Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Agreed, but couldn't endowment money be used for research?

Generally, no, it's spoken for.  It's not there without a lot of strings.

A "chaired professor", for example, is paid for by the funds generated from a specific endowment.  Somebody back when donated $x which was invested and the grant stipulates the returns can only be used for that purpose.  Other endowments may be allocated to other uses, and can't be used to something different.

Grant money is very different.  A prof writes a grant proposal and sends it off to NIH or NSF or the ARO, whatever, and if it is approved, he then gets monies for the research.  Most of this is Federal money.  And research professors are "graded" largely on how much money they bring in because for each specific grant, the university gets "overhead" to pay for other stuff.  You can have a professor who is a lousy teacher but he gets large grants approved, he'd almost certainly get tenure, and vice versa.

We don’t. And yet people just obsess over it. Like love talking about it.

They've been in the news cycle lately.

Generally, no, it's spoken for.  It's not there without a lot of strings.

A "chaired professor", for example, is paid for by the funds generated from a specific endowment.  Somebody back when donated $x which was invested and the grant stipulates the returns can only be used for that purpose.  Other endowments may be allocated to other uses, and can't be used to something different.

there ya go!  Create a specific endowment for specific research

cause Trump might pull your grant $$$

Endowments are meant to last forever, mostly, research is meant to start and stop after a few years, usually.  You could do it with endowments of course, but I think you'd have a very very hard sell on your hands.  The folks with the money can see funding a chaired position but would have no interest in funding some physics research project they couldn't even spell.

Basic research has an unquantifiable ROI.  There are examples where it has been quite large, but the vast majority of examples have zero apparent ROI.  The concept is that it is needed to further our basic knowledge and build foundations, it's not intended to have direct ROI.  One can argue the benefit of that of course.

Companies that once did basic research have largely shut it down.  My friends where I worked tell me nearly all applied research was shut down as well, and that was a trend while I was there.

I knew some folks who worked in Federal labs like Sandia and Los Alamos, I really thought their work was ... of dubious value.

I have a niece studying there, to get a PhD.

In Art History.

My piano teacher when I was a kid had a PhD from somewhere in music.  Dr. Herbert.  I didn't much like him, and convinced my mom to let me quit when I was 12.  It seemed like a sissy thing to do.  I later discovered that playing the piano helped me in basketball.  It strengthened my fingers so they didn't  get "stove up" and I could catch even hard passes more readily.

So, I started back playing on my own and got OK at it (later my intent was to impress girls, which often worked quite well I found).  

My neighbor's nephew just got his PhD in criminology and now is teaching in Boston.  They award PhDs in some odd things.  They all can be called doctor, though I personally frown on that.