America’s colleges are hoarding billions, Matt Taibbi New York Post Of Colleges and Universities A short trip on the JHU site later I found myself at the Johns Hopkins Public Interest Investment Committee annual report, published in January.  There, I learned that “as of June 2024, JHU’s endowment comprised more than 4,700 funds, each supporting […]

Earlier, it was a dramatic cut in indirect costs on all federal grants and outright cancellation of some grants. Now, congressional Republicans are mulling a steep tax on university endowments. “Republicans are considering increases to the university endowment tax to help reduce the national deficit and as a potential lever to force universities to comply […]

Fascist Europe experienced a brain drain in the run-up to WWII. Among the European refugees who worked on the Manhattan project were Hans Bethe, Rose Bethe, Felix Bloch, S.H. Bohine, Niels Bohr, Hans Courant, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller. Prizing ideology over intellect ended up being a loss for fascism and […]

Not quite the same as in the sixties when colleges were defiant to government intervention. And there were presidents and other government officials who would intercede on campuses. Kent State was the site of deaths and shooting of students by an untrained military who were in too deep over their heads and acted out of […]

From the time I started college at 18 until the time I retired at 69, I have been continuously in academia. Most of that time, I was a faculty member at a private university. For ten of those years, I was also Associate Dean for Research at my medical school. Once you’re on the inside, […]

One problem confronting the Trump agenda is that they treat the US like a closed system. That’s a problem for tariffs, since there are plenty of other markets for foreign goods besides the US. And it’s a problem for the recruitment and retention of the world’s finest minds. Until now, US universities were a magnet […]

February housing construction rangebound, but at recessionary or near-recessionary levels  – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month’s important housing data starts out with construction.  For a quick refresher, I follow this because housing typically leads the rest of the economy by a year or more. After the very leading, but very noisy and […]

“The federal government provides roughly 14% of funding for public K-12 education, with states and local governments contributing the majority. This federal funding can vary significantly from state to state.” Federal public education funding is equivalent to 0.51% of total taxpayer income. Yikes, that is alot! The Department of Education has a budget of ~$104 billion. […]

Environment, Energy, & Related News from the Week ending March 15th, R.J. Sigmund. Two interesting articles on microplastics in healthcare and the environment. – Microplastics contribute to evolution of antimicrobial resistance, study finds, University of Minnesota A new study by researchers at Boston University indicates microplastics in the environment might facilitate antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The Applied and […]

Whether you are a birder or not, birds are interesting and entertaining creatures to watch. If they have the right and safe habitat in your yard or nearby, you can watch birds build their nests. With some luck in where the nests are placed, you may be able to watch them bring life into the […]