Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Academia is BROKEN! - Stanford President Scandal Explained" video.

Aerospace Engineer here: This is all a result of the economic policies placed on universities that started back in the 1990s. This is yet another symptom of what people are referring to as neoliberal economics. I have experienced this stuff personally in both the academia and the industrial sectors. I graduated in early 88 and did a few years of postgraduate. I never got my masters because of department politics and walked away from a PhD Scholarship after my supervisor admitted to my face that he was committing FINANCIAL fraud. The scholarship I had included a small equipment budget and he said to my face he was using that money for airline tickets to a conference. When I said that's wrong he simply said back to me, "This is how it works get used to it!" That was 1992 and yes I know there have been other issues with universities going back decades if not centuries, but what I am talking about is what happened starting in the 1990s Around that time all the universities were being told to "Be more business like." The actual true purpose of universities is to develop, expand and disseminate knowledge while training people with the higher level skills society needed. That has since morphed into a business model that can be summed up as: "We are a business and the students aren't students they are clients and the job is getting them a certificate that says they are qualified. The purpose of research is no longer to get results its to do enough to get the next grant." A couple of years ago I started informally studying economics because I got tired of the interference and crap I was getting on projects from clowns waving economics degrees. Their 2 favorite questions were/are "What's the business case for that?" and "Who's going to pay for that?" I actually work in industrial controls system and automation. Part of that is doing safety control systems. In 2007 I got what was at the time the second highest rating an engineer can achieve in the world for that work. I was certified under the German TUV system. That actually got me nowhere and never helped me get a job and in many cases got me disqualified from getting work because the clowns with economics degrees don't like technically qualified people they can't push around. At one point (circa 2014) there was some potential work. When I enquired about a renewal (or refresher) course what I was told was there was no such course all I had to do WAS PAY to have my name put back on the list. There was ZERO INTEREST in checking if people were still up to standard. When I pointed out this was about SAFETY they simply said back "What's the business case for that?" I have other examples of this mindset of economics and the "business case" before everything mentality. Its infected every aspect of the training systems we have for people including our universities and other tertiary training systems. Its driven bad behaviors in academia as well as industry. The Boeing Max-8 is a perfect example of that. What's happened at Harvard and now Stanford is part of the same problem which is ironic because its institutions like Harvard and Stanford who have pushed the economics first ideology.
1