Quarter of UK University Physics Departments At Risk of Closing, Survey Finds (theguardian.com) 86
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The heads of UK physics departments say their subject is facing a national crisis as one in four warns that their university departments are in danger of closing because of funding pressures. In an anonymous survey of department heads by the Institute of Physics (IoP), 26% said they faced potential closure of their department within the next two years, while 60% said they expected courses to be reduced. Four out of five departments said they were making staff cuts, and many were considering mergers or consolidation in what senior physicists described as a severe threat to the UK's future success. [...]
To avoid "irreversible damage", the IoP is asking for immediate government action including funding to support existing labs and research facilities, as well as setting up an "early warning system" to monitor departments at risk of closure, and reduce pressures affecting international student recruitment. In the longer term it is calling for radical reforms in higher education funding to allow universities to meet the full costs of teaching nationally important subjects such as physics. Sir Keith Burnett, the IoP's president and a former chair of physics at Oxford University, said: "While we understand the pressures on public finances, it would be negligent not to sound the alarm for a national capability fundamental to our wellbeing, competitiveness and the defense of the realm.
"We are walking towards a cliff edge but there is still time to avert a crisis which would lead not just to lost potential but to many physics departments shutting down altogether. Physics researchers and talented physics students are our future but if action isn't taken now to stabilize, strengthen and sustain one of our greatest national assets, we risk leaving them high and dry." Thomas said the erosion in value of domestic tuition fees and falling numbers of international students were behind the financial pressures, with smaller physics departments the most at risk. "What that means is we will get more and more concentration of where physics is being taught and lose geographical distribution. That goes against aims of widening participation and means some disadvantaged groups will miss out on opportunities to study physics, and it's important that we recognize that," Thomas said.
To avoid "irreversible damage", the IoP is asking for immediate government action including funding to support existing labs and research facilities, as well as setting up an "early warning system" to monitor departments at risk of closure, and reduce pressures affecting international student recruitment. In the longer term it is calling for radical reforms in higher education funding to allow universities to meet the full costs of teaching nationally important subjects such as physics. Sir Keith Burnett, the IoP's president and a former chair of physics at Oxford University, said: "While we understand the pressures on public finances, it would be negligent not to sound the alarm for a national capability fundamental to our wellbeing, competitiveness and the defense of the realm.
"We are walking towards a cliff edge but there is still time to avert a crisis which would lead not just to lost potential but to many physics departments shutting down altogether. Physics researchers and talented physics students are our future but if action isn't taken now to stabilize, strengthen and sustain one of our greatest national assets, we risk leaving them high and dry." Thomas said the erosion in value of domestic tuition fees and falling numbers of international students were behind the financial pressures, with smaller physics departments the most at risk. "What that means is we will get more and more concentration of where physics is being taught and lose geographical distribution. That goes against aims of widening participation and means some disadvantaged groups will miss out on opportunities to study physics, and it's important that we recognize that," Thomas said.
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, I'll admit I actually read the article. While the summary doesn't say it, the article says:
Thomas said the erosion in value of domestic tuition fees and falling numbers of international students were behind the financial pressures, with smaller physics departments the most at risk.
Umm, OK, I suppose that somewhat answers it, but why are "domestic tuition fees and falling numbers of international students" happening? Is Brexit the cause of the international student drop? I don't think Brexit would cause falling domestic students. Are there any Brits here who can explain more?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
"erosion in value of domestic tuition fees" = what schools get payed per domestic student hasn't followed inflation.
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Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
https://www.suttontrust.com/wp... [suttontrust.com]
https://www.sciedupress.com/jo... [sciedupress.com]
Re: Why? (Score:3)
Sure. In simple terms, physics requires actual brainpower to study, and there isn't much to do career-wise with a physics degree these days. That's why our kids turn to becoming pointless TikTok stars instead, becoming a part of the sales/advertising machinery.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tuition fees were unaffordable when they came in, and have not kept up with inflation. Students take a loan to cover them, and the figures are already so large that many will never pay it all back before the loans expire. Many students are also questioning if a degree is value for money now, especially in somewhat academic subjects like physics.
Brexit caused a big spike in immigration to the UK. Due to the loss of temporary migrant EU workers and students, we needed to get people from other places. Like most developed nations, the UK has a problem with people living longer and not having enough children, and an economy and social contract built on the assumption of infinite growth.
The rise of the far right, people like Nigel Farage and his UKIP^W Brexit^W Reform party has made immigration unpopular, so politicians are in an impossible position of needing more immigration to keep the economy going, and needing to reduce immigration to remain popular. The reduction in higher fee paying foreign students is crippling UK universities.
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Brexit did not cause the spike in immigration, it was Boris Johnson removing restrictions and allowing almost unfettered migration into the country. One of many reasons why the Tories are now irrelevant.
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Brexit did not cause the spike in immigration.
Yes it did. One of the main arguments for Brexit was to get rid those of pesky immigrants taking jobs from Brits. However, that backfired.
For example, the vast majority of foreign labor in industries like agriculture were seasonal workers from the EU. They were not immigrants and left after the growing season. After Brexit those EU workers did not come back as it was far easier for them to work in an EU country. Unsurprisingly, Brits did not want to work long hours outside doing manual labor for little pay
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It seems to me that it is just the social support policies that are at risk, and they need to be radically overhauled if they are to survive in any form. This should have been don
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most Western countries are built on the assumption of endless growth.
The Baby Boomers were the largest generation at the time, and enjoyed the post-war boom years. They built a lot of policy on the assumption that the next generation would be an even larger cohort, and would be even richer than they were. Both assumptions turned out to be false, not least because of many disastrous policies that boomers introduced.
Governments have been extremely reluctant to admit those mistakes, because it's bad news with no easy solution. It needs redistribution of wealth and the breaking of promises made to boomers and older Gen X about pensions. It needs massive cuts in property prices, which is where a lot of boomer wealth is.
Many governments have been trying to fix it with immigration. Healthy, young immigrants, education paid for by someone else, making up the numbers. But now immigration is very unpopular too.
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Social security, which predated the "baby boom", didn't really require infinite growth, but subsequent changes have made it unworkable. Remember, when it was introduced, life expectancy was about 65 years. Had that remained consistent, or the retirement age were pegged to ave
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https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A [youtu.be]
He's a Conservative, with a capital C. Former member of the Conservative government.
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Engineering departments (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Engineering departments (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe. Engineering is easier to convert into a good job, sure. But as someone who studied physics in London, a good physics PhD used to lead to a good job in banking which was London's largest industry. These days, the London banking sector is stagnant. I think that might be part of it.
UK banking (Score:2)
The UK may be the future example of what happens when you stop producing your own food, machinery, energy and import them while pretending that shuffling financial paper around increases GDP, improves productivity and enables the bottom 75% of the population by earnings to support themselves.
Re:Engineering departments (Score:4, Interesting)
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I am pretty sure that an engineer discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background noise. The difference between engineer and scientist is focus. The engineer is not trying to make weird things happen, the scientist is.
Re:Engineering departments (Score:4, Interesting)
The Physics departments have been made obsolete by the Engineering departments. I already noticed the trend in the 1980s.
Engineers have always made more money than the pure-science grads, and this accelerated in the 60's. Even the mathematicians jumped over, largely because if you have a talent for math, its fairly easy for you to slide into engineering, with is mostly math anyway. Just math with a real-world purpose. It's funny because, at the end of WWII, there was a big debate about where US science research funding should go. One camp wanted practical research focus with real-world goals... "Build me a generator with twice the output", etc. Lyndon Johnson famously summed up this approach with the question "What will it do for Grandma?". The other side argued for instead funding pure science research based on curiosity, and argued that practical advances would trickle down from those results. The pure science camp won for a short while, but what killed it was the Space Race. The US needed specific machines with specific capabilities on a specific deadline. "Pure Science for the principal of it" fell by the wayside to "We need that rocket to have a 60% thrust efficiency increase, next year". And it's been that way ever since. In the marketplace, and especially in the marketplace of ideas, practical engineering won. And what research we still did tended to be dominated by hyper-expensive physics projects that had practically no commercial applications at all. I think the death of the Super-Conducting Supercollider in Texas was the death knell of big pure science projects in the US. As a result, engineers are actually doing a good bit of our basic research now. It's just folded into their commercial projects.
Engineering spacecraft modules will get you a high income with steady, reliable pay. Choosing to look for particles that may never be found will not.
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Re: Engineering departments (Score:2)
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I think the death of the Super-Conducting Supercollider in Texas was the death knell of big pure science projects in the US.
The problem with the supercollider was that there were about 5 ginormous science projects (supercollider = $10 billion, human genome sequencing = $3 billion, International Space Station = $150 billion so far shared w/ 15 nations, forgotten what the others were, maybe ITER = €22 billion, again shared or maybe JWST = $10 billion to build) that all wanted funding at that time. They basically left nothing in the way of funding for the numerous small pure research science projects and all of the scientists
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The UK has invented a strange way of funding university. It's similar to the American model but without the option to go to a cheaper "community college"
(Costs here are converted to USD @ 1.34)
So basically, if you go to university (and don't have parental funding available), you're getting (approximately) $13000 per year in tuition fees as a loan. All universities charge the same (which is the maximum the government allows)
Additionally there's up to roughly $17000 per year as maintenance grant. In London for example, you'll need all that and more (my quick google suggests another $10000 per year.). At the cheapest places in the country you'll just about manage without needing extra funding. A huge part of the money goes on rent and is the main driver for why Newcastle, for example, is around $800 per month cheaper than London.
So, at the end of a three year degree you've got $90K of debt. Interest rates are RPI (not CPI which is what the government pays when it borrows!) and currently is 3.2% so there's roughly 3K of interest being added each year.
Loans are repaid once income reaches $34000 and you pay 9% of your income over that limit. So unless you're earning about $60K per year you won't even pay off the accruing interest.
I can't be arsed to do the calculation but I'm making a wild guess that at $80K per year you'll manage to pay it off. Only 10% of the UK population earns that sort of money. And that's just to pay it off, you'll be paying an extra 9% of your income for your entire working life. The loan gets written off at (I think) 60 years of age. So basically everybody is paying an extra 10% tax over $35K of income except for a few hyper-earners or those with parents who could fund them rather than borrowing.
And don't forget that those $80K incomes tend to be found in the most expensive cities, so overpaying to pay down the debt more quickly is harder than it first looks compared to someone living in a cheap city on $40K per year (roughly median income)
Because university is basically unaffordable, governments have not been putting up the maximum fee that can be charged, which means that universities are seeing a real-terms decline in their funding.
And the "get immigration numbers down at all cost" has meant that HMG are no longer issuing (as many) visas to international students. They subsidise UK students, particularly at the more prestigious universities where fees can be over $65K per year just for tuition.
It's been a disaster - and a rapid rethink:
https://www.theguardian.com/ed... [theguardian.com]
The international student tuition fees at UCL range from about $30K for the cheapest courses all the way up to about $55K for the most expensive.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Domestic fees are capped (by the government) in some attempt to make going to university affordable for British people. The fees are already higher than just about anyone can afford, so students need to take loans to pay them. Despite this, the fees are below the cost of the course, and the price caps haven't kept up with inflation (which of course has been high lately).
There are no caps on fees to foreign students, so they've been something of a cash cow for universities for years. The relative number of foreign students you're allowed compares to domestic students is limited by the government.
However, of late they're not filling the foreign student quotas they're allowed. This could be for a number of reasons:
1) Brexit means it's harder for any students to come to the UK. Everyone needs to get visas and paperwork, which has likely become trickier for just about everyone. Europeans used to just be able to come here, but they now have all that paperwork to do as well. I guess if you have a hard-to-get-into-country and an easier one, then there's some value to go to the easier one.
2) Cost of living. The UK's always been pretty expensive, but that's only got worse in recent times. Just your average living expenses are now higher than they were, so as a student, you've got to carefully consider if you're going to be able to afford it. Given visa restrictions, "getting a job on the side" (as most brits now have to) is maybe not an option.
That last point also applies to domestic students. University is, for many people pretty unaffordable, and so they're turning to other choices such as apprenticeships and other vocational options. Some of those are really really good, and of course mean you earn money while you're learning, rather than charging you money to learn. Contrast to the government mantra some 20 odd years ago that "everyone should go to university" (which was ridiculous, by the way) - useless courses filled with students, all contributing to the costs of the university, but likely not costing much to run (and then likely not being of use in the workplace).
A lot of the cheaper-to-run courses are now less attended than they once were (see my last point). They likely subsidised the more expensive courses, which now isn't so much the case, and so departments are having to find ways to balance their books.
Lastly, research grants are harder to get, and perhaps not as lucrative as they once were. Aside from International competition, a lot of research is now done privately, where once almost none was done that way. Some universities have some utterly stupid terms and conditions on their research, which makes them less attractive to the private sector than alternatives, but that can't surely be true for all of them.
So all in all, there are lots of reasons why universities are in trouble. Truthfully, we've probably got too many universities and some consolidation is probably appropriate, but even still, it will have a dramatic effect on the future prospects of the nation if any of the good ones just aren't that great at the business side and end up closing down.
What kind of university would not teach physics? (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of university would not have a physics department? Or is it that they'd still teach some level of physics without a dedicated physics department? Perhaps teaching only introductory level physics and drop any physics courses at a 2nd year level and up?
I'm just pondering what kind of university would not teach physics. If there is any kind of medical instruction, like nurses and dentists, then they'd need some kind of physics education. Right? I'd think understanding blood pressure is kind of important and that would need some basic physics knowledge. Any kind of life science would need to teach physics, or so I would think. Even if you are taking a class called "Meat 1020 - Food of Animal Origin" the students should have some base understanding in physics or they might never figure out how to get the charcoal grill hot during their labs.
Would not even a law school, business school, teaching school, seminary, or whatever need to have physics classes for things like meeting degree requirements for accreditation? I suppose any university that has to offer some minimal science education could trim away physics so long as they kept chemistry or some such.
Maybe I can summarize my confusion in this question, what are universities teaching their students if they can't keep their physics departments open?
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Physics students have one of the highest IQs out of any subject taught at British universities. Britain has a massive oversupply of universities, so high-IQ kids aren't going to study Physics at some third-rate university which exists only to rake in tuition fees when they would legitimately qualify for somewhere much better.
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Universities have a physics department for more than students studying physics. Any kind of engineering degree is going to need coursework in physics, and you would want a physics department to teach those courses. I'd expect that there would be students attending university with a physics department seeking a degree in physics but if there's no physics department then this would be an indication of a university that's pretty light on any kind of natural science.
I'm recalling a conversation in a different
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Universities have a physics department for more than students studying physics. Any kind of engineering degree is going to need coursework in physics, and you would want a physics department to teach those courses.
That's not how it worked when I studied physics at a UK university. The engineering students did not come near the physics department.
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I'm just pondering what kind of university would not teach physics.
Not in in good shape that's for sure.
If there is any kind of medical instruction, like nurses and dentists, then they'd need some kind of physics education. Right?
That's not how it works in the uk system: here departments are responsible for their own teaching. For example, I did engineering and all courses were taught by the department.
We didn't go to math(s) to get math(s) classes, we were taught engineering maths by professors from the en
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When I studied physics at a UK university, we went to the Maths department to study math. However, today that Physics department teaches the necessary math.
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What kind of university would not have a physics department?
The kind that has "Stamp-Collecting" as a major :-)
Study elsewhere? (Score:2)
There are many universities. Lots and lots of them. Can't one just study physics somewhere else?
I realize that "they" (whoever "they" are) would prefer to have physics depts in the UK, but at the end of the day, does it REALLY matter?
Serious question. If I am a student in the UK, and I want to study physics, and there are no physics departments in the UK, I'd just go elsewhere to study physics. I don't see the big deal here.
Now, I realize someone will go on and on about graduate level physics research and
Re:Study elsewhere? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I gotta agree with the AC here.
The UK's rich history was a consequence of being a global colonial empire. All of the riches of the world were funneled to the UK. The best and the brightest flocked to England's shores to study at the heart of the Great British Empire. When the empire collapsed, that ended.
Now, the UK is an island nation, with limited resources to spend and limited attraction to foreigners. The best and the brightest will go elsewhere to study and contribute.
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Re:Study elsewhere? (Score:4, Informative)
Tony Blair decided that 50% of British kids should go to university because it would improve the youth unemployment figures and funnel large amounts of credit into the economy through tuition fees. Now there are far, far more kids with degrees than are needed in the economy so as with the US they're paying off their debt by working in Starbucks; though unlike the US I believe their loan just gets written off after a few decades if they can't afford to pay it.
Britain needs probably 80% of its universities closed if it wants the number of kids with degrees to match the real demand for degrees, beyond HR saying 'you must have a PhD to make coffee in Starbucks'. It's a huge scam and "international students" only make it more so.
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I found my Degree enriching in many more ways than in $$ terms.
And if you paid for it yourself (or if your parents paid for it) that's great. But if your degree was enriching to you but other people were forced to pay for your enrichment then that's less great. My grandfather was enrolled in classes from his eighties and nineties because education is enriching, but he had the money to be able to pay for it. I would strongly encourage everyone to get any education that they can afford to pay for.
For example, I think that people are valuable, and knowledge is valuable.
They are, but the word "valuable" has two different and mostly unrelated me
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I really do not understand your need to connect philosophy to money. Please explain that to me.
Maybe "philosophical" isn't quite the right word, so let me put it another way. You say you value people, specifically you wrote "I think that people are valuable, and knowledge is valuable." So let's put a number on it. I'm a person. If I create a bitcoin wallet what number are you willing to transfer into my wallet to represent how much you claim to value people?
Or when you say "I think that people are valuable" are you referring to some definition of "valuable" that doesn't mean "worth a lot of money"? B
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"I wouldn't buy you a college education."
I probably wouldn't pay the entire cost of your college education either. I might give you a loan if I thought it was a good risk. Or I would be willing to pay part of the cost of your education. I happen to feel that education in valuable in both philosophical and practical respects, even if the direct financial benefits are not easy to quantify. I believe at one time this was assumed to be true.
In the US, the legislators make laws which everyone, in principle, is
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We should be creating more jobs that need degrees anyway. We are weak on R&D and innovation.
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"Now there are far, far more kids with degrees than are needed in the economy". I found my Degree enriching in many more ways than in $$ terms.
I heard philosophy grads say the same thing. They were still always short on money.
Re:Study elsewhere? (Score:5, Interesting)
Theres kind of a principle thing as well though. If you look at the history of universities, philosophy, math and physics (and once upon a time alchemy, which eventually got tossed and replaced with chemistry) where kind of the big things a university did.
I'd argue that if an institution doesnt at least pay lip service to philosophy, math and physics, its not REALLY a unviersity, but an adult education college,.
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(And yes, the Alchemy thing was a bit silly, but back in the day it was capital-S Science. Newton for all his brilliant contributions to math and physics, spent his waning years searching for the philosophers stone and trying to transmute lead to gold. Ironically at least half of the alchemists quest has been solved by physics. We CAN transmute lead to gold in the LHC. Although probably not enough of the stuff to do anything useful, or enough to actually turn the LHC into profit)
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Wow, if only there were an institution where you could serve your country for two years and not have to worry about your educational finances again. Entering an occupation that involves computers, radios, avionics, or satellites; get room, board, and pay for two years, then benefits. If only that institution existed.
https://www.va.gov/education/a... [va.gov]
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I checked the American Military when I was of age, the first thing they checked is all of my weaknesses. As if they wanted to take advantage of it.
I have pondered this, but I still have absolutely no idea what that means. How did they check your weaknesses? I could guess, gut I might just go off in the wrong direction.
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I smoked pot in the last six months when I was 18. They said that they would find it in a urinalysis. They said it would hold me back from opportunities.
That might be true, or it might be that particular person was just trying to discourage you, or was testing to find out whether you'd be discouraged. In case anybody wants my advice for some reason, I would say, to the extent that people are just saying things, try to ignore it, avoid them and try to find people who will build you up instead of tearing you down. Everybody wants to feel superior to somebody, Some try to do that by making themselves bigger, and some do it by trying to make others smaller.
It
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After a lot of thought, I think at the moment it should be that people should take classes and labs.
Carpentry 102: Guillotines
Mechanical Engineering 303: How to implement full-auto sears
EE 202: Designing face recognition attack quadcopters for fun and profit
Supply and Demand (Score:1)
Some might want to argue issues of national security. Somehow, the UK is at some risk of some kind if it doesn't have physics departments. I dunno...that seems specious at best. It's not as if Russia is going to see no physics departments over there and decide to invade. And it's not as if physics are going away! Physics will still exist in the UK, just like they do everywhere else.
I would not be so sure.
I heard there is already a Gravity Shortage.
Jimminy Cricket, old boy, if it were to get worse, that practically invited Putin to mount an attack. What with the UK tanks being unattached to the ground and all.
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Re:Hitler dismissed a lot of research too (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude... This is a news item about a trend in UK higher physics education.
How the hell did you immediately jump to "Reeeee Orange Man = Hitler"???
That being said, it would have helped if you had actually written something factually correct to begin with. Hitler did not lose the war for a lack of science. He lost the war because he absolutely, exceptionally so, overreached. That's from a military standpoint.
The reason he did so was because the same thing happened in his "socialist utopia" that happened in Stalin's "socialist utopia". The state began to reorganize farms and it began to dictate agricultural methods according to ideology. It wasn't so much that he ignored science... he didn't even get that far. He ignored experience to begin with.
Also I'd like to derail this "discussion" at this junction and bring to attention a little detail: He did in fact value science very much... only that the science was second to ideology either through purposeful machinations by him and his cronies or just as a matter of how things work in a totalitarian regime. If you cannot tell your big leader the truth without risking your life, then you won't. Simple as that.
It is not too dissimilar from what is happening currently, albeit for different reasons. Grant money comes from attention grabbing headlines. Ergo getting headlines trumps veracity of your results. You end up with skewed results either way. Whether it is a leader's ideology or vox populi you have to appease, having to appease in the first place is what kills proper science.
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As a European I am quite surprised ... (Score:4)
... about how epically f*cked the UK is. I mean we all knew that Brexit would hurt and the British who were in favor of Brexit would quickly get their doubts if Brexit was such a good idea, but looking across the canal right now I have to say "Holy cow, talk about screwing up even worse after leaving the EU." After all, the pro Brexit message was that they were going to fix all the problems they now have 5x more of.
Here's a good expert analysis that perfectly summarizes the UK situation. [youtube.com]
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Ah, but people knew what they were voting for, we must not insult them by saying they were ignorant or stupid. So we must surmise that they knew this would happen and in fact wanted it.
Russia defeated us without firing a single shot.
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about how epically f*cked the UK is.
Trust me, as a Brit, I'm surprised about quite hoe fucked we are. I mean Brexit was obviously going to be a disaster. But somehow given the choice at every point we have ended up with the worst decisions. And we have a PM with zero moral compass who's completely shit scared of even mentioning the elephant in the room. Instead he thinks pandering to the obvious racists will somehow help.
I'm with you brother. ... (Score:2)
... I love the UK and lived in Scotland for a while as a teen. It's sad to see the country go down the loo like that.
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"As a European"...
You have zero room to talk. France has just collapsed. Again. France, Spain, Italy, and Greece all have debt exceeding 100% of their GDP. And you can't even defend your own shores from an army of military age North African men that are coming in waves specifically to sponge off of your welfare systems. Europe is a pressure cooker right now, and you're doing nothing to free any pressure.
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The conspiracies in the USA come from the British. It is no surprise that both have fallen to worshiping money. They are foul and gross no less so than 300 years ago. Y'all should have let your monarchs see the guillotine and none of this would would be happening like this.
Less is more (Score:2)
At some point Further Education in the UK moved from a respectable institution to a greedy business and got very good at marketing. Chancellors swapped their Volvos for Porsches. The lefties had a hand in this, admirable social mobility ideals that ended up with a lot of grads with huge debts working in Asda, that's Walmart for our American cousins. The road to hell, good intentions and all that jazz.
I suspect if 60% of physics departments close, the 40% left will be the best ones, it's a market adjustment.
Fundamentally, why so expensive? (Score:3)
Same general confusion with parts of medicine; obviously Iâ(TM)m not expecting novel monoclonal antibodies or cutting edge oncology for $3.50; but why does it cost so much to speak to a GP for 30 minutes and get some 40 year old generic; or get a nasty cut checked for foreign objects and stitched up at the ER?
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University costs go up because input costs go up but university productivity does not. See Baumel's Cost Disease [wikipedia.org]
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The fact that productivity largely hasn't budged is certainly an explanation of why professors or nurses haven't followed the cost of transistors or TVs; but if something like education's cost increases are bein
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I can't speak to the situation in the UK, but in the USA, most of the expense is not in the "educational services" portion of the university.
There are classrooms, and teachers, offices, and lab spaces, but those are not very expensive. The things that cost most of the money are sprawling campuses with elaborate amenities, luxury-housing dormitories, dining options (not basic cafeterias), and all of the ancillary staff that are required to maintain the level of services that students (and their parents) are
Not the government's role (Score:2)