Tuesday, December 22, 2009

A Primitive Answer to High Tuition

Given the anti-intellectualism of today, maybe this is the answer for high tuition.

Mill, John Stuart. 1848. Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, John Robson, ed., Vols. 2 and 3 of The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965- ).

391: "Before the invention of the art of printing, a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. The different governors of the universities before that time appear to have often granted licences to their scholars to beg."

8 comments:

Jack said...

Michael,
That doesn't sound too different from today's system of "scholarly" research carried out by privately endowed think tanks and even some universities. Are there no modern day scholars who grovel at the feet of the wealthy in order to gain their own prominence as "intellects?" That's part of the problem with scholarship. It is so prone to influence from uncontrolled variables.

Sandwichman said...

What Jack said. When I was in grad school at Cornell in the 1980s, the 'financial aid' system on offer there consisted of 2/3s of a T.A. stipend and a licence to beg.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Beg, borrow, or steal...

Jack said...

The sad facts are that the university systems of research are woefully inadequate in regards to potential individual incomes. Not that high wages were ever an expectation, but there was a past time, the 1960s may have been the end of the era, when professorial positions paid reasonably well. Now there is too much private financial influence within the system. It certainly has an effect on the data, or at least the interpretation of data. As well as influencing what data ever gets collected. It's a form of control through acquiescence. A similar phenomenon takes place in news analysis. Those who make the correct interpretations are the ones who advance.

Michael Perelman said...

I would like to see a study of the distribution of researchers' income. There is a star system in which some prestigious researchers earn huge incomes, while others just get by. Maybe someone here has some data.

Also, some researchers profit mightily by accumulating intellectual property rights (probably facilitated by the grunts under them).

Jack said...

Michael,
That sounds like the beginnings of a great doctoral thesis. it would have to be conducted within a subject area/department that has itself some independence from the system itself. That would be difficult to find. When I retire maybe I'll go back to finish that dissertation, but in a new and more interesting subject matter. The influence of university or departmental funding streams on research outcomes. Or, Scholarship for hire: Where is the money having an insidious effect?

Michael Perelman said...

You can get a hint of the inequality by walking through the libraries of major universities. Check out any libraries that relate to high tech or high buck areas, e.g. in Berkeley, the business or biotech libraries. Then stroll over to the anthropology library or the public health library.

Jack said...

Here's a link that says volumes in a single page.
http://www.chicagobooth.edu/about/leadership/council.aspx
The Leadership Council. Sounds very official and high tone in an organizational sort of way. Read what it is that they are expected to help out with. Assure high quality teaching staff. Look at the list of council members. Not too much scholarly representation there, hey?
Now go to this page:
http://www.chicagobooth.edu/about/leadership/globaladvisory.aspx
Global Advisory? What kind of advising do you suppose goes on within that group? Corporate partners? To a would be place of scholarship? "Money talks, nobody walks." A slogan from a high pressure retail outlet of yore. Seems very suitable to Booth School of Business. Though the Marx Bros might have been more to the point with Monkey Business.