I’m sure this has nothing to do with 3.1 million graduate students versus 500 F-35s.

For actual context, F-35 program receives $9B per year (amortized over lifetime), which is $3000 per year per graduate student. Erasing the F-35 program entirely would make something like a 10% difference in graduate wages, while destroying the US Air Force as a modern military.

So no — your request to fund graduate students is more expensive than the F-35 program and delivers at best marginal results.

When you math through per unit or per capita or per year, we already spend more on education and science than the military — and it’s unclear further science funding to the detriment of the military would improve things.

I understand why you want more money, though.

Where did you get that the number of federally funded graduate students is 3.1 million?

Note that many will have industry, international or self funded (for MS it is less common to have funding). The 9B figure for maintaining the F35 you just said is very close to the entire annual budget of the NSF. Which is the main funding source of most of non medical research.

Also we are not talking about military budget, just the F35 maintenance program here.

You are both comparing stuff that is nonsensical to compare $ amounts on. Would you give up science for more F-35s or vice versa? probably not or not by much.

Ok, but the military is being used for bad things not good things in one of the most easily defended countries in the world, a pure waste.

The poster said they work in academia, not the part that has to do with science, so it seems unfair to compare the F35 to all of academia when they were complaining about science being cut.

Later, after the math showing that graduate students as a whole are more expensive than the F35 program, you claim that the U.S already spends more on education and science than the military.

The claim is of course somewhat unclear, because what comprises science spending. Is Darpa science and not military. Does Nasa count as science in this claim? If Nasa does then it might be that you throw all the budgets of NOAA and the EPA and other similar organizations into the Science pile. I say it just because I am unsure how you are calculating one part of your budget. Actually the education part I am going to suggest that is just higher education.

Higher education is around 100 billion a year, without student loans which doubles that.

The U.S government spends also approximately a couple hundred billion for Science, if I am reading this correctly https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf26314 which does a lot of work putting government and business spending together which gives you a number essentially what the government spends on the military.

I can easily construct something that shows the U.S does pay more for science and education than it does for military, but only by being IMHO somewhat misleading, for example by throwing K-12 spending together with the higher education payments and mixing federal and state monies, so to clarify what I mean when I say the U.S in these kinds of conversations and what I think most people mean is "the federal government"

I suppose that the original poster also meant the federal government or it wouldn't make any sense to mention F-35s either.

Under this limitation I believe that the combined ratio of science and higher education is at best 0.8% of GDP and military is 2.8%.

Although it is not really possible to trust very much the data one receives from the American government any more so I am uncertain.

for example this document - I am just having a hard time to trust what data goes into these various parts as federal spending in that area.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

At any rate the military 2.8% I am quoting based on looking around is historically low. I would expect, especially given Iran, that it would be more in line with the historical 4.1%.

pgpf on https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-united-states-spends-more-o...