Don't administrative fees and tuition suck up a huge percent of grant money?
Could crowdfunding get so much more bang for the buck, as compared with traditional funding?
Could crowdfunding get so much more bang for the buck, as compared with traditional funding?
Edit: To answer my own question, funds are currently not subject to university overhead according to their FAQ.
That's what I meant by more trouble than it's worth. A staff member going "meh" can turn into a huge time sink.
This is not how much money goes to the university. The university negotiates an overhead rate, which gets tacked onto the cost. This can often be more than half the cost of the grant. This helps cover indirect costs - the costs of administrative staff, copier paper, computing infrastructure, startup funds for new faculty, etc.
"More bang for the buck" assumes the researcher would get that overhead back for their own use. What actually happens is researchers get the same direct costs, the overhead % is zero, etc.
For minor grants, like where crowd funding is now, this isn't such a big deal. But if this somehow became the dominant paradigm, the overhead costs are going to have to come from somewhere...