And as far as I know, students are not paid from indirect costs. - ThreadSky

popstarlab.bsky.social • 23 hours ago

And as far as I know, students are not paid from indirect costs.

It’s probably a good day to explain to your non-scientist socials that graduate students are not merely the next generation of academic science, they are an important component of the current scientific labor force. Feel free to mention that this is cut rate labor as well.

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katallen.bsky.social•3 hours ago

It depends. My grant runs out next month, and our other grants are all pending review and won’t start until fall (if they’re approved at all). Indirect funds (via faculty discretionary funding) may cover my paltry salary until the start of the next cycle.

popstarlab.bsky.social•47 minutes ago

Fingers crossed!

cajackson.org•23 hours ago

Indirect cost recovery to the PI ranged 5% to 50% when I was interviewing two years ago, and I know directly of one major PI who gets 70%

jeffmyau.bsky.social•14 hours ago

IDC recovery ranged from 5-50% in what institutions?

In my institution, we recover 0% of IDCs.

drugmonkey.bsky.social•23 hours ago

At some point money is fungible. And likely administrations are thinking about how to make up for disappearing indirects some other way.

popstarlab.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Why not consider a cap of say $1M on admin salaries?

metabodave.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Most admin staff get paid poorly, particularly those that work most closely with PIs (i.e. departmental pre- and post-award management).

popstarlab.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Talking about asmin leadership.

mnitabach.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Stop buying into the scheme to destroy academia. Your personal distaste for the administrators at your institution has nothing to do with the role of federal funding in enabling the academic research enterprise.

popstarlab.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Personal distaste! Lol!

bita137.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Can you back up your logic with arithmetic?

Let's say we cap the salaries of high level admin at $1M. How much do you think that will save? And how will that help a place like university of Pittsburgh where they train about 10,000 graduate students (where btw even the chancellor's salary is <$1M)

drugmonkey.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Let’s suppose we manage to get $1M back from all of the obviously excessive salaries. And there are 10,000 trainees that concern us. That’s ah…$100 per trainee.

mnitabach.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Delusional fantasy land

blueeyedgrass.bsky.social•23 hours ago

The fungible nature of IC is key. It will be complex and vary across institutions. In the flow of monies, does IC end up supporting TAs? Support staff with job duties covering both teaching and research? Maybe. But this is how an R1 works- so students get profs who driving the science.

popstarlab.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Clearly we need more transparency.

blueeyedgrass.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Well, if you mean more transparency on how money flows all I can say is given what an R1 "is" and the funding models we have any sort of hard firewall that you may be envisioning will likely be penny wise pound foolish. Transparency is an easy word.

blueeyedgrass.bsky.social•22 hours ago

I had a wise chair tell me once that every dollar spent on a TA is a three way win. Supports faculty. Supports research. Supports instruction. Should that pot of money come strictly from tuition, strictly from IC on grant returns, or is it OK to be from both?

blueeyedgrass.bsky.social•22 hours ago

For administrative options to keep a R1 boat afloat, I think the main option is to increase admissions, especially for state schools where tuition is subject to external controls. Teach more, research less. How much will your upper admin go to the mat for the research mission? Big question.

andrewhardaway.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Fingers crossed for a favorable ruling this week!

mnitabach.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Grad students are absolutely supported by indirect costs & it is the usual delusional "my money vs university money" fuckwittery to think they aren't.

drugmonkey.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Are you familiar with why some Us pull tuition from grant directs and some (apparently, certainly historically) do not?

mnitabach.bsky.social•23 hours ago

No. But it's a distinction without a difference.

monarchdiaries.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Grad students in NIH-funded labs typically receive substantial tuition waiver thanks to F&A.

drugmonkey.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Well I’m familiar with a range of practices wrt charging directs for grad tuition, but never really understood to what extent IDC might be tapped for this. I would be cautious about “typically” claims without more general data.

monarchdiaries.bsky.social•22 hours ago

I’ve done an informal survey but yeah, would be good to do this systematically. You’re correct that this is more an issue of fungibility than direct charging.

monarchdiaries.bsky.social•22 hours ago

However, grad student support very generally includes salary, fringe, and tuition.

popstarlab.bsky.social•22 hours ago

Which ALL come from direct cost!

jeffmyau.bsky.social•14 hours ago

IDCs support many 1st year graduate students at my institution, when they are completing lab rotations and have not yet identified a thesis lab.

monarchdiaries.bsky.social•23 hours ago

Tuition waivers.

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