There's a flaw in this reasoning: are Nobel winners actually training people better or do they simply have access to more money?

In my experience researchers that get a lot of grants are able to fund lots of projects, which leads to smart people working for you, which leads to big publications, which leads to more grants. Nobel/Lasker/Name-your-prize winners are just some of the people at the top of the grant pyramid. In fact, I'd argue that who wins a Nobel is a bit of a stochastic/political process, there are tons of scientists who made Nobel-worthy contributions that never won one.

That said, the outcome ends up being the same. Big/well funded labs tend to be started by smart people who had the advantages at big/well funded labs and the cycle continues, but I think the way things are funded is a big part of how that system works, not the inherent smarts/brilliance of the Professor.

Also it's not about pooling money. I think the OP is making a comment on effectiveness for educating people. For example, Cooper Union, an exceptional institution in NY that has a history of training people to an MIT-level for essentially free has come upon hard times and has somewhat abandoned that free-education principle (granted this was due to some financial mismanagement, but a big donor could certainly force changes there). This was an institution that taught many disadvantaged students, particularly from the NY area who couldn't afford MIT and its compatriots. Perhaps the money would have had far more impact there? Or what about offering massive scholarships to people attending community colleges who have a helluva GPA but need help for childcare?

$140M is an incredible gift, I can't help but think there are better ways to spend it than giving it to an institute that already gets massive amounts of grant and other money. Maybe a place that could really use it to help those that need it most?

I merely pointed out one plausible statistical strategy for distributing a donation if the idea is to cause an impact and not distribute the funds back to the economy more or less randomly - I have no idea what the underlying mechanism is.

"Or what about offering massive scholarships to people attending community colleges who have a helluva GPA but need help for childcare?"

That's proactive. But, then again, we know nothing on this donor.

"Maybe a place that could really use it to help those that need it most?"

And what place would that be? Who would exactly be those that 'need help most'? Where I'm from government tries to handle the material well being of those who've had the shortest end of the stick in life - no idea what charities would provide the best bang for buck in US.

I would not call spending money on science wasteful in any case.

Two different issues- research labs/graduate training quality vs undergrad lectures and such.

I doubt MIT teachers of basic science are the best in the world. Rather MIT attracts some of the smartest most motivated students in the world. More money won't do much for this.

Research lab funding? I think at it's current steady state more money sent to MIT for research would likely find a useful currently unfunded study or group.

Mark Zuckerberg generously gave 100M to improve the education system of Camden New Jersey. At the time the mayor was Stanford grad Cory Booker, now Senator, and future Presidential material. Camden was and still is a minority shithole of New Jersey. Neither Mark's generous gift nor Cory's public service had a lasting effect. Deeper structural problems. I do not know the answer.

Except the gift was nothing but funding the charter school grift (don't get me wrong, charter schools could work, and in some cases do work, but for the large part, in the US, the charter school movement has pretty much entirely been hijacked by union busters and people who want to profit off the privatization of education).

Exactly. There are plenty of laboratory schools attached to universities, where teaching research is done under the eyes of the public. Those are as a rule doing well but Zuckerberg chose to boost unaccountable charter schools. Glad to see that it went as one would have predicted it to go.

It was Newark, and the half donation went to Charter Schools and consultants. [1]

1. http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-failed-100-m...

"Minority shithole" is a bit harsh... I spend a lot of time in Newark and it is a much better place than it was twenty years ago.

The Ironbound is getting nicer every year. Yesterday I was walking home from the train and there were young people everywhere. Definitely not what I am used to around here.

Granted, the Ironbound could be a totally different city than the rest of Newark.

It was actually Newark...

Zuckerberg gave to Newark, not Camden, but you're right in that the donation didn't have the intended effects.

On the other hand, more money means you can afford to pay for higher quality professors/staff/technology.

I took a "big data" course on Map/Reduce, Hadoop, etc. We had to use VMs on our own laptops because the department couldn't afford to get us temporary AWS instances or similar.

Sure money is not a quick fix for a bad school, but it opens up more opportunities than not.

Good salaries are necessary, but not sufficient to attract top level talent. If the whole environment is mediocre, it won't be able to produce better research or education, regardless of money.

(Speaking as someone who graduated #1 university in Poland, but nowhere near #200 globally...)

Regarding your 2nd point, do those rankings actually provide any useful information? How is it fair to rate an entire university, especially when they offer multiple studies? Shouldn't the ranking be based on discipline e.g. software development, language, *ologies, etc.?

Also #200 out of what? According to this Quora[0] question, there are anywhere between 26,000 and 40,000 universities globally. 200 out of 26,000 puts your university in the top 1%.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-universities-are-there-in-the...

This is actually part of the strength of a large gift to a university like MIT. Using the prestige of the university, and the money, you can bring in an entire cohort of capable scientists dedicated to a research area, and achieve scale via a "brain trust" that would otherwise be impossible. Other universities have indeed done this in the past with great success.

I like how the accepted dichotomy in this entire debate here in the comment is either MIT or bad school. There is an in between! There are lots of competent, well managed, and important educational institutions outside of the top 2-3 schools! Maybe once you get to like 30-40 or so, maybe that argument holds more water. But let's not pretend like plenty of state universities aren't great academic institutions.

I think the best educational utility of those millions of dollars would likely be subsidizing tuition for two year schools.