Megaconference Myth: Academic/Research Funding

[olivecourt]

I've been pretty skeptical about the 16-team superconference thing for awhile. (BTW, I find it funny that it was supposedly inevitable until this morning, and suddenly now it's not.) One argument I keep hearing that has no basis in reality is that the academic/research arms of the universities in the Big Ten would financially benefit from expansion. Miller and Deace mentioned this on the radio this morning, acknowledging that the t.v. bonanza everybody thought was there might not exist, but suggesting that "fiduciary academic benefits" could make up the difference.

I've worked in higher ed for eight years (including at the U of I), and I have no idea what they are talking about. Existing Big Ten schools get ZERO additional funding if other schools join. Each school competes for funding individually. They share library resources, have professor/scholar exchanges, and accept credits from other schools. That's it. Joining the Big Ten will definitely help Nebraska academically, because they don't have great library resources. But Nebraska won't generate more research dollars for other Big Ten schools, and neither will Notre Dame, Rutgers, Missouri, etc. Like a lot of other megaconference talk, this is a lot of wishful thinking.

 

[busabus114]

Thanks for the info. I have been trying to get that side of things clarified

 

[ICHawkI]

So you don't believe joining the Big Ten had any impact on the growth of Penn State's research departments? I know one of their alums was making posts showing a large growth in their funding after joining.

 

[spudhawk]

So schools can't directly colloborate on research projects or grants?

 

[Billso]

So you don't believe joining the Big Ten had any impact on the growth of Penn State's research departments? I know one of their alums was making posts showing a large growth in their funding after joining.

He is making the opposite argument - that current B10 schools would not gain significantly from expansion.

He said and I agree that Nebraska will gain from joining the consortium, as would Texas and A&M.

 

[HandsyHobo]

So schools can't directly colloborate on research projects or grants?

Grants? I don't know. Research? Yes. When she was in the graduate college (at Iowa), my girlfriend co-wrote a couple of research pieces with another grad student at Ohio State.

 

[olivecourt]

@ICHawkI:

Yes, the academic benefit to Penn State was huge, as will be the academic benefit to Nebraska. The benefit to existing Big Ten/CIC institutions is negligible to nonexistent. Imagine, for instance, if Iowa was invited to join the Ivy League-- awesome for Iowa, but a pretty inconsequential for Harvard (and in fact some could argue that it is a net negative).

The Big Ten already has access to just about every library book in the world; I doubt Nebraska is bringing too much more more to the table as far as that goes. More to the point, it's not like there's a big pot of money that just grew when Nebraska joined (unlike a potential television contract, for instance). Everyone will compete for grants individually just as they did before, only now they will share library books with Nebraska and do some pretty minor exchanges in terms of professors, etc. The financial impact to the conference as a whole that Miller and Deace were hypothesizing this morning simply doesn't exist.

@spudhawk:

Yes, schools can collaborate with each other on grants, etc., but they already do that regardless of conference affiliation. If the two best lung cancer researchers in the country are at the U of I and the U of Arizona, they will collaborate with each other. They don't give a rip who plays each other in volleyball. In fact, U of I professors have a long history of collaborating with professors at Nebraska that had nothing to do with Big 10/Big 12.