Two billionaires on the university | Hacker News Reader

Two billionaires on the university

bogost.com

21 pointsmjn11 comments

The blog post unfairly juxtaposes two different aspects of the university (research and getting undergrads degrees):

Bloomberg is focusing on research: he understands the academy, the intellectual body of people collaborating, discussing and rubbing elbows. Research that happens in a "physics building, a school of public health, a children's hospital, a stem-cell research institute, a malaria institute, and a library wing" cannot happen at all the same "online". New buildings, especially institutes and hospitals, can make a HUGE difference.

Cuban seems to be addressing and entirely different point, which is that for many big universities their income comes from being a degree-mill for undergraduates (which often, unfortunately, just the absorption and regurgitation of information.), and as such are focusing not on quality education and research, but on looks and prestige. A fair enough criticism, but not contrary to Bloomberg's donation.

Bloomberg went to Hopkins as an undergraduate student, and that experience is largely why he donates so much money to Hopkins. A big chunk of his current and past donations went to non-research aspects of undergraduate life (scholarships, improvements to the undergraduate campus, improvements to buildings that serve undergraduates, etc). Also, his donations have gone to things that traditionally are associated with looks and prestige, like the new buildings and moving parking to underground garages.

I think part of what Bloomberg is doing is allowing the Hopkins undergraduate school to be what any top-rate university would want to be without making the kinds of sacrifices that Cuban is critical of.

It's possible they are both right. The school Bloomberg donated the money to, Johns Hopkins is among the more prestigious name recognition wise. It's hard to see how, with billionaires willing to give you so much money, you could possibly go bankrupt. On the other hand Cuban's point of view probably has more merit for second and third tier schools with less name recognition. Look at newspapers; the New York Times seems like it will survive many small town paper's futures look much more uncertain.

Thiel, another billionaire who's down on college, got a Law degree from Stanford. Stanford is probably even more highly regarded outside of tech circles, if you can imagine that even being possible.

The answer may be in the degrees themselves: Bloomberg received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering whereas Cuban received a BA in Business Administration.

Totally agree. According to Wikipedia, there are 2,774 four year universities in the US (4,495 if you include two year).

If you can't get yourself into one of the top 1000 (I'm being generous), your time and money is probably better spent elsewhere. If you are an institution that doesn't rank in the top 1000, the world probably won't miss your research.

Now I'm sure there are a some great professors at whatever the 2,774th ranked school in america is, and some of their students will turn out to be very successful. But looking at the big picture, it is a big misallocation of resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_the_United_...

I can't understand why someone would get a CS degree these days, but I could totally see why someone would get a medical degree.

(A good exception for getting a CS degree though is if you'd like to get a US work visa like a TN or an H1B, which requires one).

Or the plethora of ancillary benefits to getting a university education. The actual education in many areas is negligible, instead you get up to four years to defer having to do any real work, spending a sizable chunk of your time around intelligent, like minded peers. And for a lot of people, it provides a relatively safe way of experiencing life on their own.

Me (non-billionaire and dubious source) on the university system:

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2011/04/14/the-difference-betw...

It is hard to see how a billionaire's opinion of the University is relevant. They are extreme outliers and haven't devoted much of their lives to studying universities.

Bloomberg at least seems to be involved with JHU and had a sense of what they produce.

> It is hard to see how a billionaire's opinion of the University is relevant.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe because they have billions of dollars worth of influence?

Bloomberg's donations have made possible a physics building, a school of public health, a children's hospital, a stem-cell research institute, a malaria institute, and a library wing.

Unless they left some money for operating them over the decades, they just burdened themselves with more future spending.

But there's a major difference: Bloomberg is donating his money for what he sees fit, Cuban is commenting on that. Let Cuban donate a billion to pay for tuition

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