> The issue here is that PIs don’t have the money to support graduate students

What happened to all the money the undergrads are paying?

frickinLasers 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Great question! Mostly it goes toward maintaining the campus and paying the admin folks. PIs are paid to teach, basically, and are expected to pull in the money to support their own research (and maintain their facilities and pay the admin folks).

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amarilio 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

It goes towards MIT’s endowment, which is valued at over $27B, and grew $3B last year.

There is no shortage of money.

	▲	andix 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> There is no shortage of money This is a general theme in the last decade. There is a lot of money, but it is more and more ending up in the pockets of the extremely wealthy. I'm really no communist, but we've reached a point where the system starts to crumble because of it. It also can't be in the interest of the billionaires. They also want to live in a safe country and use working public infrastructure (roads, airports, air traffic control). They even need a functioning academic ecosystem if they want their children to receive a real education, not just access to a few famous professors they can buy.

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jpadkins 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

someone has to pay for administrators!

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trelane an hour ago | parent [-]

> someone has to pay for administrators

Turns out, this is also research grant money. Half or more of every grant usually goes straight to the university.as "overhead."

The universities could change this so more finding went to researchers, but they have zero incentive to.

	▲	dhosek an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Much of that overhead is not going to admin salaries (although, as stated elsewhere in the discussion money is fungible) but covers things like the cost of buildings, labs, maintenance, etc.

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Ar-Curunir 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Almost none of that goes into research funding.

Researchers are funded largely by government grants.