Posted on September 24, 2005  Comments (0)

Leverage Universities to Transform State Economy by Mark Kushner (dean of the College of Engineering at Iowa State University) and P. Barry Butler (dean of the College of
Engineering at the University of Iowa):

The tough part is not convincing people that investing in science and engineering education is wise. And while I agree with the authors I don’t think that is the correct data to look at. The authors want more money invested in their schools of engineering.

The other funding options (at public schools where politicians are heavily involved), often have more vocal special interest group backing, and more immediate and direct visible benefits. The challenge is to raise the awareness of the decision makers and the public to the long term benefits of such investments. The question is what the payoff on those investment are, compared to the benefits of other expenditures (looking at the opportunity costs).

I don’t believe you will be able to get “rock-solid, unbiased data to make those decisions.” I think you can get data that is useful but this type of data will have many unknown and, I think, unknowable aspects.

I agree. The tricky part is convincing those that made the decisions when the spending decisions are made. The tradeoff between these spending decisions (at a public school where politicians are heavily involved), which often have long term benefits and less vocal special interest group backing, and other spending options where politicians will get immediate rewards for funding (or pain for cutting). The challenge is to raise the awareness of the decision makers and the public that the long term benefits of such investments are the best decision to make.

Increasing such funding requires a long term marketing campaign that needs many facets including articles like the one they wrote and publicity of the successes that come from such investments. It also requires seeking funding from public, private and foundations. It also requires success. And transforming the economy is not as simple as increasing funding for the schools. That is a good piece of an improvement strategy but only one piece.

Related posts:

• Funding Basic Research
• Science and Engineering Fellowships Legislation