The Carnegie Corporation is considering changes to it higher-education classification system so that more institutions will be able to achieve the top level — Research 1. This has hearts fluttering among university leaders who covet that status. In North Carolina, three of the UNC schools are hopeful.
In today’s Martin Center article, Dan Way writes about this development:
Colleges and universities grouped in the Carnegie Classifications’ most elite category become a magnet for greater research funding. That amplifies their ability to recruit top-tier professors and students. In turn, universities can expand the number of research projects that, conventional wisdom holds, contribute to the public good, economic growth, and social mobility.
The “conventional wisdom” is mostly confined to the educational establishment, which sees nothing but good in increasing spending on research. It’s a great “investment” that pays off for society.
Happily, Way didn’t stop with the “conventional wisdom.” He quotes Professor Allen Mendenhall:
“The coveted R1 designation remains a status marker,” said Allen Mendenhall. He is Troy University associate dean and Grady Rosier Professor in the Sorrell College of Business and executive director of the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy. “Because grant money follows an R1 or R2 classification, universities will pursue what they perceive as a higher and more prestigious classification. But that means throwing a bunch of money at activity that universities can claim to be ‘research’ regardless of whether that research is good, valuable, useful, or even publishable.”
He’s right. Much of the spending on “research” is useless or even counter-productive. We already have too much of it. Whatever the Carnegie Corporation does, those who actually put up the money for research should be more careful about what it goes to.