tiny lemmy 

Trump Wants $3 Billion in Harvard Grants Redirected to Trade Schools

c/world · u/DragonSidedD@lemmy.ml · 149 points

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the president mused about redirecting $3 billion in research grant funding that his administration has frozen or withdrawn


Comments

u/FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 points

Harvard barely funds any ME/CFS research so I don’t get the irony. They have like one person at the hospital who occasionally publishes with Harvard credentials but they are funded by the Open Medicine Foundation which is a private charity.

I don’t think it’s ironic for me to wish the country didn’t pump half it’s research money into a couple elite universities mostly rich people get into. I’d like to see it distributed in a less centralised way.

u/mineralfellow@lemmy.world · 16 points

These are research grants. Trade schools do not do the type of research Harvard scientists do. It is the leading research institution in the world for many fields. Most of those grants are on the order of less than a million dollars and fund young, untenured researchers who will become the next generation of scientists. Alum sponsorships are almost always earmarked, and never for research purposes.

u/krakenfury@lemmy.sdf.org · 0 points

Yeah let the Harvard alums cover the 3b. If it's anything like all the other land grant universities in the country, they are just using it to build swanky dorms.

u/raltoid@lemmy.world · 13 points

No, he does. It's just that most of the schools will have a single facility, which is an empty office in a business park.

u/dickalan@lemmy.world · 2 points

You’re overzealousness is costing you factual accuracy because I believe UT has created several scientific advances and done a shit load for people even though it's in the middle of a red state

u/Uranus_Hz@lemm.ee · 3 points

Of course Florida and Texas don’t have any highly prestigious universities.

u/RunawayFixer@lemmy.world · 28 points

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tracking-trumps-war-on-elite-universities-which-schools-have-lost-funding-and-what-theyre-doing-about-it-200621655.html?guccounter=1

This article lists 7 schools that are known to have had funding taken away as punishment. Harvard is just the only one that dared to publicly speak out against the bullying and now the bully is trying to make an example of them.

The republican war on higher education is older than Bannon's graduation from high school. Trump already targeted them during his first term. Ron Desantis has been doing the same in Florida. Texas republicans have been going at it for years as well. And that's the ones that I know about.

u/blakenong@lemmings.world · 4 points

I think there was something about Columbia, but they did everything he wanted. Maybe I’m thinking of another one. They blend together

u/baronvonj@lemmy.world · 3 points

The people who did not learn correctly from the YouTube videos and now have a flooded house.

u/Maeve@kbin.earth · 0 points

NGL, it bothers me a bit, as well. I hope if they become sentient, they evolve to a more egalitarian state than we humans have managed, and help us to become our best selves, one day, rather than the horror dystopian beings their financiers imagine. Not the sci-fi authors, I think they based their imaginings on the greedy financiers.

u/Yermaw@lemm.ee · 3 points

It bugs me a little bit how little belief people have in machines potential. The machines have done what "only humans can do and a machine will never" so many times.

They would never beat a human at chess, until they did.

They would never pass the Turing test, until they did.

They would never create art, until they did.

They would never create music, until they did.

They would never be able to actually drive a car, until they did.

Why do we draw the line at skilled work?

u/Maeve@kbin.earth · 0 points

I'm fairly sure that's what the transportation and logistics industry employees were saying a few years ago. I'm also fairly sure Thiel and zuck aren't planning to spend their precious money on ubi. They may on Soylent Green, though.

u/atzanteol@sh.itjust.works · 6 points

If this dopey motherfucker actually did this, I'd support it. Harvard can survive on less, and trade schools should be cheaper to encourage people learning trades.

You think we should take money for cancer research and spend it making trade school cheaper?

u/nokturne213@sopuli.xyz · 29 points

Hell you could take double what Hartford gets, out of the military budget and put that into trades and the military would hardly notice. If my math is correct, 6 billion is not even 0.75% of the military's budget from last year.

u/SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world · 25 points

We just randomly increased military spending by 150 BILLION this year.

That could have paid for a lot of trade schools

u/DragonSidedD@lemmy.ml · 74 points

It plays to his anti-intellectual base: "See? We are finally pw0ning those effete libs and putting the money into the trades."

(You know you could put a lot of people through trade school for the cost of one big military parade, and not have to give up f'ing cancer research)

u/blakenong@lemmings.world · 69 points

Someone was saying somewhere that he’s taking it out on Harvard because Barron was rejected

u/themeatbridge@lemmy.world · 26 points

If this dopey motherfucker actually did this, I'd support it. Harvard can survive on less, and trade schools should be cheaper to encourage people learning trades.

But that's not what's happening, not even a little bit. The money isn't being redirected to where it will do more good. It's being withheld for corrupt personal reasons, and the "thought" of using it for so me thing productive is half-formed horseshit that is never going to materialize.

This is a technique Trump uses to deflect criticism, although I think it's too stupid to have a name. Let's call it the Ball Gargle. It's an idea that, in retrospect, sounds like it might be a good idea, but it's probably impossible and definitely never going to happen. So Trump does something obviously corrupt and deeply unpopular among people who aren't total fucksticks. When the people who aren't total fucksticks complain, Trump suggests ball gargling, and the fucksticks go "Yeah, see, that sounds good!" But Trump isn't going to gargle any balls, and even if he tries it wouldn't be any form of anything anyone anywhere wants.

u/Dragomus@lemmy.world · 25 points

$2 billion to Trump Academy 2.0 ... $1 billion in a jar somewhere that no one remembers and is slowly being siphoned off into trumps personal slush fund.

u/MyOpinion@lemm.ee · 20 points

He wants 3 billion he can get a kickback on. Let’s not fool anyone.

u/Wazowski@lemmy.world · 14 points

**WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO HIRE A PLUMBER WHEN THERE’S YOUTUBE AN NO ONE HAS A FUCKING JOB?**

u/Ledericas@lemm.ee · 10 points

since trades, are predominately blue collar/ republican leaning men, it would make sense why.

every maintenance person that goes into a store to fix some machine, they always hada grayed out flag or thin blue line flag on them persons.

u/FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 points

Out of all his ideas, not the worst.

I’d rather see the billions harvard get go into more local affordable places and benefit more people.

Than being pumped into a mega elite zionist private uni.

(Of course the chance he will actually do this is near zero, he’ll just siphon off the funds to make himself richer. But in theory, good idea.)