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What is the socio-economic argument or historical basis for university tuition fees?
One of the major differences between Europe (here I am mainly referring to Scandinavia) and Northern America, from an academic viewpoint, is the perspective towards higher education. In Scandinavia there it is generally accepted that anyone despite their financial status should be able to pursue higher education. Elsewhere in Europe I know of systems were the state subsidises a majority of the cost and only a minor portion of education costs are reflected on to the students.
The quality of education and research, and all the top X ratings aside, I personally never really understood the "American" way of looking at education, namely that it is a practically a business. I have noticed this other question on reasons for increasing tuition fees but little to no information behind why they exist.
I came across this comic recently, which seems to be gaining some popularity on the web, where the artist takes up some of the aspects and consequences of the north american perspective towards higher education; subjects that are mentioned are student loan debt, tuition fees and federal spending on education vs military or prisons.
Please note that I the language s/he chooses might be offensive to some and it is not at all my intention to insult anyone or incite a subjective discussion. Based on the culture and traditions in Scandinavia, many find it really hard to understand why it would be useful to have tuition fees, and thus put practically everyone who studies in serious debt by the time they are done with education. Thus, I would like to know:
Is there any reasonable ground (thorough studies on cost to society, overall well-being of people etc) or any indisputable historical origins behind why tuition fees were introduced for higher education?

PS: I realise that the question is on the gray zone on being on-topic or not here on Ac.SE but given good, constructive and factual answers, it would be a good resource to people outside North American system.

Not all European countries lack tuition fees. In fact, as my answer below shows, I think the development in the UK provides a good case study of the motivation.

Perhaps it is better to use the term 'Scandinavian' rather than 'Europe'? Also, what you refer to as the "American" way applies to countries outside the US, as well, e.g. Singapore. In fact, I was thinking of the same question recently when I contemplated about universities in Singapore.

I really think the only answer that can be given here is "the American people, through their elected government, have not chosen to tax themselves for this purpose". I think it might be better moved to Politics.SE.

@ben: I think a moderator would have to do it.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/16293/10643 and a comment made there: '[…] tuition is higher than it has been due to easy access to student loans. This drives the market in such a way that easy access to money increases prices. This is true anytime the government subsidizes a sector of the economy'

Please don't speak on behalf of "Scandinavia" by saying "From our standpoint in Scandinavia, it is really hard to understand ...". I'm Scandinavian, and I don't have difficulties understanding this.

This blog post, which takes a look at some of the larger historical trends in the pricing structure for American higher education, might be of interest to you. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/01/there-isnt-enough-money-to-keep-educating-adults-the-way-were-doing-it/

There were schools and education before there were government schools and education. Wikipedia says "in the Apology Socrates cites his poverty as proof he is not a teacher" which seems to clearly imply that at least the Ancient Greeks seemed to appreciate the value of resources expended in helping others learn skills valued by the rest of society.

(Some) Americans tend to consider every institution to be "practically a business. (I say this as a member of said subset of the American population.)

@Sverre good for you :) No but jokes aside, majority of the people I have talked with don't understand and agree with the assumption that tuition fees are necessary. If you personally have got it figured out, I say kudos but you are more the exception than the rule. Nevertheless I will refrain from generalising.

Note that many people do attend university in the US without paying all the tuition upfront and the government really does subsidize this through the federal student loan system. It's not necessarily more efficient than direct payments to universities but the system is more complicated than it looks like if you only consider tuition in isolation.

The biggest question, I think, is rather: "What is the socio-economic argument or historical basis for lack of university tuition fees?"  Services always start as "payment required," and only later migrate towards "government subsidized."

So offering a service (education) in education for payment (tuition) is called "preying" these days? This is the reason why europeans don't understand what makes America unique in the world. America is where people are free to live as they wish and the fact that you "feel" that education "should" be paid by someone else for your benefit doesn't automatically create in me and obligation of paying towards what you feel you should have.

Your comic link is broken.

What do you mean, "introduced"?
Someone has to pay for the teaching in any case. Students paying for their education has been the default option since at least Bologna in 1088, when the studies happened because enough people wanted to pay for such an education. It has continued to be the case throughout history, except for some prestigious universities that got sponsored by wealthy rulers or religious studies that got sponsored by the church estates. It must be noted that this sponsorship shouldn't be considered "public education" but is rather analogous to various current stipends/grants/etc, since these were meant for a very small number of individuals, not as education for masses.
It's not that USA has "introduced tuition fees" - instead, some countries, like the Scandinavian countries mentioned, have comparably recently (historically speaking) introduced free higher education for everyone, but USA hasn't (yet?) introduced that.
Who are the actors here?
As for most questions about society, you can't really talk about "THE motivation for X" without being explicit about WHO has that motivation.
The core actor here is the people who actually decide on exact amounts of tuition, i.e., the people who manage the (often private) universities, not their students, faculty, parents or politicians. For them, there are at least four valid reasons for having tuition fees:

That's income that they can use for whatever needs, so tuition is better than no tuition in that sense; even if they have other funding as well, most education institutions would prefer a larger budget;
It filters out people based on their motivation - in any university setting, you don't want students who are "just visiting", as they disrupt the motivation and learning of others. Recent data from MOOCs with no barriers of entry show that this creates a large class of people who join just to try it out, since no real commitment of resources is required; that's okay for a MOOC, but disruptive in the 'classic' university environment, where you need to limit the number of students to whatever number you can afford do service properly.
It filters out people based on their ability to pay - that's generally considered an inappropriate/illegal/evil goal nowadays, but back when the system was implemented, maintaining the separation of classes was an intentional goal (e.g. Numerus Clausus policies even in 20th century), not just a random byproduct of policies; your school and degree would have a better reputation if low-class "undesirables" would be kept out of the classrooms. A currently relevant argument is that diplomas are in some sense a Veblen good, where being affordable means less demand as you're believed to be cheap, thus automagically worse.
They can't handle any sudden drops in income. Much of university expenses are fixed - building maintenance and tenured faculty won't become cheaper if you suddenly lose 20% of your income; so any cost reductions must be accompanied by a large influx of money (from whom?) or be a slow process of reducing volume - either teaching much less students, or doing much less to teach them.

[edit]
There's no market pressure to reduce tuition
In a reasonable market there are downward pressures on price and demand - customer ability to pay and customer price sensitivity.
Recent changes in USA and some other education markets have greatly reduced those pressures.
The wide availability of student loans has resulted in a situation where people are buying education that they can't really afford - paying large amount of money (that they're borrowing) for even those education programs that won't actually have a "return on investment", while not having the spare resources to pay for it as a "hobby expense" for improving themselves. The impact of this is yet into the future, as student loans are maturing and the related bankruptcy cases are (and will be) rising.
And, more relevant to this question, student loans remove the visible difference between cheap and expensive university programs. Universities don't compete on price, since people don't choose them based on price. Some people do, but the majority of students don't think in a manner "oh, I can't afford a $40k tuition in a better university, so I'll apply only to $20k ones" in the same way as they would when purchasing, say, cars for the same amount; since the loans mask the direct impact on their daily budget. This means that universities have little motivation to lower their prices, as being cheaper won't gain them much, and being expensive doesn't restrict them from getting the good students they want, since the good students will get loans/stipends anyway.

"It filters out people based on their motivation..." This is what entrance exams are for. Unmotivated people cannot enter due to poor grades. Also "It filters out people based on their ability to pay" is why it should be abolished, since the OP asks "why it is useful to have tuition fees today"  and not why this policy was initially chosen

Entrance exams filter based on capabilities, not motivation. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns - you may have done really well in a past program, but aren't serious about this class. If it's free you have far less incentive to remain engaged.

@chmullig. You can also filter students once they enter, if you have a minimum cumulative grade (for all courses) one should get at the end of semester. The argument that paying tuition, makes the university better (in terms of students) cannot be taken seriously.

@chmullig I half-agree with you there. However, US high-end tuition is, compared to say Austria, utterly exorbitant. I submit that to be "motivational", tuition fees that make a barely-yet-still-noticeable impact on the student's family's budget would be sufficient. (Austria's system is, currently, only applying fees to semesters after what would be the standard length of the studies, and only to students that aren't employed or raising children etc. So, in effect, the policy is "slackers have to pay", and you don't have to choose between an education and a job, or being debt-free.)

@Alexandros - as universities are also evaluated on their retention and graduation rates, the administration has motivation to ensure that such students are filtered out before admission, before they have any chance to prove themselves. I don't claim that students or wider society (who don't directly influence the USA tuition rates) should prefer this, the argument is about why university management wouldn't be motivated to reform this.

'the system was implemented, maintaining the separation of classes was an intentional goal' [citation needed]. The last part however, is highly relevant.

"no real commitment of resources is required" -- Arguably, that's never true of real-life courses. You move there, you invest time; even a half-assed attempt at a course of studies you are not sure about does not come for free! However, absurd tuition may get you stuck with a bad choice because you can't afford to switch, leaving unmotivated folks that would rather leave in the courses.

US students may not often choose a university based on its price (though I'm not even sure that's true), but students do transfer if they find they can no longer afford tuition at their chosen institutions.

Universities don't compete on price, since people don't choose them based on price. — Yes, they do, but in the opposite direction from the one you suggest.  About a decade ago, my (private) undergrad alma mater significantly raised their tuition; the administration believed that people saw them as less valuable because they were cheaper.  "How can any university possibly claim to be as good as Harvard when your tuition is only 1/3 of Harvard's?"  After they raised tuition, the number of applications rose sharply.

I agree with some of the other people answering this question that there isn't a single, definitive reason for this approach, but here are some factors that play a role.  Note that I'm not defending or endorsing these factors, just describing them.

People in the U.S. are very attached to private universities, in a way that is not true in many countries, and these universities differ from each other dramatically.  For example, you can attend universities with all sorts of non-mainstream religious affiliations, as well other philosophical or practical approaches.  (You can decide you'd like to study alongside hippies, or that you'd like to attend a 24-student college in which all-male students run a farm in addition to studying.)  There's a widespread belief in the U.S. that this diversity provides benefits that would be difficult to achieve through public universities.  If you want lots of universities not run by the government or even primarily dependent on government funding, then that biases things towards a tuition-based model.
It's sometimes felt that heavily subsidized higher education is not in fact egalitarian, since the students being subsidized are already relatively well off on average.  Instead, the model used by some wealthy universities like Harvard is to charge the rich a fortune, charge the middle class a moderate amount, and let the poor attend for free.  That model has some serious drawbacks (for example, there's a lot of haggling over personal circumstances and what people can really be expected to pay), but it's not crazy.  Of course public universities can follow a similar policy, or the government could handle it more abstractly via progressive taxes.  However, this often doesn't fly in a U.S. context, since there's widespread opposition to taxes or redistribution, while private institutions are allowed to do whatever they like (nobody is required to attend Harvard).
Public universities in the U.S. are organized at the state level, rather than by the federal government (with just a handful of exceptions, such as the military academies).  This works pretty well in terms of local control over educational policy and spending: if Michigan wants an amazing public university and New Hampshire is only willing to pay for an average one, then New Hampshire can't vote against the University of Michigan's budget.  However, there's a major problem, namely that it is very easy to move between U.S. states (since there are no language barriers and few cultural barriers).  This leads to two fears: that people will live in low-tax states but move to states with cheap but excellent universities for college, and that students will move to other states after college (taking the economic benefits of their subsidized education with them).  These fears can be addressed in various ways, such as residency requirements, but there's no absolute solution that's not draconian.  The fear of being taken advantage of plays a depressingly large role in some discussions of funding public education.

Of course public universities could follow a similar policy in principle. — Many do, and not only in principle.

@JeffE: Good point, I've edited it to account for this, although my impression is even the full non-resident tuition for the wealthiest students at many public universities is lower than at Harvard.  (I just checked some figures, and for example Michigan charges as much as Harvard, while Berkeley and UIUC charge substantially less.)

Relevant link: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2014/03/03/10-colleges-with-the-highest-tuition-and-fees-for-out-of-state-students

It should be noted that in the US, universities evolved in a very different manner than in Europe. The first universities were not sponsored by the state—inasmuch as there was no formal government (Harvard was established in 1636. well before much of the formal mechanisms of government were imported from Great Britain). As a result of this, most of the early colleges in the US were private schools, which needed to support themselves based primarily on external financing, as no government funding was readily available (or, in some cases, even possible).
Of course, given that private schools were charging tuition fees, it was of course reasonable for public schools to also charge some sort of tuition fee when they opened.

How if this different from how Cambridge or Oxford was setup?

Cambridge was founded via a royal charter; nobody knows how Oxford was founded. However, most European universities were state supported from early on.

it was of course reasonable for public schools to also charge some sort of tuition fee when they opened. — Except that they didn't.  Significant tuition at public universities, at least for out-of-state students, is a relatively recent development.  (Thank you, Governor Reagan.)

@JeffE: Yes, I could have gone through an extended monologue about the anti-tax fetish of modern right-wing American politics, but I figured that was beyond the scope of this particular assignment.

@JeffE,  Public schools always charge fees, they were setup for the middle classes that could not afford to educate their children using private staff.

The history of tuition fees in the UK is well documented. Up until 1998 there were no tuition fees. The Teaching and Higher Education Act in 1998 instituted a £1000 tuition fee based on the Dearing Report. The Higher Education Act in 2004 introduced a variable tuition fees up to £3000. This was largely panned as politically motivated and I don't know if the decision was based on any type of formal review. In 2010, in response to the Browne REport the government allowed universities to increased tuition fees up to a maximum of £9000 in exceptional circumstances. Most universities chose to set their tuition fees at £9000. In all cases there has been both substantial criticism and support for the changes to the tuition fees.

Can you link to some articles that show support and/or criticism? I'd be interested to read longer perspectives on the issue.

@darthbith I wouldn't know which articles are good and which are bad. I would simply be picking hits off a Google search.

Fair enough, guess I'm off to Google then! There goes today's productivity ;-)

The UK system is a bit more complex, as students get a loan to cover the tuition fees, the loan only has to be paid back when the student is earning good money, and is written off the student never earns enough to pay it back.   So it can be thought of as a higher tax rate for anyone that been to university.

@Ian I would argue that the UK system is more complex because they have conducted studies to back up their views. The Dearing Report provides reasons for why it should be a loan paid back through the tax system of higher earners.

I graduated in the UK in 1998 so just missed the fees but there was of course a lot of talk about their introduction at the time. Given Labour had only recently won a landslide election victory, largely on the cry of "Education, education, education" I recall there being a drive to increase the number of people entering university (or equivalent) towards an arbitrary figure of about 50% of school leavers. However the cost of this to the state would have been more than the education budget could bear, hence the introduction of and phased increases to tuition fees. I need to find some sources.

I tried to follow the changes in the UK. It was worrisome to many of my British friends. The fact that student tuitions increase is mainly due to the fact that government subsidising is decreasing, right?

@posdef to be pedantic according to the Browne Report: NO. The change puts the choice of school in the hands of the student and not the government. The government will actually spend more on education by widening participation and allowing more students to attend university. From a cynical vantage the point probably was to save the government money. From a practical vantage, it might actually cost the government more depending on how student numbers grow and how many students default on the loan.

One aspect that is not touched upon in the comic you link to is that the student is the one who captures most of the benefit of higher education, starting at better job prospects and a higher expected salary, but also covering exposure to new ideas, the possibility of a better life in the ancient philosophical sense, and four years of partying for the less philosophically inclined.
People who, for lack of interest, lack of ability or anything else, do not partake of higher education will only profit from higher ed by having better-educated neighbors (and the rather nebulous promise of "a strong, stable state, ready for the future"), which seems like a lot less than what those neighbors themselves get.
That said, it seems like the burden of proof for why the community at large should pay for the benefit of those that actually do go to college through higher taxes should be on those that argue for a socialization of these costs.
Frankly, this seems like a rather obvious point, whether you agree with it or not. That the comic you link to does not even make a token effort to address it is... disappointing.

So why allow a 6 year old to get a school education unless the parents are willing to pay?

@Ian for most of history it was that way (no schooling for kids unless parents can afford it), and it actually made sense, since back then the best productive use of most kids time was in labor, not training. Historically it happened because (and only when) that level of schooling was generally useful and required for employment at government and factories. The origins of mass education, when it happened in Prussia came as essentially centralized/subsidised job skill training on behalf of major employers, not as some natural right for common people.

"People who, for lack of interest, lack of ability or anything else, do not partake of higher education will only profit from higher ed by having better-educated neighbors (and the rather nebulous promise of "a strong, stable state, ready for the future"), which seems like a lot less than what those neighbors themselves get."

but this is not unique to higher education. Some people are paid by government to fly supersonic spaceship-shaped airplanes or sail under sea in giant steel tubes powered by nuclear reactors, while rest of taxpayers get what "seems like a lot less" than beforementioned people get. Still no one argues that defense shouldn't be funded by government.

There are differences between primary/secondary education (which benefits everyone and is compulsory in most countries), national defense (which is non-excludable) and tertiary education, the benefits of which are excludable. This is Econ 101, and I am a bit disappointed that I need to write this on Academia.SE.

I am somewhat disappointed that the up/downvotes here seem to reflect voting on the issue itself, rather than whether this issue should be taken seriously. I had honestly not tried to take sides. My point was that this is one very important point which should at least be included in the discussion on who pays for tertiary education - but which is not addressed at all by the comic linked to by the OP.

I believe it was addressed by the comic: "free education reduces inequality, and benefits both individuals and society in the long run".

@StephanKolassa These differences sound pretty thin and do not really explain anything. Except if you are primed to like this type of justification and trying to rationalize the difference, it's just as easy to argue that primary education does offer direct benefits or that higher education benefits everyone. Also, you can't seriously expect people to read your third paragraph and think you are not taking sides.

@StephanKolassa you present arguments about how things should be, and why. That's a completely different, unrelated discussion than the original question about why things are the way they are now. In a similar manner, the reason why certain policies are implemented often is completely unrelated to the justifications provided as why that policy would be a good one; so when discussing reasons you should try to actively discount nice justification arguments.

@Peteris: I replied to an earlier version of the question, before the OP clarified that he was interested in the historical course. The earlier version at least to me sounded like a request for why (as in reasons, not the historical development) tuition is common in the US.

One aspect that is not covered in the responses here is that there's a considerable difference between the "sticker price" of private universities and what actual students pay. For example, at Harvard, families making less than $60,000 will actually pay no tuition. Yale and Stanford offer similar programs.
Most private colleges offer some form of tuition reduction based on financial need so it ends up that only a select few (international students and the very rich, mostly) pay full price.
Much of this is possible by the tremendous growth in private college endowments. At last reckoning, Harvard's endowment was $32 billion dollars.

European and American university fee structures arose out of two different sets of historical circumstances.
In medieval Europe, university graduates generally went into the service of either the "State," (government) or Church, both of which were major sponsors of universities. In essence, the State and Church subsidized the education of people who would end up working for one or the other (plus a few that wouldn't). Because of this "tradition," university education in Europe is largely state-subsidized even though people often don't go to work for the state nowadays.
In America, university education was more of a private transaction, and people would either put themselves, or more likely, their children through college, without obligations to potential employers such as the state of church mentioned above. In time, the Federal government saw the value of an educated populace and made available loan programs for students. A few branches of the government (e.g. the armed forces) will pay for the education of students who would serve several years with them.

Some references here would be really helpful.

@StrongBad: Added a link to medieval European university. I'm basing my knowledge of American universities as an American.

Hopefully we can all agree that higher education must be funded somehow. There are two main ways of doing this. Government spending (taxes) or tuition fees (students pay). There are many possible reasons to prefer one system over the other and I suspect the decision is largely political/ideological.
I think the main reason the US system has high tuition fees is a social/political one. The US is generally more politically conservative than Europe and favours small government and low taxes. If you accept this approach it necessarily prevents spending large amounts on higher education. In this respect you could equally ask why the US does not have free healthcare and lower levels of social security than many places in Europe.
The main criticism of tuition fees is that they are unfair as they disadvantage poorer students and place people under a heavy burden of debt. However systems can be setup where this is not necessary the case, at least to a significant extent. For example in the UK student loans are only repaid after earning £XXXX (~£20,000) per year and are written off if not paid after 30 years. In this case the debt could be view more like a tax. This system is not perfect as it puts lots of the burden (for written off debt) back onto government and the current UK system is possibly unsustainable.
The argument for tuition fees is that the state paying is not really fair either. Many people do not go to higher education, either due to academic grades or more vocational interests. Is it really fair that their taxes pay for higher education they will never use. I realise this is the case for many things taxes pay for but in most other cases such as healthcare or unemployment benefits the main beneficiaries are the less well off. For higher education the beneficiaries are likely to have higher than average earnings over their lifetime and so should pay for that out of their pockets.

For Federal Student Loans, the US does offer an income contingent repayment option where people with sufficiently low income have minimal to non-existent monthly payments (unpaid interest is IIRC capitalized) and where the remaining balance is forgiven if not paid off after 25 years.

A significant fraction of the funding for my (American public) university comes from two additional sources: (3) gifts, primarily from alumni, and (4) research grants, primarily from federal agencies (NSF, NIH, DOE, etc.)

Other possible sources of funding: (5) intellectual property i.e. royalties on patented products/methods. (6) investment return of endowment assets.

"The argument for tuition fees is that the state paying is not really fair either. Many people do not go to higher education, either due to academic grades or more vocational interests." - That's not entirely true. Even if one doesn't want any education for themselves, at some point they probably need to see a doctor, in which case they indirectly benefit from training one.

I dont buy the lower tax argument; income tax in NY is more than what I pay here in Sweden, a country considered as "socialist" by many. I get free healthcare and higher education back, my buddies in NY get neither. Thus "lower" taxes alone do not justify the existence of tuition fees

@posdef I'm not sure this is entirely true especially if you are a higher rate taxpayer in Sweden. Also if you compare VAT/sales tax. 25% in Sweden 7% in NY. This is an interesting plot of tax income as %GDP for various countries from wikipedia

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Is it considered rude to point out typos, by sending an email to the reviewer, in a MathSciNet review?
Is it considered rude to point out typos, by sending an email to the reviewer, in a MathSciNet review?
Will they be able to correct the typo, easily, with out involving MathSciNet technical team?

It is better to send the corrections directly to MathSciNet, through the mathrev "at" ams.org account. As long as they are just typos, we update the review directly. If you notice mathematical mistakes, we tend to involve the reviewer (if possible), since the changes will be more significant in that case.
We routinely update files for which we discover problems of this kind. It is not a problem. We appreciate your help in this regard!
As for the question of rudeness: I don't think it is rude, these things happen, and if you phrase the matter politely, it will probably be appreciated. On the other hand, reviewers cannot update directly published reviews, which is why it makes more sense to contact us instead.

There can be no authoritative answer than this.. Thanks...

The typos are the rude thing, if any, not the correction.

I don't understand the "we" in this question. If you're part of the MathSciNet team, please add a disclaimer.

@Blackhole It is in my profile.

I know, but questions and answers are supposed to be complete on their own, especially when they've make it to the HNQ. It's clearer that way for external visitors, plus you may not stay in MathSciNet team all you life.

@Blackhole, Usage of "we" is a sort of disclaimer.

source: Stack Exchange

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Chances of getting into PhD without any technical paper?
I am a bachelor pass out of 2018. Electrical background. Currently i am working in R&D in an automobile company for the past year. PhD is something I have always wanted to pursue (mainly because I want to be a professor). But the PhD scenario here in my country makes me really uneasy towards it. So pursuing it in Europe seems like the best option (lesser tuition fees than USA).
Now the main issue is that I don't have any technical publications. This is maybe just an excuse but during college i was mostly reinventing the wheel. So I never felt like I could write one. Although I have worked on so many different kind of projects that no matter the field, i have worked on it (at least as a beginner). I am working on some patents at my current job. But it'll be a while before i can apply for the patent.
So my question is, is there any chance I can get into doctorate program of any European college with no technical paper and just a bachelor's degree. And if not then is there a chance of getting into MS?
I looked at entry criteria into universities, but they generally don't mention anything about technical papers. Educational criteria are easier to find.

Most (if not all) of the people (even non-EU people) who I met doing a PhD in the UK has never had a publication before getting into the program, including me. However, I have the feeling that not having a masters is what will hinder your chances, not the lack of publications.

Europe consists of several countries with different educational systems.
Typically you should have a master's degree before applying for a PhD degree. I would suggest searching for opportunities to get a master's degree first. But there probably are exceptions: see point 1.
Not having publications is fine in the disciples I know of. If you have publications before a PhD, that makes you a very strong candidate. If not, then you are just like everyone else on that matter.

I can only speak for the UK, but I spent a few years in industry before my PhD, and although I did get a co-authorship in that time, the subject of publications never even came up. My masters (MPhys, so a 4-year first degree rather than an MSc) was relevant mainly for the paperwork. Instead what mattered was what I could bring to the PhD from my industrial (R&D) role.
It depends heavily on the supervisor: some will dismiss non-academic experience without a second thought, but those that work on projects with industry are much more willing to give some weight to the skills picked up in industry.  Unfortunately the undergrad->industry->PhD route is uncommon, so while your experience will be a benefit during a PhD, it may get in the way of some applications processes that don't expect you.  An MSc in comparison will be fairly easy to get into if you meet the academic criteria (and these may be lower in the first place)

Your chances of getting into some PhD program are not too bad (assuming that your transcripts are good). Getting into top programs is probably going to be more of a challenge without some outstanding credentials (publications, references from top researchers etc.), since the competition is really fierce. In these programs, the entry criteria are almost meaningless - most applicants easily pass them. However, you are competing against really qualified applicants, which means that even really good people do not get accepted.

Well i had 8.62(out of 10) commutative score. Is that good? And those "some" phd programs, are they worth it? Sorry if these questions seems a little redundant or generic but i have been reading on the net and i am trying to assess my actual situation while most sources that i have talk  in abstracts.

I can’t really answer that, you need to do your research. Check out potential advisors, research topics, funding opportunities etc.


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What are typical examples of "scholarly work"?
I am looking into applying to a teaching position at a liberal-arts institution. The application page asks for an example of scholarly work. What are good examples of scholarly work? For the sciences, is this like published articles?

Google does a good job of this along with the replies from our learned colleagues below. It is quite discipline specific rather than institution specific whether it be a liberal arts or other type of institution - https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Scholarly_work

“Scholarly work” in academia generally refers to papers and books, with potentially other forms of formally released output (e.g., patents, or source code on a public repository) being included. In the sciences this expression is slightly quaint and not often used, but can be useful when one wants to speak not just about one’s published papers but about a broader body of work that includes other things.
It’s also possible that some people would count other forms of written, but informal or less polished work (like a blog post, or your own highly prolific physics.se contributions), as “scholarly work”, but personally I wouldn’t, and generally I would be very careful about describing anything as scholarly work that I wasn’t sure the person I’m addressing would accept as such, particularly in a job application. (With that being said, your physics.se writing is really nice and says good things about you, so you should probably mention it somewhere, for example in your teaching statement).

I hadn't really considered mentioning my Physics SE writing. Thank you for that

@AaronStevens https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/61749/40589

For sciences, scholarly work means peer-reviewed publications.  Conference papers count if they are peer reviewed.
In other disciplines, it can mean different things.

Right. They might be writing broadly because a similar form is used by many departments. For instance, in some disciplines, they may curate a museum exhibit and produce a an exhibit catalogue (these are book-length). This would be a form of scholarly work.

This may be true for other universities but it is too narrow for Liberal Arts Colleges (in the US, anyway).

I just wrote an answer to a related question, from the point of view of a professor at a small liberal arts college (SLAC). I explained that, at a SLAC, "scholarly work" can be interpreted more broadly than in the answer by Anonymous Physicist. For sure, peer reviewed journal articles count as scholarly works. But, at my SLAC, the following also "count" (perhaps to a slightly lesser extent):

Unfunded grant proposals
Scholarship of teaching and learning (e.g., papers in PRIMUS)
Peer-reviewed expository writing
Textbooks for undergraduate courses
Other peer-reviewed teaching materials, like labs you could use to teach calculus using Sage, if it was part of an NSF grant and had to be hosted on a webpage somewhere.

I'm aware of other SLACs where the following count:

Blog posts
Appearances in/on media
Activism that uses your professional expertise
Non-peer-reviewed expository writing
Public service
Serving in the AMS or MAA (these are mathematical professional organizations)
Serving as an external reviewer for a department, a tenure case, a PhD thesis, etc.

I think Dan Romik is right that you should feel free to include patents, source code on public repositories like GitHub, and even contributions to StackExchange, as "scholarly activities." But if an application is asking "for an example of scholarly work" then it's best to give them a peer-reviewed, published research article in a good journal. The hiring committee is trying to assess if your scholarly program is strong enough to get tenure, so it's best to rely on the gold standard of a publication.

I had a colleague (UK Lecturer in Computer Science) recently define scholarly work as academic work not involving any new ideas, but new presentations and synthesis of established knowledge.
In particular, I believe they included:

(text)books
survey / overview / white papers on particular application domains, tools or research directions
(to a lesser extent) reviewing for journals

I actually can't remember if they included things such as editorial duties for journals in this or not, but this short list should give a good idea on what kinds of things they considered under "scholarly work".
This is very similar to Dan Romnik's answer but with "standard" papers explicitly excluded. To elaborate a bit more, my colleague placed scholarly work as an activity (with the outputs as listed above) falling between teaching (where the outputs are graduate students*) and research (where the outputs are peer-reviewed publications, newly developed technologies, etc.).
*I am not very fond of "graduate students" being called the output of teaching activities, however the general feeling one gets from UK University policies is that they are product and profit-oriented businesses (with tuitions as inputs and students with diplomas as an expected output), and less and less as charitable educational institutions which they are on paper.

The best example is some sort of research. In many such institutions the best research is something that undergraduates can participate in. In some fields such as math this is easier, requiring less in the way of equipment. In others it may be impossible other than by, say taking a leave to go to CERN for particle physics. But the research should result in some sort of writing, even if not up to the standards of top journals.
But at the other end of the scale is just "keeping up with the field" through reading and attendance (maybe with participation) at conferences. It can vary widely. In CS there are a number of regional conferences at which people participate. Most of the work done for these is about the teaching itself and how to do it effectively. They are very valuable as the field changes and grows.
At a somewhat higher level is participation in an internet based study group that works on some set of problems in the field collaboratively and may produce occasional papers. But the collaboration itself is valuable for people at such colleges as it gives you access to a wider range of ideas that you can bring back to the classroom, which is, likely, your most important task.
Running a study group on some topic with a couple of faculty and a few more advanced students is a good example. Read and discuss a few recent papers (or classic papers) and show the students how to approach learning about the arcana of the field.
In some fields even non-scholarly writing may be "scholarly". If you teach writing, then writing novels will probably do.
Becoming a popularizer of science and becoming known for it is usually recognized. Textbook writing - even workbook writing may be enough.
In the best case, you get to set the terms yourself by proposing a course of development to the administration and then following it.

Thanks for the many different examples. So then, if I were submitting "an example of scholarly work", what would this look like? Is it something I have already done that has something tangible that I can send in, or am I proposing examples of scholarly work I would participate in should I be in the position?

They are looking for what you have already done, I think. But you could also add a bit about future scholarly "goals".

This is nearly all wrong or irrelevant.

@AnonymousPhysicist I don't think you get to judge its relevance, at least. I found this answer relevant. It was also useful to get me thinking about what other ideas I can put in other parts of my application.

@AaronStevens Plans aren't worth the paper they are written on, unless there is some commitment to executing them.  Saying you plan to do X in future is worthless. Having an agreement for funding to do X in future is a different matter.

@AnonymousPhysicist, not for a Liberal Arts College. My teaching career started in the early1970's, so I have some knowledge of this.


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Are American universities letting international students start their PhDs from their home countries?
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, not only international traveling but also obtaining visas is very difficult and sometimes impossible, depending on the country. Are American universities accepting international students that are in such predicament and allowing them to work from home (in this case, their home country)?

This would be an individual thing. Some university might allow it in an individual case. You can ask, but it is fairly unlikely. Especially if you have only a bachelors degree.

@Buffy do you say it's fairly unlikely based on experience with similar requests or on your general experience of how the "system" works?

Just general experience (hence not an answer). A doctorate in US normally starts with coursework. That might make it easier if the courses are online (and the time difference can be managed). But ask.

My question was closed because "it strongly depends on individual factors". That is very vague and I tend to disagree. Also, the personal feedback has nothing to do with what I was looking for or with my wording of the question. Can it be reopened?

In general you will need a visa in order to get any of your tuition covered either by a fellowship, research funding, or teaching assistantship. Tuition without remission can be very expensive in the US, usually much larger than the stipend you actually end up being paid to live on.
My best guess is that if you are accepted, you can defer your start date until your visa comes through. This way you won't have to enroll and pay tuition before you can get "paid" by the university though tuition payments.
Also, your visa might come through! I moved internationally September 2020 for a postdoc, and all my paperwork came together in time. Neither the country I lived in last year nor the country I live in now are my home country of citizenship. Covid did cause some complications, but both governments were understanding, and in the end everything was approved.
Edited: check out the comments. Apparently some (maybe many?) universities ARE able to cover tuition without a visa! This wouldn't have been my guess, but that's great for international students! In any case, start talking to your dept. If they can cover you, great, if not, you'll still need to talk to them about the possibility/process of deferring.

Thanks for your answer. Indeed I was accepted but the American embassy in my country suspended all visa interviews, so I'm not even able to start the process of obtaining a visa right now.

I know of at least one university that allowed remote starts last fall (with tuition remission). Seems less likely by this fall, with most colleges I know of planning on full in-person activities.

@Libor - indeed, and the whole applying for a visa thing looks to be be very problematic. Situation normal, all confusing for the moment. Flexibility is likely, but bureaucrats are not known for it.


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Teaching load and hired by the hour in the Swedish academic system
I've been offered a teaching position for the Spring semester at a Swedish University. The teaching load is 220 hours and they suggested that I should be hired by the hour.

Does any of you know how much do 220 hours mean in terms of a full teaching load for a Universitetlektor?
Is there a difference in payment related to the "by the hour system"?

I think your questions should be directed to the Swedish University who offered you the job.

You right! I misunderstood the requirements of filling the empty field. I thought I was supposed to fill in my title.

For scaaahu: Of course I will clarify this with them. I am just trying to make a clearer picture from  multiple sources.

I have to disagree with the close votes, at it's current form (rev. 5 by Massimo Ortolano) I think the question is valid and in-scope for the site.

"Hiring by the hour" sounds a bit suspicious, and is in my experience not the usual way to do it. What is your subject area?

@posdef I agree with posdef: I think this question should not be closed unless somebody who actually knows Sweden says this is too localized: this may be standard practices for Sweden that those of us who don't know its academic system just don't know about.

@mrf i believe the "hired by the hour" here means that he'll be paid by the hour, instead of a fix monthly salary. But again 220 times X is still a monthly salary. It's possible that there's a misunderstanding somewhere.

This might be more appropriate for http://expatriates.stackexchange.com/, who might know more about how a "by the hour" system works in Sweden.

Thank you all for comments, answers and insight. I've been talking to the person in charge there and things are like this: it is a temp job, those 220 hours are so-called "semester hours" which consist of 23 hours of physical teaching in classroom, 40 hours of teaching online (on a virtual platform) and the rest of the hours are dedicated to preparation, paper supervision and exams.

@Marius Could you write that as an answer?

I've been teaching at a Swedish University, for many years.  When they allocate you 220 hours, they normally mean that it's kind of like a fixed contract.  They normally don't micro-manage you and you'll be paid for 220 hours (if you work a bit more or a bit less), whereas a full-time year is about 1740 hours.
However, they told you the work would be paid hourly, so in your case, it seems that you can work up to 220 allocated hours, and you'll be paid for just how many hours you work.  A trick is, when you see that the work will take more hours, if you can document a really good reason, they may or may not allocate more hours.

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text:
Should I choose someone as one of my references while I also have applied to his group?
I just faced a funny, yet complicated situation!
I want to apply for postdoc positions, and one of my references would be a professor that I had a good collaboration with his group during my PhD. However, I ran into him a few days ago and informally asked if he has any available position in his lab. He said that he is too busy now but likes to sit together and talk about it 4 weeks from now!
Although I liked the idea, it'd be too risky for me to wait that long until I see if our meeting could result in a position or not. So, I want to proceed with my position search meanwhile!
The issue is that I'm not sure how the professor would see it (or react) If anyone contacts him as one of my references for my postdoc applications! Even I am not sure how to tell him that want to add him to my reference list! In fact, I am afraid to lose the chance of working with him as well as his positive recommendation for my applications?
BTW, If it helps, the country is Germany, and the field is computer science!

Since you seem to know him pretty well, you might think about just asking him. He knows you need a position and that he might not be able to give you one. Yet he supports you, I think. You also would prefer to work with him. As long as all of that is clear and in the open and can be stated, it seems fine to ask for a recommendation.
But that is the sort of conversation to have face to face, I think. It might not be possible to do that as he is busy, of course, so you might have to resort to email. But if you do, lay it all out so that he understands you are applying for a "backup" situation in case he can't hire you.
But if any part of my analysis is faulty, you might need to be more cautious and omit him as a reference for now. You can ask again later if nothing current bears fruit.

Yes, he would be my preferred choice if it'd be possible. But the difficult part for me is how to tell him the above such that he doesn't get any misinterpretation! I do not want to sound like "I don't count on our meeting about the position" or "you also could be my backup plan!", etc. However, he is a nice, and mature person.

Don't make him the backup. The other is your backup but...deadlines... Make that clear. But if he is too busy he may not be able to write you a timely letter anyway.

They generally ask for reference contacts. I assumed they call or email the references and ask them for some email-based or oral recommendation with less work than writing a formal letter, I think. However, if he gives me the OK, then I send him a suggested draft to make it easier for him.

Also, I need to put him there as the position need 3 references, and he would be the third reference that I can rely on for an effective recommendation, I hope.


text:
How to handle getting offers from two PhD supervisors who know each other?
The problem: I have a professor that accepted me to take on a thesis when i'm ready but another one offered me one also. The second one did it while the first professor was in the room and I felt the obligation to deny it, even though we have way better communication with the second one.
Both of them know each other very well (they even have neighboring offices) and denying one of them will complicate things and the worst case is that none of them will give me a thesis because I will seem too selfish.
The question:
How can I choose the second one (if the offer is still on) without making a mess?

Jeez, they're just people. Talk to them.

@JeffE Professors are scary ogres who should be worshipped and feared from afar. Actually communicating with them might turn you to stone...

@Suresh You've got it the wrong way round - if you can't get your way, just threaten to open the curtains, for the daylight will turn them to stone! Anna K - good students are a commodity. Professors will compete for them. It's good that you have choices! It sounds like no serious commitment has been made yet, so any professor who makes a big deal of you switching isn't one you would want to work for anyway.

I recently posted a question about being on the other side of this scenario - a professor in my university offered to take on a student who had already agreed to work with me (and had been working with me for the previous year already).
You'll notice from reading that question and its responses that while I was a bit annoyed with the professor, I wasn't upset with the student. In fact, I advised the student to choose the advisor he thought would be best for him, and gave him a good recommendation to the other professor in case that's what he chose.
That's because the student is supposed to act in his/her own best interest (while still being responsible and professional, of course). It's not being selfish, it's being smart.
The first professor shouldn't get upset with you for pursuing an opportunity that is better for you - if he/she does, then you really don't want to work with someone like that, anyways.
So, go talk to the second professor: "I was thinking some more about your offer to advise me on my thesis and I have reconsidered my original decision. Is the offer still available?"
If he/she says yes, accept the offer and go talk to the first professor: "I really appreciate your offer to advise me on my thesis, but I've decided to work with X instead. Thanks, again."

I strongly agree with this answer.  Remember: an adviser losing a student (in whom they've invested time) is an annoyance and a cost, but it is easily absorbable by the adviser in the long run.  On the other hand, picking the correct adviser has a massive impact on the career of the student.  It is implicit in the informal contract between student and adviser that, so long as the student is always honest with their adviser, the student will make career decisions in their own best interest.  Stay far away from any adviser who would harm your career for their own gain.

[I am assuming that you are in the American system where PhD students are admitted to and funded by the program as a whole rather than any particular advisor.  I can't speak for the etiquette in other systems.]
I don't really see a problem here at all.  At any time you can work with any faculty advisor who will have you.  Switching advisors may seem awkward from the student perspective, but in fact it is very common.  If you haven't even started working with one advisor, then no time has been invested in the advising relationship, and you can start working with someone else without any qualms whatsoever.  (Even after you have started working with one advisor, you can still switch at any time, but if you've worked with one advisor for a while then it does start to feel a bit awkward.  Sometimes one must do awkward things...)
If the two professors know each other well, then of course they will find out about it, yes, but it should not be embarrassing or problematic for them: it's just the way things work.  If you are sure that you want to work with the second professor, talk to the second professor to make sure that this offer is still on the table.  Then accept it and immediately tell the first professor that your plans have changed.  No biggie.

It's not the american system. The professor has to accept you and you are his responsibility not the university's.

@Anna: I see.  Please edit your geographic information into your question, and I will delete this answer.

This helps, no need to delete. I'm looking for a more personal perspective that points out the dangers/stepbacks and maybe how they overcame them.

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How to check whether a journal is still listed in Scopus?
In the time when I submitted a paper to a journal " Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology", ISSN:  2040-7459, they indicated in their website that the journal is indexed in scopus but now is not, so i checked scimagojr.com for information and i found that the Coverage is: 2009-2014.
How do you check whether a journal is still listed in scopus?

[UPDATE : 2018]
Not sure if the solution i am proposing existed when the question was asked, but just for the sake of update :
I guess the easiest way to check if a journal is indexed in Scopus or not is by using their search engine, you can search by ISSN or name of the journal.
Here is a link where i search for the journal you are looking for :
.    Search request in Scopus of the ISSN : 2040-7459

The entry for this journal in Scopus lists "from 2009 to 2015" - it records 307 papers from 2015. The last issue they have indexed is vol. 10 issue 12, and they have not as yet indexed any 2016 papers.
The "to 2015" description seems to be standard for currently indexed journals; for example, Nature is listed as "1869 to 2015" despite being very much still alive. It doesn't automatically mean the journal has stopped being indexed - but the fact that Scopus does not list any 2016 papers yet does seem to suggest that it has stopped being indexed.
Note that Maxwell appears on Beall's list of potentially predatory publishers; while there are many caveats about Beall's work, it's certainly something to take note of.

Scopus provide a spreadsheet of journals which they index, or have indexed in the past. It is linked from this page. I have downloaded the spreadsheet, and in your case, the journal is specifically highlighted as no longer being indexed as they "do not meet the Scopus quality criteria anymore and therefore Scopus discontinued the forward capturing". However, if your paper was published in the range of time that the journal was indexed (2009-2015 according to the same spreadsheet), then it will still be in Scopus. You can confirm this by searching for it in the index.
The same Scopus page indicates that if you cannot find a journal in that spreadsheet, you can try searching Scopus for the name of the journal to see if any recent material has been indexed. As a last resort, you can contact Scopus.


text:
Is it appropriate for a student to have an advisor who is also a family member?
We know that family can have a lot of impact on academic direction of a student, but is it appropriate for a student to have a supervisor/advisor who is also a family member? For example, a dad might supervise their son. What would make this more or less appropriate? What conditions might be required to make this appropriate?

conflict of interest?

Sure, I know examples. What is the question?

There is a case of an electrical engineering professor who was at University of Washington (he is now a "Professor in Residence" at UC Berkeley) who co-authored several papers with a younger student of his with the same last name. Their last name is not very common, and I've always assumed they were related (father/daughter), but I do not know for sure.

I'd think there would be plenty of ways to go around such issues, e.g. get another member of staff as supervisor.

I've edited the question to focus on the implicit question. I.e., when and whether it is appropriate. The question of whether there has ever been a case of familial supervision is not especially relevant as the obvious answer is yes, there has been a case.

parents tend to be proud of their children...Maybe opinions about the quality of the work are biased

Surprised no one has mentioned the Bernoulli Family.  Particularly, Nicolaus I studied under Jacob Bernoulli.  Of course, this is purely historical and probably has little bearing on this question, but it is interesting and (semi) on-topic.

Counterexamples notwithstanding, the practice certainly raises all sorts of questions about conflicts of interest: is the adviser providing unbiased advice, is the adviser unbiased in their assessment of the academic proficiency of the candidate, is the advisee independent to choose their research direction, etc.
In cases like this, nobody looks good -- people wonder about the judgment of the adviser, they wonder about the actual quality of the candidate if papers are jointly written, and they wonder about what's going on in the department to let such things happen. As a consequence, people and departments are generally well advised not to let this happen, simply because the perception of a conflict of interest is oftentimes just as bad as the actuality of something improper happening.

+1 for the important point none of the rest of us made about perception being as bad as reality.

My current funding agency has explicit rules against this kind of stuff..

I'm sure that such cases might happen (and frequently do for earlier education, like elementary school), but they should not happen at the graduate student level.
All of the usual concerns of nepotism and coercion apply, just as for any other professional relationship.  Moreover, at the graduate level, there are so many different options available and an emphasis placed on intellectual "cross-fertilization" that means most institutions strongly prefer to send their students elsewhere for future positions.  I cannot then see how a graduate student supervised by their own parent would be anything but a rather dubious relationship at multiple levels.

I'm pretty sure I know a father who had his son as a master's student. The son went elsewhere for his PhD.

I was specifically told I would not be allowed to attend my father's class as a grad student at the Master's program I went to. I'm sure there's less of a conflict with advising, but still, the thought of a dadvisor bending the rules a bit more is a bit concerning, so I wouldn't recommend it.

@compass +1 for "dadvisor". That's great.

Yes, I happen to know a researcher in country A supervising his own wife's PhD :)
They are both from country B, and come from the same city. He was her lecturer during her undergraduate in that city. He then moved to country A, and they had been dating before she started her PhD in his institution.
After they had got married, she changed to another supervisor. During her PhD, she published 8 papers: her husband was the first author in 7 of them, and the second author in the 8th (in which she was the first author). The new supervisor only co-authored 3 papers. So I guess, he continued to mentor her even after she had changed supervisor.
She graduated last year, and seems to have a good job in industry, according to her Linkedin profile. He is now director of research in his institution, having published more than 100 papers. Their baby is also nearly one year old now.
A is one of the most developed countries in Europe. B is also in Europe, but not in the level of A.

Yes, I know one which did not even change the supervisor after the marriage.

Why did you mask the countries with A and B? It's possible that this is completely cultural, and knowing those countries would be of value to your answer. You didn't mention any last names, so I don't think there's any need to mask the countries.

@ChrisCirefice I don't think this is cultural, I don't know any other similar cases. I listed two separated countries to let you know that they are from the same hometown, and have known each other for a very long time. If I reveal the countries, people may guess his name. I don't think there are many researchers from country B who are working at A, and have published more than 100 papers.

Fact just for fun:
Actually, this question reminds me the story of the Curie family.
Irène Joliot-Curie, a Nobel laureate, supervised both of her children, who are also notable scientists.
Irène herself was supervised by Paul Langevin, grandfather-in-law of her daughter, former lover of her mother, and former Phd student of her father. What a complicated relationship.

Those were times! ;-)

I can see why some might raise an eyebrow at this arrangement – from both perspectives. Other students might wonder if the thesis student is getting preferential treatment. Other faculty might wonder if the advisor is applying the same standards of rigor.
I think this might be avoided if the parent (or other relative) offered to serve on the committee, but not take on the role of primary advisor. If my daughter was in graduate school and asked me to be her advisor, that's probably what I would recommend: "I'll be on your committee, but you'll have to find someone else to be your main advisor."
That said, people are citing counterexamples; evidently, the practice is not universally verboten. So long as the research is quality reseach that withstands any scrutiny, I suppose it can be made to work. However, if the student is coasting along with research of marginal quality, this has potential to backfire.
Back to the hypothetical between me and my daughter: if I were to agree to such an arrangement, I'd want to be very sure she could do some outstanding research independently, to ward off any conflict-of-interest allegations.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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Do graduate schools care more about my grades in math courses or my general GPA?
I'm currently a junior in mathematics at UIUC. I have been doing pretty well in my math courses (mostly A and A+). I will be completing a graduate course in topology, a second course in abstract algebra, and a complex analysis course before I graduate.  I feel that I can work hard to maintain good grades in my math courses, but my non-math courses are not that good (some B and C's).

Do graduate schools care more about my math courses grades more or my general GPA more?
Will poorer marks in non-math courses hurt my chances of getting into good grad schools?

Let just consider the GPA aspect only because that's the only thing I'm worried about.

My experience with graduate admissions is that most people only care about your math grades.  The only time I've heard people bring up other grades is if there is a concern that the applicant does not speak English well enough to be successful in our program, and I cannot recall it ever being the decisive factor (context: I'm the chair of graduate admissions in the math department at my university).

Thanks, I spend too much time studying math, and I don't even bother trying to study for my music, history classes at all, and I'm not doing too well in those courses, but I'm doing decently in my math courses. Perhaps, that makes me feel less worried.

GPA in qualifying degree is mostly seen while shortlisting the similar/equally weighted applications.

What do you think?

@QuangDao Just to be explicit. What do you want to do in graduate school? Do you want to do a PhD or masters in mathematics or do you want to do something else?

(I am a tenured professor in the math department at UGA who was on the committee that did graduate admissions for four years.)
If we have to make a choice, then math graduate programs definitely care more about your math GPA than your undergraduate GPA.  We also care, equally, that you take the most challenging and graduate-preparatory math courses that can.  So a math GPA which is close to 4.0 including year long courses in analysis and algebra, some exposure to geometry and/or topology and at least one graduate course would make you a strong candidate for most graduate programs in mathematics.  Certainly one or two subpar grades in other courses are easy to ignore.
Having said that, it would still be better if you got good grades in all your courses, and admissions programs do care about that to an extent.  [Added: Wait, I didn't say exactly what I meant here.  Not good grades in all your courses, but good grades in most of your courses, as reflected by a good GPA.  We will almost never look at individual course grades outside of mathematics and very closely related fields.]  Here are some reasons:
1) If you have across the board difficulty with courses in the humanities and social sciences, then that signifies either a lack of linguistic or writing skills or an inability to focus on a single topic (generally you spend longer writing a paper than doing a single problem set, and the paper itself is one big task whereas the problem set is a collection of largely independent smaller tasks).  But skills in language and writing and the ability to focus on a single topic both play a larger role in the study of mathematics at the graduate level (and beyond) than the undergraduate level.  This kind of poor performance would be exacerbated by a subpar GRE verbal score, and conversely a high GRE verbal score would partially offset it.
2) Some academic scholarships take your overall GPA into account.  At my university eligibility for the highest class of internal graduate scholarship is determined by the student's "academic index", which is calculated using their GRE scores and overall GPA.  This may be a more extreme situation than the norm, but in my experience many if not most scholarship winners are students of the bulletproof credentials variety.
3) In line with the above, you have to remember that the graduate admissions process is highly competitive.  Most math PhD programs in the US only admit students who are fully funded, and therefore by no means could we admit all fully qualified applicants.  (Even without funding it is clear that finiteness conditions on the faculty, the course offerings, the facilities and so forth must impose an upper limit.)  So if for instance you have a 3.8 math GPA and 3.0 general GPA, you will almost certainly be ranked ahead of candidates with a 3.0 math GPA and a 3.8 general GPA (assuming other factors, mainly the difficulty of courses and the quality of recommendation letters) are equal.  But you will be ranked behind some students with a 3.8 math GPA and a 3.8 general GPA.  Such students exist, and it only makes sense to take this information into account.
My best advice to you is to realize that your overall GPA counts for something and therefore do whatever you can to get strong grades in all your courses without sacrificing your efforts in your mathematics courses.  Something that you might want to think about: why are you not doing as well in your non-math courses as you are in your math courses?  I can't think of an answer that wouldn't point the way to room for improvement.  Some possible answers:

English is not your first language, and your reading / writing skills place you at a serious disadvantage in certain courses.

This is a very particular situation.  If you're in it, you should take pains to demonstrate that your English skills are good enough.  Probably you should take and do well on the TOEFL or similar exams.  You should also mention in your personal statement that English is not your first language but have the English in your personal statement be flawless.  The point is that if you're a foreigner and you're English is okay but not as good as the natives, then as time passes it will get better and be less of an issue.  Also a C grade in, say, a Shakespeare class by a non-native speaker has a totally different meaning from the same grade by a native speaker.  The admissions panel will cut you some slack for that provided they believe that your English skills are good enough for you to be successful in the program.

You think it is not possible to give the attention you need to your math coursework as well as your general education requirements.

It certainly is possible.  The students who are winning the Putnam, taking graduate courses in their sophomore year, publishing solo papers in serious journals...are usually also excelling at all their courses.  My own view, which I think is probably shared by many math admissions committee members, is that advanced math courses are much harder than general education requirements.  If you read the assigned materials, can think and write clearly, and give yourself enough time to write suitably and according to the requirements of the assignment, you'll get good grades in these courses.  It does not even necessarily take more time to get an A- in a humanities class than a B-: it's more a matter of having your act together.  (In math courses I have seen students stretch themselves to their limit to get a C and actually been quite proud of their achievement.)

You haven't mastered the skills necessary to succeed in writing-intensive courses.

As above: you should work on this before you get to grad school.

You don't take these courses seriously and didn't realize that graduate schools do.

Well, we do.  Most academics take all academics seriously: generically speaking we are "overachiever types" across the board.  If you look through the profiles of award-winning undergraduates, you will usually see that they graduated summa cum laude, at the top of their class, as a student marshall...whatever is the local form of highest honors.  Success in one academic discipline is undeniably positively correlated with success in another academic discipline.  This is far from logical necessity, but it's out there and we do take it into account.
Added: Since I wrote this answer, I became the Graduate Coordinator for the math department at UGA.  So this topic is much more vivid in my mind now.  Here's what I can report: most applicants have very good GPAs.  The median undergraduate GPA (all classes) of all our applicants this year is around 3.7.  I dug a little deeper, and among American students there is a high correlation between undergraduate GPA and other metrics (including various GRE scores).  Let me also say that we looked specifically for candidates with very low GPAs but did not reject any for this reason alone. Interestingly, many of the (not many) applicants with very low undergraduate GPAs also had not great undergrad performances in math but had nevertheless gone on to a master's program (not at Princeton...) and put up a much more respectable graduate performance.  The brilliant math student who blows off all their other classes is indeed not much seen by us.

@QuangDao: The bottom line is that all classes do matter to a nonzero extent, even if not as much as math classes. If you get an F in a class, it certainly says something if almost everyone else passes, assuming that there has been no unfair bias against you. Try not to be an extremum.

@QuangDao: Graduate school, for the most part, is training to be a professor.  We all know one or two (but not more) colleagues in our university who has no respect for mathematics.  We wouldn't want to inflict on our historian colleagues a future math professor who has no respect for the study of history.  (Besides, a little historical understanding can help you get some history of mathematics, and hence some mathematics, straight.)  A significant disparity in grades, unexplained by other factors, might be a sign of an unwelcome contempt for other subjects.

An addendum to "English skills ... good enough for you to be successful in the program": In this context, success usually means not only learning mathematics and doing research but also working as a teaching assistant. The English skills needed to communicate with beginning students tend to exceed those needed to understand lectures, confer with advisers, and work with fellow grad students.

@AlexanderWoo — Graduate school, for the most part, is training to be a professor — [citation needed]

"Bulletproof credentials", indeed.

I've done graduate admissions for a while at a... well, suffice it to say, "higher ranked" (whatever that means) school than UGA. No, I don't care if your grades in "Poetry for Perfectoids" suck, or "Machiavelli for Morons". Just please don't have your grades in statistics (i.e. graduate level probability, etc.) classes that suck if you say you're interested in working in probability in your statement, etc. By and large people in my department on graduate admissions share my philosophy, and many of my coauthors at similarly ranked schools feel the same way, although your mileage may vary depending on who specifically reads your application.
EDIT: My goal in posting  on this site is to communicate helpful answers without having to deal with couching in my answers in politically correct nonsense. The last time I had my name attached to one of my answers on a certain practice in the profession (not on this site, but elsewhere on the internet), I got tons of nonsense I did not want to deal with for not couching my answer in a more politically correct fashion. How many times must one qualify their answers so that their younger and supposedly more empathetic towards students colleagues find it acceptable? So that is why I am anonymous on this site.
When I mean "I don't care" here, it means that it does not affect an applicant adversely, for the purposes of admissions or likelihood of receiving the more selective extra money you alluded to if their non-math GPA is lower (bar the exceptional cases I mentioned above). Conversely, if you have a perfect non-math GPA, great, more power to you, but it won't really affect my decision to admit/reject, give you the extra money, etc. And yes, while most people we admit have great track records all across the board, we do quite frequently admit those with crappy grades in non-math courses.

This is a good example of an answer that would be a lot more useful if it weren't anonymous.  And I'm not sure I understand what "I don't care" means here.  I would be willing to bet that overall undergraduate GPA of math PhD students correlates positively with the prestige of their department.  I would expect most serious candidates at top departments to have sufficiently high GPA that it is not helpful to compare them.  But do you really admit many students who are just scraping by on their graduation requirements?...

...All of a sudden I am reminded of Richard Feynman's biography: the folks at Princeton had never seen better grades and scores in math and science and rarely seen worse grades in everything else.  According to the biography, this did give them some pause...and this for a student whose subject area skills were truly exceptional.

Also please note the added I just put in my answer.  I said we wanted all the grades to be good but I didn't mean it.  Indeed if the only two classes in which you got poor grades were the two you mentioned, we almost certainly won't even see it.

@PeteL.Clark In light of your comments, I've also added to my answer.

I appreciate the added information.  Indeed there may be some differences between graduate admissions at a top 50 university and a top N university where N \leq 20.  I also personally place a very strong importance on general education at the undergraduate level, so I do not claim that everyone around me feels exactly the same way.  But I do think that the difference between success and failure of a student in a program like mine rests more in their general academic skills than where their mathematical talents and achievements lie on the scale from strong to amazing.

That very much depends on the local situation. It is impossible to give a general answer. Each committee member will have her own weighting criteria, then they discuss each case, and end up in some consensus.

So if I screw up, for example, my music and history classes, that means I don't have the ability to study higher math, even though I get A+'s in my topology, algebra, analysis courses?

@QuangDao no. But for top places you will be competing with others with A+ in the same courses, the differences will be elsewhere.

I am not looking to join the top 10, for me, from 20-30 is good enough, or even 40-50

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