University Research is Bad for Undergraduates
In an academic arms race, students are the losers.
Texas is buying its way onto higher education rankings but almost guaranteeing a worse experience for undergraduates.
Because that’s how it works.
Texas Governor Gregg Abbott wants the state’s universities to produce more research, which produces better rankings, which produces more economic development. Since he became governor in 2015, the number of major research universities (referred to as Research 1 or R1, the top tier) in the state has gone from four to 11.
To do that, he has thrown tens of millions of dollars at it—which works. Now, the state legislature is proposing a multibillion-dollar Texas University Fund for university research.
Faculty love to work at R1 institutions because they are more prestigious, donors love to give to R1 institutions because they get to shine in their glow, state lawmakers love it because a large number of them are usually alumni from the schools in question, business leaders love the increased research spending as it helps the economy, alumni love it because it makes their degree more valuable, and college presidents love it because it helps them get their next job.
Everyone loves more research.
I mean, everyone. Loves. More. Research.
Unless we are forgetting someone.
They must not be very important because all the important, powerful, and connected people are listed above.
Oh, right, it’s students. (Do they even count?)
Why shouldn’t students love more research? Unbeknownst to them, their families, and the lawmakers playing this game of ego, pride, fame, and glory, more research can be very bad for undergraduates.
Undergraduates and Families Pay for Research
University presidents tout the amount of research money their institution brings in, using it as a proxy for quality and productivity. Sounds good to us; what do the great unwashed masses know about the work of brilliant Ph.D.s?
Ask university leaders privately, and they will admit that research does not pay its own way. Research grants increase demands on the overall university budget that has to be covered from somewhere.
That cost must be passed on to someone. Want to guess who?
Tuition increases, with the accompanying student debt, is fair game to fund status chasing and ego-boosting that comes along with university research grants.
Good luck hearing that when university leaders testify about needing more research funding to lawmakers.
It’s important to think about two types of costs when it comes to university research, hard costs and opportunity costs.
Hard Costs
Basically, the more of a research enterprise you have, the more fixed costs an institution has. These include:
Research faculty: These individuals can require expensive packages to recruit and retain them.
Adjunct faculty: The teaching not being done by research professors is passed onto others— adjunct faculty and instructors need to be hired.
Research Assistants: Not all staff are covered by the research grants.
Research infrastructure: Some lab and building costs are covered by research grants, but not all. That adds up quickly.
Managing complexity: The more complex an institution, the more support staff, and management are needed. This includes maintenance, janitorial services, security, IT, parking infrastructure, and others—many of which are not covered by research dollars.
Opportunity Costs
Opportunity costs are those things NOT done because of the time, attention, and money spent chasing research. Some of the opportunity costs are:
Access to faculty: Arguably, the best faculty on campus—those with the most in-depth knowledge of a subject area— are the tenure and tenure-track faculty. However, at research-heavy institutions, these faculty are not teaching many classes.
This brings us the question if a university promotes its “high-quality” faculty as a draw to bring students in, but few students ever get access to the “high-quality” tenure and tenure-track faculty, isn’t that a bait and switch?
Teaching Quality: Faculty at most research-heavy institutions are not rewarded for good teaching nor punished for bad teaching—it’s not a priority.
To teach classes not covered by tenured faculty, graduate students, full-time instructors, and part-time adjunct faculty are brought in. These individuals have varying levels of expertise and training, if any, before they get in front of students.
That’s right. Many schools will put someone in front of a group of students—then figure out if they are any good after the fact. If a part-time person is truly awful, they won’t invite them back. If a full-time professor isn’t very good at instruction, well, that’s just how research institutions roll.
I’m curious, how many students get a sub-par experience because of this approach?
The thing that seems most important to the public, lawmakers, and students – the quality of classroom instruction—is simply not a priority.
While it is well-known and a hotly debated problem, few do anything about it.
Class Size: No one actually thinks a 500-person lecture class is good for students—at best they are functional. However, these classes are incredibly profitable. A 500-student three-credit course can bring in over $500,000 and cost next to nothing to teach. These classes are necessary to help offset the very expensive costs of graduate and research activities.
Community Service: Community problems that could use faculty expertise are often ignored. These projects are not prioritized or properly rewarded.
Adult Learners: You know, those people that pay taxes that help fund state budgets and national research. These are often treated as less desirable and second-class citizens.
Transfer Students: Schools often make it unnecessarily complicated to transfer in. They are just not as important as “native” students.
First Generation Students and Students of Color: I’m fascinated by the fact that our best minds can figure out the relative mass of subatomic particles, the age of the universe, and understand the complexities of ancient civilizations—but we still can’t figure out how to improve the college pipeline for underserved students.
Some Research is Junk and/or Self Indulgent
In 2018, there were more than three million articles published in more than 33,000 peer-reviewed English language journals. In the 10 years between 2006 and 2016, the number of academic journals increased by 56%.[1] [2]
The higher education community has rightly called into question the quality of all these academic journals that have proliferated over the past few decades. To prove this point, papers written by bots that have no coherence but simulate academic gibberish have been published[3], and papers submitted as deliberate hoaxes[4] have been accepted and printed by “peer-reviewed” academic journals.
Perhaps worse, legitimate papers written and accepted are often never cited by others, which is considered a sign that the research is not of value to anyone inside or outside of the academe.
Yet, colleges and universities will often mention how often their professors are published as a sign of quality, which isn’t necessarily so. And they will claim that undergraduates get to participate in research—the number is a small minority.
What are we doing? Why are we putting up with this?
Nuance
The simple fact is, when a university is focused on research and supporting that mission, there are other areas that are not given the same emphasis. It’s just how it works. You can’t focus on everything.
That being said, I need to be really clear that major research universities have contributed a great deal to make our world a better place.
They have produced breakthroughs in science, technology, healthcare, psychology, and the humanities and have moved our society forward.
However, we have gotten carried away. There is way too much research of little to no value to justify all of it.
Don’t take my word for it; many academics make the same argument.
And all that research comes at a very high price.
Who is left holding the bag?
Undergraduates, first-generation students, students of color, and working adults seeking a college education. The lowest of the pecking order in higher education.
But, hey, they are not the important people, are they?
[1] Nils, Schimanski, et al. Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values and their Relationship to Review, Promotion, and Tenure. Access at: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/706622v1.full.pdf
[2] American Journal Experts (2016) AJE Scholarly Publishing Report: 2016. Available at: https://www.aje.com/dist/docs/International-scholarly-publishing-report-2016.pdf
[3] Van Noorden, Richard. (2014). Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers. Nature. 10.1038/nature.2014.14763.
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/