Don't Let This Happen

NotYourBusiness
Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:52:53 +0000

Hi lerkin:
I thought about a research, but got lazy to write everythin I though… Here are some ideas.
At LACs college costs come from the cost of paying professors + subsidization of low income students.
At top research universities, cost come less from paying professors, and come more from the fact that universities can charge a lot and people are still willing to pay + subsidization of low income students.
From the research university perspective, it does not make sense to require a top researcher to teach 4 sessions of “intr bio” or “intro programming”. It is economically better to let a TA/Adjunct take care of these while the researcher is working on the “cure of cancer” or the next “quantum computer” (I know I am exagerating here). The model is such that smart students will figure they way through entry classes, and perhaps when they are taking advanced classes, they may encounter the top researchers and learn some advanced subjects. Asking the top researcher to teach 3 courses per semester, as it may happen at some teaching schools, will only be deterimental to the research university and the entire community associated with it.
On youtube you see some LAC movies/advertisement in which a teaching professor help students from the very beginning, teaching them how to focus a laser on a mirror, or how to adjust their protective goggles when looking at some bio stuff. Again, this is the type of thing that students would be expected to do by themselves or learn from their colleagues or TA at a research university. On the other hand, at the research university, if the students learned how to do those basic things, they will have the opportunity to take BIO498 and PYS499, where they will have the opportunity to focus the quantum-super-dupper lazer and kill cancer cells, while at the teaching school, students will not have the opportuntity to get close to this advanced stuff (which is only possible at the research university because it is being subsidized by the external NSF grant money by the way).
Students do have a choice: If they want a lot of personal attention, they go to a teaching school, and pay a lot. If they want to eventually get exposed to some of the state of art knowledge in their discipline, they go to a research university, and pay a lot as well. If they do not need the one-on-one attention, nor the exposure to top academics, they can go somewhere else and pay less. This is not broken, this is the way it is.
Lastly, there is the fact that many times some families (upper middle class and above) would be subsidizing some other students on financial aid. I think that this is driving up the COA more than the fact that a research professor only teaches a few classes per year. But this is another story for another time.