9 ms·

With how much talent the coasts seem to suck in, there needs to be a better conversation about how the rest of the country attracts talent. It's becoming more a

With how much talent the coasts seem to suck in, there needs to be a better conversation about how the rest of the country attracts talent. It's becoming more and more obvious that economic growth is predicated on solid jobs requiring a college education.

make3 9y ago
your republican government deciding to tax study grants as regular income will surely not help this. american capitocracy (plutocracy) at it's finest
- ravar 9y ago
  As someone who will be personally negatively impacted by this tax raise I just want to say that there is more to the tax raise than just plutocracy. Conservatives are raising complaints about what is happening in the academy, and if members of the academy do not want to be personally hurt maybe we should try to understand the kernel of truth in their complaints. At the very least members of the academy could selfishly try to come to some harmony with the people who control our budgets rather than blindly lash out against them.
  - make3 9y ago
    the people who control the budgets are corrupted by the requests of their billionaire donors and of the anti intellectual thoughts these billionaires promote in the poor population. I'm not in academia; we all benefit from having research being accessible, instead of more money going to the billionaires.
    - ravar 9y ago
      I partially agree with this assessment, industry for whatever shortsighted reason sometimes implements bad academic policy, as was seen in the Harper administration in Canada. However it is fully well possible that in a complex world such as ours that there could be more than one serious threat to the very large set of institutions which is academia. It is also possible that one of the threats, lets say the internal threat, could be used as a smokescreen by a second threat, lets say these nebulous billionaires. We do not need to be worried about either threat at the exclusion of the other.
      - make3 9y ago
        the nebulous billionaires are really just a illustrative term to signify the disproportionate effect of very centralized money in general in the American system. I think you'll find very few honnest knowledgeable people to dispute this. if common good is your objective, then there is no doubt that controlling individual & corporate political donations is essential. right now, political corruption is straight up legal. entities can freely trade money for future political measures, and politicians can't live without that money, because otherwise their opponents outspends them, getting a statistically higher chance of winning.
- exclusiv 9y ago
  We also tax other benefits that you receive - like if you are granted housing in exchange for services rendered as a property manager. The IRS doesn't like barter systems. If you win money gambling or prizes in a competition you have to pay taxes on that too. If you're receiving 50k in tuition in exchange for work/research, that's a valuable benefit and part of your compensation. IMO the universities should pay their researchers more. They're effectively using the exemption and the high cost of tuition to lower their research costs. For many top institutions they get public funds, underpay their researchers, and use them to acquire patents which they license out for large sums. So they're publicly funded but they own the patents, earn a lot of revenue from licensing but tuition keeps going up like crazy. Politically it's probably a really dumb move, but they're receiving valuable compensation in the form of tuition. I'd love to have all my primary costs covered by my employer and be paid less (which would drop my tax bracket) too. Unis can pay their researchers more.
  - make3 9y ago
    I'm Canadian, so not mine. I have free healthcare, free University, and my grants are definitely not taxed. Ofc I will pay it back through higher income taxes, but that's fine, as I can do it when I'm ready instead of being under a giant burden of debt
WkndTriathlete 9y ago
The north central schools (think Big 10 land-grant colleges), Georgia Tech, and Texas schools produce perfectly fine engineering and science grads. They mostly don't leave the locales they are in, because they all do this analysis: "California: great weather all year, earn much less adjusted for CoL" "(e.g.) Minnesota: great weather for 8 months of the year (11 months if you ski or play ice hockey), earn much more adjusted for CoL" So maybe you just haven't seen the talent in the rest of the country and assume it isn't there?
- JBlue42 9y ago
  I've heard great things about Minneapolis, always with the caveat 'except for winter' but it seems you can still do winter stuff like people do in the rest of the world. Is the winter particularly bad or does it just seem that way if you're coming from a typically sunnier climate?
hkmurakami 9y ago
We can learn from Boulder CO

make3 9y ago

your republican government deciding to tax study grants as regular income will surely not help this. american capitocracy (plutocracy) at it's finest

ravar 9y ago
As someone who will be personally negatively impacted by this tax raise I just want to say that there is more to the tax raise than just plutocracy. Conservatives are raising complaints about what is happening in the academy, and if members of the academy do not want to be personally hurt maybe we should try to understand the kernel of truth in their complaints. At the very least members of the academy could selfishly try to come to some harmony with the people who control our budgets rather than blindly lash out against them.
- make3 9y ago
  the people who control the budgets are corrupted by the requests of their billionaire donors and of the anti intellectual thoughts these billionaires promote in the poor population. I'm not in academia; we all benefit from having research being accessible, instead of more money going to the billionaires.
  - ravar 9y ago
    I partially agree with this assessment, industry for whatever shortsighted reason sometimes implements bad academic policy, as was seen in the Harper administration in Canada. However it is fully well possible that in a complex world such as ours that there could be more than one serious threat to the very large set of institutions which is academia. It is also possible that one of the threats, lets say the internal threat, could be used as a smokescreen by a second threat, lets say these nebulous billionaires. We do not need to be worried about either threat at the exclusion of the other.
    - make3 9y ago
      the nebulous billionaires are really just a illustrative term to signify the disproportionate effect of very centralized money in general in the American system. I think you'll find very few honnest knowledgeable people to dispute this. if common good is your objective, then there is no doubt that controlling individual & corporate political donations is essential. right now, political corruption is straight up legal. entities can freely trade money for future political measures, and politicians can't live without that money, because otherwise their opponents outspends them, getting a statistically higher chance of winning.
exclusiv 9y ago
We also tax other benefits that you receive - like if you are granted housing in exchange for services rendered as a property manager. The IRS doesn't like barter systems. If you win money gambling or prizes in a competition you have to pay taxes on that too. If you're receiving 50k in tuition in exchange for work/research, that's a valuable benefit and part of your compensation. IMO the universities should pay their researchers more. They're effectively using the exemption and the high cost of tuition to lower their research costs. For many top institutions they get public funds, underpay their researchers, and use them to acquire patents which they license out for large sums. So they're publicly funded but they own the patents, earn a lot of revenue from licensing but tuition keeps going up like crazy. Politically it's probably a really dumb move, but they're receiving valuable compensation in the form of tuition. I'd love to have all my primary costs covered by my employer and be paid less (which would drop my tax bracket) too. Unis can pay their researchers more.
- make3 9y ago
  I'm Canadian, so not mine. I have free healthcare, free University, and my grants are definitely not taxed. Ofc I will pay it back through higher income taxes, but that's fine, as I can do it when I'm ready instead of being under a giant burden of debt

WkndTriathlete 9y ago

The north central schools (think Big 10 land-grant colleges), Georgia Tech, and Texas schools produce perfectly fine engineering and science grads. They mostly don't leave the locales they are in, because they all do this analysis: "California: great weather all year, earn much less adjusted for CoL" "(e.g.) Minnesota: great weather for 8 months of the year (11 months if you ski or play ice hockey), earn much more adjusted for CoL" So maybe you just haven't seen the talent in the rest of the country and assume it isn't there?

JBlue42 9y ago
I've heard great things about Minneapolis, always with the caveat 'except for winter' but it seems you can still do winter stuff like people do in the rest of the world. Is the winter particularly bad or does it just seem that way if you're coming from a typically sunnier climate?

hkmurakami 9y ago

We can learn from Boulder CO