent defense of their dealings with the Hammas slaughter aftermath in 2023. Second a limited analysis of what went wrong. Third, in my opinion, a rather weak assessment and sets of recommendations on what should be fixed and how. Overall, however, the author is facing a much more complex issue and the 2023 issues were but the tip of an iceberg regarding cultural changes in US universities.

I have personal experience with three of the institutions examined by Stefanik. Stefanik provides a twenty year view, mine is over sixty five years.

First is MIT, where I was a student, faculty and researcher over the period of the 60s until the early 2010s. I chose MIT based upon my collecting trash in a janitor job at a public school in New York. The trash contained a bunch of old MIT catalogs. I took them home and spent hours reading these catalogs, seeing labs, reading course materials. In those days all you needed was great SATs and good grades. In New York Regents exams proffered grades and SATs I garnered from some friends at the Jewish Community Center, could be mastered by attending a prep course and studying the exam book, that led to 1700+ grades. Then just fill out the application, no essay, no interview, and get accepted. Never even visited! Think of the days of Richard Feynman from Rockaway Beach! Tuition at MIT in 1960 was $750 per year. Room and board the same but if you managed to live off campus with some colleagues it could even be less.

Then, over the past 60 plus years, things changed, but for the worse. The most recent example was when some administrator put gates at all the entrances of MIT. That was more symbolic than the actual physical gates. Then they went and put DEI officers in every department to ensure compliance. Then the administration became a mess of non-alumni bringing in their view of what students should look like and should believe. The quintessential example was the statements of the MIT President at Stefanik’s committee.

From a historical perspective. an interesting observation at MIT is the experience of the Presidents[1]. Until 1990, Presidents had close ties to MIT before taking office. They had studied there and taught there. Then came the outsiders with their ideas and truly gross misunderstanding of what MIT meant. I believe that this change was critical to the problems that occurred. These 36 years have been the seeding ground for the deprecation of quality education.

Consider MIT Lincoln Lab, a major Federal Research Lab, has a multibillion dollar budget funded by the US Government. It is a singular research facility primarily for the Air Force but also the FAA and intelligence community. However its management continues to display statements such as:

… is invested in cultivating a strong culture of innovation and is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion across the Laboratory… currently serves as the Executive Sponsor for the Lincoln Laboratory Hispanic/Latinx Network employee resource group.

Clearly the DEI culture still not only survives but prospers. Apparently managers select employees based upon these cultural imperatives. I spent three years working with Lincoln Lab and was highly impressed by its competence. Selection or members of the staff was based upon accomplishment. My wife also worked at Lincoln, so the employment was not DEI but competence.

One should then ask who was in charge of this change? We see that the number of graduate students from abroad, and especially the PRC! 30+% are from there and these students are supported on Government contracts. We are educating our adversaries on our tax dollars. Are US students that stupid? Hardly, it is a political ploy by the administrations to appear global, globalization of education. When these PRC students complete degrees with no debt they go back to PRC! Will we see them again as we saw Admiral Yamamoto ate Pearl Harbor?

Now Columbia is another interesting case. I had been a Professor in the Business School and on Boards at the Medical Facilities. But the best part was when I applied as an undergrad, I was denied admission in writing because I was a Catholic! A long letter from a Dean (a Donald Barr, yes the father of) accompanied my denial. Thus clearly Columbia was anti-Catholic, exemplified by Professor Hofstetter who was a highly aggressive anti Catholic. Yet none spoke of this issue 60+ years ago. But that was Columbia, in the 1930s a den of Communists. During Viet Nam it was a collection of violent protesters.

As for Harvard, I have some experience there as well but most on the medical side, which is great, and not much on the other side of the river. Medicine is simple, save a life and do so the best you can while having dignity for the patient.

What Stefanik seems to miss is how did these institutions get this way. She is just seeing the current issues. Harvard has always been a bit antisemitic, think Lowell. Columbia has always be extreme left wing, so no surprise there. But MIT? An institution which was critical in WW II, which just got a $12 B 5 year contract from the Air Force at Lincoln Lab. Yet, as I noted, when you examine the CVs of the Lincoln Management one see massive DEI efforts! If I am spending $12 billion perhaps I want the best workers not those filtered by DEI!

Finally, and most importantly, there is the issue of the institutions Governing Boards, such as the MIT Corporation[2]. It is these shadow players, often self-selected based on donations and commonality of political views that are often the buffers in retaining the new world views and degradation of the institutions. It was this Board that rid Harvard of its President but on the other side supported MIT’s President for comparable behavior. Stefanik should be examining them and not just Presidents.

Thus, Stefanik seems to miss the steps in evolution. Some steps were there before but others, such as MIT, have ruptured forth in just the past two or three decades. How did this happen? That is more important than just what is happening now.

As to what is to be done; simple, provide opportunities for American students. Feynman types should be admitted and supported. Essays and interns are useless. One never knows who writes and who reads essays. Also interning is a façade of the wealth and well connected. The Government can provide scholarships and fellowships only to American students. What counts is prior performance, not gilded credentials of no true merit. But Stefanik proposes a massive list of Government controls. The worst problem is that these institutions are not creating American students of excellence. Preference for admission should be given to American students. Perhaps the problem is mostly in American secondary education, and its failures to teach adequately which place American students at a disadvantage.

I would like to have seen Stefanik address these issues but she lightly covered them; what caused this and what can be done. The answer is not Government controls, God knows what that would lead to, the US Postal Service. The answer is university administrations and presidents who are leaders of excellence not administrators of social policy.

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[1] https://facts.mit.edu/leadership/

 [2] https://corporation.mit.edu/

 

Taking Your Own Advice

 In PJ Media the Wrestling Lady in DC noted:

 “Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon emphasized. “It confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary, and we should return education to the states.”

 But it did not stop her from "advising" Universities how to do their tasks. Perhaps this is nothing more than the "blind leading the blind"

Another Simple Calculation

 I was thinking about MIT and foreign grad students. Consider the following:

1. 40% of the grad students are foreign

2. There are about 5000 grad students so that is 2000 foreign students

3. Half of them are PRC students or 1,000 students from the PRC

4. All grad students are funded by some form of research, almost solely from the US Government

5. The student costs paid for at $60,000 tuition and $40,000 support, or $100,000 per student per year

6. The PRC students are thus supported by we the Taxpayers for $100 million per year

7. When I was there in 60s we had no USSR students

8. The PRC students are there under the rubric of the US State Dept viusa program

9. The research grants do not restrict who is supported

Now think about this. 

Threats: Cutting one's nose to spite one's face

 This ludicrous "Compact" that the folks in Washington issued will, if implemented against Universities, will destroy American excellence. Consider the opening paragraph:

American higher education is the envy of the world and represents a key strategic benefit for our
Nation. In turn, the U.S. university system benefits in a variety of ways from its extraordinary relationship
with the U.S. government. These include (i) access to student loans, grant programs, and federal contracts; (ii) funding for research directly or indirectly; (iii) approval of student and other visas in connection with university matriculation and instruction; and (iv) preferential treatment under the tax code. To advance the national interest arising out of this unique relationship, this Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education represents the priorities of the U.S. government in its engagements with universities that benefit from the relationship. Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits

 This is a clear threat. Do what we tell you or we will bankrupt you! Who in their right mind would do this. Yes Universities have their childish problems. Yet this is more than throwing the baby out with the bath water, it a Hammas like act of execution.

There is a tool that works, namely via funding. If one wants to limit foreign nationals in Grad school, funded under Government contracts then put that in the contract. Namely only US citizens. 

Visa controls are already in place. Why burden the University. If the R&D funding delimits foreign nationals then clearly the system will act accordingly.

In my opinion the issue is getting more US students in Grad school. Is a PRC student really better than any US student? If they are blame US education. If not, then fix it via funding.

This clearly is one of the most egregious documents I have ever read. In my opinion it reads like it was written by some Community College drop out trying to get revenge.