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Comment by cdcarter | Hacker News Reader

Not just in Britain. The grade "scaling" or inflation is rampant in the US, but not nearly as bad as the insane focus on research. The number one job of a professor should be to teach the students of the college.

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Research is teaching; teaching the graduate students how to do research.

I agree with your sentiment that college profs should care about teaching, but to be honest too much is asked of them. They're expected to be excellent researchers, inexhaustible grant writers, engaging teachers, inspiring mentors, and part-time entrepreneurs. Those who can achieve 4 of the 5 are still impressive, and more often then not somethings got give.

In the US 'Research' generates money for a University. You apply for outside grants and then fund your students who are then able to pay the University the vast majority of that money. Depending on the grant you may even pay for lab space and equipment as well as a large chunk of a professors salary.

Yes, too much is asked of them. In my mind, the solution is to just ask less, specifically ask them to primarily be teachers. This does have implications for grad programs and I don't know what, but it would certainly clean up undergraduate education.

Then none of the people in top universities would be there. Talented researchers go to top-tier universities for their PhD because they want to work on research professionally. They do not wish to teach, they are forced to do it because academia is, for the most part, the only place left where someone can be a professional researcher. Although there are still corporate research labs around, the days of Shannon developing Information Theory at Bell Labs are long gone.

Quite frankly, I'm fine with this setup. If you want to have a good undergraduate education provided to you by the professors, go to a school where they have that as a priority. If you want to get involved in pushing the boundaries of knowledge, then go to a place like MIT or Stanford and get involved in an undergraduate research program.

I'd observe a couple things, which are much elaborated here: http://jseliger.com/2011/10/31/college-graduate-earning-and-...

1) Professors are responding to institutional and student incentives: institutions reward research, so professors prioritize research over teaching.

2) Students are, for the most part, choosing easier degrees; as a result, those degrees are prospering, and many non-easy disciplines are watering down their criteria to attract remaining students.

3) The only real impetus for change that I can see comes from two areas: a) the amorphous group of employers who want better outcomes—but they have very little leverage and b) graduates who are unhappy to discover they have a great deal of debt and few marketable skills. Again, however, they have little leverage.

In the US the tying of funding to results is accomplished by market forces (which also favour, say, campus facilities) whereas in Britain it's administered directly by the government (which also favours "research", that is, publication count).

But since both place a substantial weight on "graduation rate", the same effect is seen vis-à-vis teaching quality.

Two types of schools that I have seen in the U.S., diploma mills, and failure mills. I went to school in a fail as many as you can school. Almost every class I walked into was 50-70% fail by design. I learned a lot, mainly studying on my own. The focus on research vs. teaching was just as strong.

Professors will do or become whatever is required of them to achieve tenure. The number on job of a professor is therefore to meet the tenure requirements of the institution - which at most places, means "do lots of research". Change the reward system and you can change how things work.

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