Talking to Pri Narang about her optimism about the administration
A successful conservative physics professor explains why she's happy with how things are going
Ever since the second Trump administration started, I’ve been trying to get folks who are happy about everything that is going on to talk to me. Although we have gotten Michael Kratsios and Dario Gil to write editorials for us, other officials have declined, and we’ve gotten very few interviews. I asked the NIH for a comment on the rise of China’s biotechnology industry, and I asked OSTP for a comment on the cuts and then restoration of the NSF graduate research fellowship.
Ghosted every time.
One person who is enthusiastic about the administration who has written for us, Prineha Narang, did agree to talk to me. Dr. Narang (she goes by Pri) is a very successful professor of physics at UCLA who has published multiple times in Science, won many awards, and is on the board of trustees at Caltech. I was really grateful she came on to talk to me so that our readers can hear why she’s excited about what is going on in science in the US. I think it’s our job to make sure folks like Pri have a fair chance to tell their story and also to help our readers understand the reasoning behind the administration’s actions. Here’s the video of our conversation on the new Science Podcast channel (please subscribe!!):
The overall theme of Pri’s optimism is mainly around making applied research more successfull. While she expressed hope that the NSF would still continue to fund basic research, most of what excites her is new opportunities for students, universities, and the federal government to collaborate with industry. She is hopeful about the nomination of Jim O’Neill as the NSF director, mainly because she feels he will drive these kinds of collaborations. My employer, AAAS, is skeptical about O’Neill’s nomination.
When I asked her about the abrupt cuts to some universities (including her own) by the administration, she explained that she understood the actions partly because conservative faculty like her were not being heard. She encouraged introspection by the institutions like what is in the latest report from Yale about how they should work to rebuild public support. (I am also a fan of the analysis in the Yale report, although I told Pri that she and I probably wouldn’t agree on the remedy of what to do about it.)
What that cemented for me is the notion that trying to build support for science separately from trying to rebuild trust in universities isn’t going to fly. As long as the universities are unpopular, overall support for science will be limited, even if the main public objections to universities (particularly selective privates) — like the cost and some content in the humanities — don’t have much to do with science. That’s going to be hard to do when there isn’t good agreement over whether universities should respond to the political moment or double down on their traditional values.
I really appreciate Pri talking to me and hope others will do the same. We need to get these ideas out in the open in the scientific community so that we don’t have to speculate on what the motivations are and what some in our universe would see as acceptable solutions.
Holden... From the Yale study, as to #4 (cost), the real story is told here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BZW7N1K/
I run a business, and very clearly recall the sales pitch I once got from a wealth management firm. They were offering 4-6% return on an asset otherwise guaranteed by the government and not dischargeable in bankruptcy - student loans. When you look at that offer from the perspective of an investor, the first question is: "Where do I sign?" The second? "How do I get more?"
I declined... My boys were in high school at the time, and with a reasonably good idea of how the economics of all of this works, it was clear to me that this amounts to a monetary bazooka aimed right at higher ed... while the "supply" (seats for the incoming freshmen) remained static. That's a no-brainer - higher prices.
The Yale study conveniently looked only at tuition - as if that is the only "sink" for this monetary inflation. It did not address fees. Nor did it address books - which are published with the most expensive paper, full color, and with a lot of fluff most professors will admit is irrelevant to instruction. The whole idea seems to be making the book "heavy" so at least it feels like you're getting something for your money.
As a father of two boys now out of college, at least as to cost, the Yale study is frankly a joke and an example of an immutable law of nature: You will not find what you are not looking for. If they really want to find out why Americans are angry about the overall cost of education, you simply have to come to terms with the distorted incentives.
First, there are the good intentions of making higher ed "affordable." On paper this is wonderful. In practice - when handed off to government - the incentives in government work against the intentions. Student loans used to be originated and then sold to investors (my experience was before this was taken over the by government). Beyond the taxpayer guarantee and bankruptcy exemption, the risk was spread out by way of securitization. Now, with USG backed loans originated and held by the government, the risk is still spread out across the tax base. This is a distinction without a difference because when there is no risk in lending there is no one to ask whether the money is being lent into an education that will actually prepare a student to be productive enough to pay it back. And when it all goes bad, who in government loses their job? If a lender actually assumes risk and their shareholders lose their shirt, management lose their jobs. This is not the case in government.
School are most certainly not innocent bystanders. The "non-profit" status of traditional higher ed is a joke. I have run small non profits and you have to run your organization in the black. If your expenses exceed your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. The only difference between a for profit organization and non-profit is where the money goes. In higher ed, the size and salaries of faculty have not been increasing. Administrative staffing has, along with upper echelon salaries. They like to attribute this to market forces. But you cannot have a "free market" when the money supply in that market is unrestrained by lending with no attachment to risk. And we haven't even started talking about the constant construction - replacing facilities that were only built a few years ago.
The immoral corporatism masquerading as higher ed is why America is angry at the academe. You cannot solve that until you're willing to see it through our eyes. Read the book I link to above and the story becomes clear. And Yales's explanation is revealed to be a weak joke.