A Purdue University professor has pleaded guilty to defrauding the National Science Foundation out of $1.3 million (https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13887). He used taxpayers’ money, earmarked for “research,” to hire his minor children to no-show jobs… and buy a house. He had his wife apply for the grants in her own name, then launder the money back to him.
Sweet, huh?
Meanwhile, another prof at Drexel U. has paid back more than $50,000 in research grants that he spent on visits to strip clubs and sports bars. (“Well, it’s a kind of research, isn’t it?”) Drexel has agreed to pay back some $190,000 to avoid further investigation by the federal Dept. of Justice.
It was taxpayer money that was supposed to go for “research.” That means you and I had to work to earn it so the government could take it.
In 2017 Drexel received some $70 million in federal research funding.
“Higher education”–it’s slowly killing us.
“higher” education is guiding some of us to the edge of the cliff, and about to drop over. We do not need to pay for that.
It’s more than the actual fund money that they’re stealing. In most departments, grants are considered along with publications as evidence of “scholarship” during salary and promotion reviews. So just the fact of getting a grant gives the professor more money in his or her paycheck.
Colleagues used to urge me to apply for grants, but I never did because all the research materials I needed were available for free and most of them locally. When I told my colleagues my reason for not going after a grant, some of them looked at me as though I were crazy — or professionally suicidal.
There have been thick books published that show you how to get grants from the federal gov’t – the whole system is a giant scam. In some states the SNAP money can be used to buy pornography magazines.
Integrity and honesty seem to be all but extinct, these days.