text:
If most universities in the U.S are non-profit, why are they so expensive?
Tuition can easily get in the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars for a 4-year degree. This is unarguably many times over what the university needs to cover the costs of offering their services. Why is this the case if they are usually run under a non-profit architecture?
Where is all this money going?

This is unarguably many times over what the university needs to cover the costs of offering their services. [Citation needed]

@Corvus Bad assumption aside, understanding the economics is, I think, a quite legitimate question.

You would be surprised to learn that tuition is not a major income source for some expensive, high class research schools. For example: http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html MIT self reports only 10% of revenue from tuition. So clearly, tuition is not enough to cover costs!

@JPJanet MIT does a lot more then just teach fee paying undergraduates.

@YasmaniLlanes I was not the down-voter, but you are substantially underestimating the costs of running a university. Despite large tuition increases, every public R1 schools I know well loses money on every in-state student. In the past, state governments have heavily subsidized tuition, but this is no longer the case in most states. As a result, schools have to make up the difference from high out-of-state tuition.

@Strongbad Sure, most of the money is spent on research. However, the tuition revenue is about half of their expenses attributable to teaching. Though this is still misleading as I believe there are many more grad students (who also take some courses) and whose tuition is mostly subsidized. But still, the tuition is not "unarguably many times over what the university needs to cover the costs of offering their services"

@JPJanet "However, the tuition revenue is about half of their expenses attributable to teaching." [citation needed!]
In the page linked to, instruction cost is lumped with "unfunded research", so you can't get the actual number there.

In the UK, the government actually finances university study with interest-free loans with easy payback terms, which has led to a massive increase in the number of people going to university. You don't even need decent qualifications, as most universities are now New Universities, which have no real entry requirements, beyond 'life experience'. From there, it's simple supply and demand. The demand is much higher, but the scarcity of resources is the same, so the price will naturally soar.

Is it possible to migrate the upvoted answers below to the "duplicate" question?

I think that education in US, even in non-profit institutions, is expensive, because colleges and universities can charge basically whatever amounts they want, a practice, to a significant degree, IMHO prompted by trying to stay competitive by overspending on amenities, many of which are very remote to the nature of education and learning. Of course, there are significant costs, some of which are appropriate, such as salaries for faculty and staff, equipment for labs, some research programs and other reasonable expenses. Having said that, I believe that some of the expenses are over-inflated, such as (too) nice and fancy campuses and buildings, top administrative and executive compensation, research labs and programs that don't produce significant enough output, sports and other over-spending sources. That is not to say that tuition and fees cover all those expenses - universities traditionally rely on various financial sources in addition to tuition and fees (see the last link below). Of course, the above is just my somewhat naive (but, hopefully, not so far from reality) interpretation or, rather, impression of the complex ecosystem of higher education.
More details on the topic can be found on Wikipedia (i.e., see this section and this article) and other resources (i.e., this article). In the popular press, there is no shortage of opinions, both blaming colleges and universities for exponential increase of the cost of education as well as defending their actions and situation. Those interested in a more comprehensive economic analysis of the subject, can be referred to a significant amount of existing academic research, such as this thesis.

This is a very good answer that hits on most of the key points. I'd stress that there has not only been an increase in highly paid administrators, but also a huge increase in the number of administrative positions, while faculty positions have stayed roughly constant in number (but often switching from tenure track to less expensive non-tenure track lines.)

@Corvus: Thank you for kind words. I agree with your emphasis. It seems that institutions try to optimize (read: cut) costs not where IMHO they should (that is, in secondary areas), but in exactly opposite and critical for education quality dimension. At the same time, they increase spending in non-essential (for education quality) areas, as we both mentioned.

"...because colleges and universities can charge basically whatever amounts they want...". I agree with this statement if the words "within certain limits" are added. However, I think it deserves further elaboration. Since you are obviously very familiar with the issues, why do you think this is the case? I believe the economic term for this is "inelastic".

@FaheemMitha: While my answer, of course, does not imply the infinite charging, it is not clear what the word certain in your clarifying phrase "within certain limits" really means. I don't see much certainty in charges and the limits seem to be more based on the overall market's pricing situation, even for non-profit institutions. I wouldn't say that I'm more familiar with the topic than many other people, I was sympathetic to solving this problem (as other social issues), hence my answer. As for the term "inelastic", perhaps, it fits, but I don't think it fully reflects underlying reasons.

Tuition rates have grown much faster than inflation over the past decades; most estimates show that they've more than doubled -- after adjusting for inflation! -- in the past 30 years.
There seems to be a large body of evidence and broad consensus supporting the idea that a disproportionate increase in the number and/or salaries of university administrators is responsible for this growth.  A quick Google search turns up hundreds of articles, many of which link to the primary data.  This trend seems to be global.  A few examples, of which I suggest reading at least the first:

The Real Reason College Tuition Costs so Much, from the New York Times (April 2015)
The Fall of the Faculty, an entire book devoted to this thesis
Growth of administration in the University of California system: The number of FTE administrators was equal to faculty in 1991; now it is more than double.
Booming university administrations, in which Bjorn Brembs points out that the German university system has more than 2 administrators for each professor.
Article in the Wall Street Journal
Forbes article about the U. Texas system

This list could go on for a long time, but you get the idea.  There are other theories; here is one opposing point of view.
I was happily surprised to see that my own institution's budget for next year adds about 15% to research and education (we are growing), while decreasing the budget for administration and finance by about 8%!  But we have an unusual President, whose priorities are in the right place.  And we don't charge tuition.

An interesting perspective, but it should be noted that you are merely identifying how tuition money is spent, not why it tuition in general is increasing.  Heuristically, tuition has increased due to economic incompetence by Baby Boomers and their children and their complicity in driving the funding model of attaining a college education into credit avenues, State controlled expropriation and false price triggers

Another factor that hasn't received adequate emphasis here is the withdrawal of state government support for higher education. See e.g. http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HigherEd-fig2.png

@Corvus That is discussed quite directly in the NYT article (which debunks it) and the "opposing viewpoint" that I linked, as well as in some of the other links.

@DavidKetcheson I saw that claim in the NY Times article, but writing it in a newspaper doesn't automatically make it true. I am all too familiar with the strain that a school suffers when the state legislature makes huge cuts to the higher education funding but still tries to cap tuition and out-of-state admissions.

There is a long list of possible answers to the question, and different answers will apply to different schools. Cal State LA is not the same as USC, although neither is a for-profit entity. Not all universities in the US are expensive. Some have big endowments and some do not. Some nonprofit universities are private, and some are public. For the public ones, the level at which the cost is set is based on how willing the voters are to pay for the system. Here are some general answers:

The more expensive schools are competing against each other to provide the best amenities, such as rock-climbing walls. This is described in more detail in Aleksandr Blekh's answer.
As described in David Ketcheson's answer, many schools are topheavy with administrators.
Being cheap can, counterintuitively, be a competitive disadvantage in attracting students. Affluent parents may figure that if school A costs $50,000 a year, and B costs $25,000, then B must not be as good.
At many private schools, there is an expectation that nobody will actually pay full tuition. What you actually pay is based on your ability to pay.
Students have opinions about where they want to go to school, but the bills may be paid by the parents, not the students. Or if the students are paying, they may be using loans, so the money doesn't seem real to them.
Education is seen as a public good, and therefore there is a tendency for government to subsidize it in various ways, such as tax-advantaging college savings funds or Pell grants. These subsidies distort the market and raise prices. Although the question is about nonprofits, the extreme examples of this are for-profit schools such as the scandal-ridden Everest College, which had an absurd cost-to-value ratio.
In fields like science and education, research activities act as a subsidy to the school, since the school charges funding agencies an overhead as part of grant funding. However, research in some other fields may be a net loss for the school.
Similarly, some sports programs may produce net revenue for the school, while others are a net loss. This is controversial and hard to measure. E.g., you can't tell whether USC's football program causes alumni to feel connected to the school and therefore donate money.
Some subjects are just expensive to teach. For example, undergraduate physics labs are expensive to run, but they're needed as a service to other departments such as engineering.

Haha! Market economics and myths about degrees and particular institutions, and crucially the value of networking in professional life after university.
In reality much smaller, flatter structures than universities could provide the same (or better) standard of tertiary education.  A lot of the seminars could possibly be done by skyping or hiring a cheap room locally.  Lectures (if indeed they are ever genuinely needed) could be delivered by YouTube.  This wouldn't prevent the possibility of social interaction with other students.
For most subjects these days, most learning is self-learning, done by reading books (and of course use of the Net).
What you are paying for is NOT quality of education, NOT face-time with your teachers and NOT lectures (you could get that info more efficiently by reading).  Contrary to myth, the value of university is not even about "having a good time"/"so much more than education".
In reality you are paying for a piece of paper which says "Yale" or "London University" or whatever, and the value of that piece of paper is that potential employers regard it as a badge of seriousness, not of education.
The other thing you're paying for is to make friends.  The idea is that subsequently they and/or you become moderately successful and help one another out.
And the level of the fees? They charge whatever they can get away with. Everything is now "marketised" (already in the Anglo-Saxon world, and the rest of the world will have to follow suite).  Even if they didn't spend the money on staff salaries they would find ways: advertising and branding, preposterously expensive research facilities, Hadron coliders, sabbaticals... the list is endless: university managers are creative people in one way at least.

This rant is not an answer to the question. stackexchange is not a forum to vent anger or freely exchange opinions.

there speaks the voice of vested interest


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Is it a common practice for reviewers to recommend their own papers in the review?
I am reviewing a paper on a topic on which I have published some work previously as an author. While going through this current paper as a reviewer, I felt I could recommend my paper on the similar topic, which addresses a particular point better than in the paper I am reviewing. My question in this regard is whether in such conditions it's a common practice for a reviewer to recommend their own paper?

This is a delicate issue.

On the one hand, a reviewer is most familiar with their own work, and will certainly know if their work is relevant to the paper that they are reviewing.
On the other hand, it can feel like a crass "citation for publication" trade.

The way that I typically approach it is to only recommend citation of my own work if I am also finding it appropriate to recommend citation of other related work at the same time.
Put another way: if the hole in their literature review is "me," then I find it likely that I'm wishing they cited me because of personal bias and my own ego.  If the hole in their literature review is "me and a whole bunch of other things like me," then I find it likely that it's a legitimate gap and it's OK to recommend my work as part of the set of things to fill said gap.

Thanks for your suggestion. In case I decide to "suggest" my work, do I directly suggest them to cite my article by naming it as xyz et al. (2013)? I know you answered the question, but I am unsure about how to approach it if I decide to go ahead

@Pupil Yes -- whatever you do, don't make yourself identifiable in your report.

@FedericoPoloni, some people sign their review reports, so while this is a reasonable suggestion for most folks, it also depends a lot on culture, stature, and the venue in question.

Indeed, if the situation meets the crition "me and lotsa others", then one's identity can be masked to a perhaps-sufficient degree by mentioning all of these, and in alphabetical order, etc.

Perhaps pointing to the section of the paper that is relevant would increase the likelihood of the original author seeing the significance rather than seeing it as a cite-to-publish? On the other hand, that would probably increase their suspicion that you are the referee.

I think your criterion is too strong and there are other cases when it's reasonable or even necessary for you (as a reviewer) to suggest that your own work be cited. For example if your paper is already well cited and the connection to the reviewed paper is very strong and the missing citation would mislead readers.

Some times "you" are the only one who has tackled the relevant question or data before, or "you" might be the only one of those few who have who is not cited in the paper. This has happened to me - more than once (this is, of course, the reason why the editor sent the papers to me in the first place). Under these conditions, there's nothing wrong in pointing the author to your own papers without recommending the works of many other people as well.

@SashoNikolov If it's that well-cited and strong, there's almost certainly "cousin" papers out there by others that you should also be recommending.

I'd also add that reviewers are often chosen for their expertise, so are more likely to be producing relevant research compared to a random draw.

The metric I use is the same as for everything else I do when refereeing a manuscript: Would I make the suggestion to the authors face as a non-anonymous referee?  How would the authors feel if they knew it came from me?  Would they think I was trolling for citation, or would they think they missed an important paper for discussion?
Probably, if the manuscript tells a complete story and has a fair picture of the state of the literature without it, I probably would not bring up my own paper in a review.  If my paper were seminal in the field, and the authors missed it, then I'd probably bring it up. Oddly enough, papers I tend to recommend during review are not my own, usually.

Is it a common practice for reviewers to recommend their own papers in the review?

While this is likely to vary by discipline, in my field/subfield (electrical engineering/circuits and signal processing), reviewers recommending that one of their papers be cited in the revised manuscript is fairly common.
Now, this does not mean that the authors are obligated to include the reference in their revised manuscript. But, as a reviewer, if you have authored a paper that is highly relevant to the paper under review, I think it's helpful to the field if these links to other relevant works are established.
Coincidentally, I have found out about other related works in closely-related fields (but not exactly the same as my "little corner of the world") by reviewers suggesting that I cite certain papers in my manuscripts (of which, some of the suggested papers are the reviewer's own papers [because, let's face it, sometimes you can tell]). And, of course, I will take a look at these suggested works and make sure they are a good fit for my paper before I comply with the request to cite them.

I find that the existing answers do not address the actual question.  The question was not whether a reviewer should ask for his work to be cited but whether he should point out his work regarding the relevance to suggested fixes to the content of the reviewed paper.
The reviewer here appears to me more interested in changes to the text rather than the bibliography.
And that's where I'd actually be drawing my personal line: trying to get your work cited feels distasteful to me.  Trying to get your work heeded where doing so would substantially improve the paper's relation to the status quo of research seems appropriate to me.
Now this heeding can be done by taking the results of that paper, removing the appropriate section in the paper itself and obviously putting in a bibliographical reference.  It can be done by reworking that passage, possibly just throwing out material that seems no longer motivateable in light of your work even when the act of throwing the material out does not actually warrant a separate documentation and citation.
In contrast, if the work remains unchanged but the bibliography is amended, this amounts to a do-it-yourself science kit for the reader.  That makes no sense.  The bibliography is not supposed to be a field survey but rather contain references actually supporting the article.  Dumping unrelated or contradicting references into it does not improve the article when the article does not actually work out its relation to the reference.

+1 That's another useful distinction (although I am not sure whether the OP is asking about one or the other).

I find that the existing answers do not address the actual question. — OP clarified their question in the comments under their post yesterday, but the comment was deleted, and the question was not updated with this useful information.

You are really asking several distinct but related questions.

Is it common to ask people to cite your own work? Yes, it's reasonably common, it has happened to me and to others. On the other hand, I am not aware of any statistics on the practice and it's certainly not something everybody is doing.
Is it appropriate/ethical to do it? It's delicate, others have already provided excellent answers on this point but do realise that it's extremely difficult to be perfectly honest with yourself in this context. We might be dead certain we are making a reasonable, neutral assessment of our work's relevance to the paper's topic but the psychological literature suggests we humans are usually not very good judges of that.
How will it be perceived? You did not ask about this but it seems to me that it's likely to look bad. At the very least, follow Jake's and user35124's advice and only mention your own papers if you are doing more than merely asking for a citation. Even if you do it in good faith and you are right about your paper's relevance, only suggesting publications from one author will look odd.
Should you do it? Anecdotal evidence suggests that some people in my field have been doing it for some time in a rather heavy-handed way. They probably suffered a bit of damage to their reputation with authors and possibly editors but it's definitely not something that's universally frowned upon and could get you in deep trouble like fraud or plagiarism. So it's up to you to assess the ethics and decide if you want to do it or not.

If you feel strongly that your paper is more than peripherally relevant, that you have addressed the issue in a particularly relevant way,  why not make the suggestion to the editors rather than directly to the authors and let the editor assess it as a third party in a perhaps more objective way?

Two notes: 1) Because it's the authors writing the paper. 2) Implicitly, all reviews are suggestions to the editor. The authors could look at the suggested citation and go "No, not doing that" and it would be the editor's call as to whether or not that's a valid decision.

Yes. One of the jurors for my and a colleague's paper referenced his own work in refutation of our own. Our paper was rejected by that journal, but later accepted for publication in a journal with a higher impact score. I am uncertain whether this practice is ethical or not.

Could you provide some more information?  This might be completely reasonable or not, depending on the case...

Do you have a specific question in mind?

I'm just not sure how what you have written is actually an answer.

My answer was Yes.

Perhaps you could try to clarify how you've written it a bit, then?  Right now, as I understand it, your answer says: yes, here's an anecdote that ends up somewhere unrelated (I'm glad you got a high IF publication, but not sure what that has to do with the question), and then maybe you should and maybe you shouldn't.

"My question in this regard is whether in such conditions it's a common practice for a reviewer to recommend their own paper?"

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Can a related paper cover the non-thesis master disadvantages for applying for a PhD?
I am a MS student in computer science. I have the opportunity to work on the area A than I don't enjoy so much and the adviser is not helpful, but I guess that I will publish good papers if I work on that.
On the other hand, these days I spoke with a prof. Not in our university to suggest me a problem to work as independent research in the field B that I love so much. I guess that I am able to publish good papers in this new field too.
So I don't know if it is good to change my M.Sc. to non-thesis and pursue the independent research?
I should mention that regardless of my choice about my MS thesis I want to apply in the the field B for the universities in US.

Edit: Maybe it is good to mention that my bachelor record is good enough that if I had a little research on B in my bachelor It was possible for me to apply for direct PhD in B.
Edit2(clarification):
I am not inside US.I am from Asia actually.

Is there a reason you can't do a thesis on B?

yeah. my supervisor is fixed and he is not flexible to work on the field B.there is not a procedure to change supervisor in my university too.

Not being able to change supervisors sounds bizarre for a US university.  I would look into that and see if an arrangement can be made.

@jakebeal, I don't think the OP is in the US, they just want to apply for a PhD program in the US post-MS.

So are you suggesting you would have time to do the independent research whilst completing the non-thesis masters?

@BillBarth Maybe they can clarify?  I thought US, because they tagged the question with US, but I can see how it's ambiguous...

I am not inside US.I am from asia actually.yeah I mean I do the independent research while passing the courses for non-thesis master.

"I guess that I will publish good papers if I work on that (A)".  "I guess that I am able to publish good papers in this new field too (B)". No, you do not know any of this unless you have already published good papers in both A and B. A good CS paper might take 4 months - 1 year (maybe more) to write, especially if it is your first paper.  So, it is possible that you might work for 1/2 - 1 years on your B area during your MSc and still not publish anything during this period. And then what? You have a MSc with no thesis and no publication.

I would recommend the independent research avenue because I always believe you should do the things you enjoy most. It shows strong interest in your future field and you will be better equipped to get your love for the field across when applying for a PhD/other.
Things to consider when making the final decision are:

How much the non-thesis masters is valued in the US compared to the thesis one?
The availability of the supervising Professor B
Your certainty in applying for field B.
The requirements wrt the masters listed on the websites of the universities you will apply to.
The genuine likelihood of publications in your independent research into B
How much you dislike supervisor and topic A.

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All out of PhD extensions - what now?
I've received several one-year extensions on my graduation deadline, granted by the PhD progress committee. I've used them all up and am running into the hard deadlines set by the university. I completed my courses and oral exam already, it's just the dissertation and user studies I have left.
Please don't write me off as lazy. The PhD progress committee, my thesis committee, and my adviser all agree me my work is extremely ambitious, and everyone is satisfied I am making good progress towards it. I encountered some setbacks, the most major being my adviser making the tough call that much of my previous work couldn't be used because its age. I work 80+ hour work weeks like any other PhD student and have been forgoing writing papers in the interest of time.
Bottom line, I'm doing everything I possibly can to hurry, but there's not enough time left. Giving up is not an option I'm willing to take, and the technology to clone myself doesn't exist (yet).
What are my options?

Redefine your project goals to one that is realistic to your timeframe? This could be a subset or intermediary milestone of your original project, and then you could continue your research as a postdoc.

If you're working 80+ hours you're working far too much. "Extremely ambitious" sounds right.

How can we know what you should do without having any idea what exactly are you working on? Yes you lack time (so as everyone else in any project), but without knowing details it is just "get some rest and try to work harder, speak with your advisor and committe)

"I work 80+ hour work weeks like any other PhD student" – citation needed. Sounds like your department has a serious problem if that's the normal / expected ethic.

Stop working 80+ hour weeks. Working that long for continuous period of time will have radically degraded your productivity and ability to think clearly. Take some time off, then work sensible hours and give yourself the time and space to consider a sensible solution.

I work 80+ hour work weeks — And that's why it's taking you so long to finish.

Why all the close votes? This is a very common question that is applicable to, unfortunately, far too many graduate students.

"much of my previous work couldn't be used because its age". I don't understand this. What does "age" of work mean here?

From the details of your situation it sounds as though your thesis committee and your advisor are all well-acquainted with your situation. They will not want you to fail your PhD candidature and will be working to make sure you have all the opportunities available to complete.
You mention that your support networks are satisfied that you are making good progress. You feel that you don't have enough time to complete.
Perhaps you ought to discuss with your progress committee, advisor, whoever, what would be a satisfactory conclusion to your work. Make sure that everyone has the same end goals in mind.
If everyone agrees on what would be the satisfactory conclusion to your work, and everyone agrees that you don't have enough time to complete, and if you have everyone on your side ready to attest to your progress, then you should ask for an exceptional extension of time. This would be backed up by letters from your various sources of support. I suspect that this request could only come from your Dean (or equivalent).

Alternatively, you may be able to narrow the scope, with the agreement of advisor and committee.  That's how I finally finished mine.  I also scraped out a few extra weeks by turning in the final report by the deadline, but making the changes required by the committee after the deadline.  Be sure your advisor supports this before you try it.

This type of question can only be answered by your advisor and thesis committee. They know what caused your delay, and they can likely advise you as to what should be your only—not your top, your only—priority at this point. Once you graduate, all your other projects can resume, but at this point you have one task, and that is to graduate. Only the gatekeepers to graduation (your thesis committee) can really tell you how to do that.

The typical solution to this problem is, with the permission of your advisor and committee, to reduce the scope of your thesis.  I have known of people who successfully defended a thesis after 7 or 8 years even though exactly the same thesis would have been considered far too slight to be acceptable for the same person after 4-5 years. Committees and supervisors are generally sympathetic to this situation and look for a way out.
In particular, though you say much of my previous work couldn't be used because its age, you should probably revisit that thought.  If you did the work, and it was meaningful at the time, it is potentially something you could include in your thesis. The vast majority of theses are today obsolete, but that doesn't mean the degrees should be revoked.

I agree with the ageing part. Writing a thesis in general takes four years. Therefore, what you have investigated in the first year could be outdated in the fourth year already. This can never be a reason not to obtain your PhD.


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Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?
Russia and Israel have good histories of science and technology.
But, I never saw any Russian and Israeli university in the top 50 list.
Currently, the top Russian university, according to QS World Ranking is, Lomonosov Moscow State University. Its position is 114. This is far worse than China. The top Chinese university Tsinghua has a position of 47. The same problem can be seen in Israeli universities.
Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?
What is the problem? And, why aren't they trying to improve the situation?
          |--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------
          |QS(2015)|Times(2015)|Shanghai(2014)|Webometrics(2014)|CWUR(2014)
----------|--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------
  Russia  |   114  |    196    |      84      |       129       |    48**
----------|--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------
  Israel  |   138  |    188    |      70      |       207       |    22**
----------|--------|-----------|--------------|-----------------|-----------

** this ranking is an exception.

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Another one: Leiden ranking. There are list, chart, and map views.

Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?
  What is the problem? And, why aren't they trying to improve the situation?

As a researcher originally from a country in a similar situation (Austria - historically great, Nobel prize winning researchers - now all universities ranked in the far 3-digit range in most rankings), I can try to speculate. Note that, of course, reasons may differ between Russia and Israel, or between institutions, so there may easily just not be the reason for this phenomenon.

Most rankings are perceived as garbage. Not scoring highly is not perceived as a big deal that needs changing. Unlike in the US and other places, students generally don't care about rankings, and neither do employers. Hence, historically, the universities simply did not care whether they were top-something or not. I think this was the big reason historically in Austria, but it is slowly beginning to change due to top-down pressure from the government. Note that, even today, local students and employers still don't care about rankings, but foreign students and funding sources do, so there is at least some incentive to do something about it.
Most rankings are actually kind of garbage. Many universities outside of the US simply are not as bad as their ranking suggests. Most rankings are either extremely top-heavy in their criteria and hence not very good at distinguishing the 50-best university from the 200-best in a field (e.g., counting Nobel prize winners), or implicitly assume that universities loosely follow the US way of organisation and naming. For instance, my alma mater has historically lost many points in some rankings due to an insanely bad faculty/student ratio. However, this was really mainly due to in Austria only chaired full professors being considered "real" faculty (called "Professorenkollegium"). Hence, the way of counting underestimated the real number of teachers available to students by a factor of 4 or 5. This has, afaik, been fixed by now, but an implicit bias for an US style of organization is still prevalent in many rankings. Further, unlike US universities, there are very little efforts in Austrian universities to tune their numbers for specific rankings. Generally, close to nobody at your average Austrian university has any idea what even the big rankings are looking at.
Being historically good does not mean that the universities are still good. Decades of underfunding for research have severely reduced the quality of research that is being produced. Both things above considered, one has to assert that all the "historically great" universities in Austria aren't actually great anymore. Decades of underfunding, neglect by politicians, and questionable hiring practices for professors have certainly led to big, fundamentally detrimental changes to the university culture. At this point, Austrian universities are still pretty good at teaching students, and there is still reasonable research going on, but it would be wrong to assume that any university actually deserves to be considered on the same (research) tier with top English or US schools. I am pretty sure that at least in Russia, long-lasting underfunding will also be a big reason why the schools don't show up more prominently in rankings.

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Despite the absolutely excellent answers already written one huge issue goes unmentioned: Language. Let's examine the different factors accounting the QS ranking for example:
QS Ranking methodology

Academic reputation:

Determined by a world wide survey, but even in a modern non-Russian eastern European country a researcher is more likely to know English (1200 million speakers) than Russian (260 million, but declining), and for that reason is more likely to read English research coming from US and UK based institutions.

Employer reputation:

Same story, though to a lesser extent.

Faculty/student ratio:

Objective.

Citations per faculty:

Same story, the more accessible a piece of research is, the more likely others will read and cite it.

International student ratio:

If the spoken language is known by more people, then it's more likely those people will come to study at your place.

International staff ratio:

Same story.

Some case studies
A case worth looking at is how the Dutch rank in the top 100. The Netherlands only has a population of 16 million, however of those 16 million, 15 million speak English. Additionally - and more importantly - a lot of masters are taught in English, most research (depending on field) is written in English and even in Bachelors English lecturers are accepted (though a lot of institutions have rules limiting the percentage of English classes a student is allowed to have in his bachelor). Result: Six Dutch universities are ranked in the top 100. Compare that to France, a country famous for its protectiveness regarding their language, with a population of 66 million and only two universities in the top 100 (and four in the top 200).
And the same applies when you scroll throughout the entire list: the more people speak the language that is predominant in the institution, the higher it is ranked. Of course this is only a factor and it isn't absolute, because if it were, Chinese (1350 million speakers) institutions would be ranked number 1 (though they have been climbing at a ridiculous speed) and Indian and South American institutions would do significantly better, however even as just a single factor of many, its importance should be underrated.
Russia and Israel
To finish off with the two countries you mentioned: considering Russia has 260 million speakers, I would still expect them to do better, but they have quite a closed off academic culture (I have met Russian researchers that were barely able to speak and read English at all... something I can not even imagine in western Europe even including France). Israel on the other hand I have no idea about (never met any Israeli researchers), but 85% of the 8 million population speaks English and they have three universities in the top 200, which sounds quite reasonable.

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Firstly, it has to be noted that overall rankings, by definition, paint a very rough picture due to averaging universities' key performance indicators (KPIs) across a variety of disciplines and fields of study. Since both Russia and Israel have a rich history of scientific achievements mostly in hard sciences (mathematics, physics, etc.), the overall nature of world rankings introduces a significant bias due to considering the above-mentioned whole spectrum of disciplines and fields of study. If you would consider a ranking in a particular discipline or research area, where Russia and Israel traditionally have powerful positions (i.e., computer science), the situation would be significantly different, confirming those positions (as have been already mentioned in some comments above).
Secondly, if you would pay attention to methodology used in, for example, QS, Times and CWUR rankings (see this page, this page and this page, correspondingly), and compare QS and Times indicators with CWUR indicators, you would notice that the former assign a high weight on some factors, which IMHO are quite subjective and biased, whereas the latter represent a much more balanced set of indicators. In particular, I'm talking about assigning 40 percent to academic reputation (QS) and 24 percent to academic reputation and research income (Times), where reputation is determined by surveys (thus, subjective) and research income is unadjusted for geo-economic differences (thus, biased; even the methodology itself labels that indicator "controversial"). On the other hand, the CWUR ranking contains a balanced set of indicators, all of which are objective measures. Therefore, while you call CWUR ranking "an exception", I would argue that it much more fully represents real life situation, whereas QS and Times do not.
Thirdly, there are other country-specific factors, which existing methodologies do not include or adjust for, which bias the results of rankings, which represent the situation very approximately in the first place. I mean such factors, as underfunding (as noted by @xLeitix), administrative issues (i.e., bureaucracy), economical issues (i.e., corruption) and political situation in Russia, which generates more than usual "brain drain" (thus, introducing additional bias) as well as [public] underfunding and geo-political situation in Israel (I'm less familiar with this country's research environment, so this is just my best guess, based on what I know and some common sense/logic).

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Most answers here are good, but theoretical. I will try to complement them from the practical side, in particular tell about Russian universities.
Undoubtedly, all rankings are biased. However, I do not think they are complete junk: the positions correlate with the quality of research and education undergoing within universities.
In fact, it is not true that the government does not care or does not try to improve positions in the ranking. There is an initiative generously funded from budget to have 5 Russian universities in Top100 of world rankings (you can switch to English). Victor Sadovnichy, rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) repeatedly condemned world rankings for their biases. As a result, in 2011, a formally independent analytical agency from Russia built a ranking where MSU ended up on 5th place surpassing Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge (an article in Russian; the website of the rating itself has been discontinued), which was laughed at.
I will try to decouple the reasons of poor performance in ratings to subjective and objective ones. The former may be characterised as biases, while the latter actually explain the lower quality of research/education.
Subjective

The large weight in the rating is often given to research visibility. Universities in Russia are mostly for teaching, while a lot of research is done at non-teaching institutions (most notably, Russian Academy of Sciences institutes). Even at top universities, many professors are quite unproductive by Western standards. There is no external motivation to conduct quality research and publish, so they just resort to teaching. Many professors work both at a university and a research institution, and specify the latter as an affiliation in their papers, so they don’t count to success of their university.
Indeed, many researches publish only in Russian journals, which are not indexed by Scopus and similar bases; thus the papers/citations are not counted. This is partly objective, since the community is smaller, thus the standards of quality are lower. But it is understandable: a lot of researchers matured behind the Iron Curtain. During the second half of XX century the interactions with the Western colleagues were discouraged and often impossible. Now, some of those professors pass this culture to their students. See also @David Mulder’s answer on how language affects rankings.

Objective

As @Aleksandr Blekh noted, most successes of Russian science are connected to hard sciences, while ratings average over subjects. Humanities and social sciences are traditionally weak. This is also understandable given the history of the country: do you need research in market economy or political science if you do not have markets nor working democracy?
The science was indeed underfunded for 20 years, thus the brain drain. Even now, when the funding is greater, it is still lower than in the West, and is poorly managed. For example, PhD students generally do not receive a salary (just a stipend around $100 / month), so most bright graduates choose a “real job” (internal brain drain).
The universities are state-funded; students generally do not pay for education. The interaction with industry is rare: in the natural-resource based economy, companies do not struggle to innovate. The low demand on quality research from the economy also hurts performance of universities.

Source: recently graduated from MSU.

Some good additional practice-based points (+1). BTW, congratulations on graduating.

This answer is what I have been waiting for over the past two days. Thanks for letting us know. I knew there are reasons. BTW, Congratulations on your graduation!

Thanks. @scaaahu I also wonder about Israeli universities. Their research is quite visible in my field (computer science). Probably they are not very open to foreign students as well.

What is the problem? And, why aren't they trying to improve the situation?

The plain answer is that it is not a problem and there is no point trying to “improve” the situation.
Each ranking has its purpose and methodology. For instance the well-known Shangai ranking was introduced by China as this country started a cycle of reforms of their educational and research system, taking inspiration on the corresponding systems and USA, esp. taking Harvard as a model of what the best Chinese universities should look like at the end of that cycle of reforms.  As a consequence Harvard is consistently first in Shangai ranking – which just means that Harvard remains Harvard – and Chinese universities progress in that ranking – which just means that reforms are accomplishing their purpose.  I do not know the details and purposes or other rankings, but I assume they are similar.
There is actually a subtle problem bound to rankings.  In countries enjoying a well-developed and healthy academic system but having a poor ranking, it is tempting for some politic responsible to reorganise the academic life to win some places in a ranking.  This will produce the desired effect  because good material is already here, and the responsible can advertise its good results.  However, it is likely that this reorganisation of academic life broke an organisation that used to work well. It is not clear that the, mostly, perceived advantage of a good ranking, is worth the trouble.

The earlier answers were pretty thorough, but I'd like to give an example to illustrate why these surveys have major issues. In my field, mathematics, the Shanghai survey ranks King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia #10, right above MIT which is ranked #11 and well above the University of Chicago at #23. Rest assured, this does not resemble reality; King Abdulaziz University simply does not have a top-notch math department.
Interestingly though this survey rates Moscow State and the Hebrew University #26 and #27 respectively in math. So Israel and Russia aren't being underrated in this particular case.
At any rate, these are pretty good examples of why these rankings should just be considered entertainment and not to be taken too seriously.

My Alma Mater is Cornell, a university that is in the top 20 in most rankings. Then I worked for many years in USP, a Brazilian University. I also worked in a few Danish and French universities. Finally, I visited many universities from the top 100. I cannot believe that Lomonosov Moscow State University or Bauman University could be behind USP. In fact, I cannot understand how these Russian universities could be behind Cornell. However, I will advance two tentative explanations. The first one is that when a Russian publish a paper, it is a very good one, something like a new element in the periodical table, or the properties of graphene.  Researchers from Cornell and USP are not so careful with the quality of their publications. The other explanation is language. Russian and French researchers do have a tendency to publish in their languages, and consequently are ignored by the rankings.

This answer is making things generalized and purely hypothetical without any evidence. I don't agree at all.

Your claim that all Russian papers are "very good, something like a new element in the periodic table" is complete nonsense. Just this evening, it happens that I read a paper by Russian authors. They failed to understand basic undergraduate material.

He didn't say all Russian papers are of high quality; he meant to say that generally or on average Russian papers have higher standards of innovation than the Western/American system. While lower standards of exposition I would assume. I tend to agree.

All very simple (answer is in Russia) :3
first: all publicaton on russian language
two: In my University there is a Department " Russian school of Economics ".
Have any of you heard the name of such an economist "Yablochnikov" ?
But all of you, knows "Adam Smith".

Hi, welcome to SE Academia. Please rewrite your answer in a clearer way.

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text:
No idea what to do with my PhD research
I am a PhD student in my second year. I have not published anything yet and I feel my results I got so far are not publishable. I have two years left. I am stressed and I am afraid that I might not be smart enough to be a PhD student.
I think I lack the skill to ask a good question and answer that question as a part of my research. I cannot come up with a good idea or question so that by following those I can publish.
Anyone with the same experience, what did you do to get yourself out of this situation?

Edit
Just to clarify more. I am in Europe. Here there isn't any coursework. I studied everything so far on my own. Everyday I go to my room in the lab. I have plenty of time, at least 8 hours per day and if necessary I can spend more time too. I don't have teaching obligations.
Sometimes, I might have an idea, which ultimately turns to be useless, but even then I tell my self if it was possible to turn into a publications, others would have done that, so it must be a hard problem or idea.
My main issue is that there is no other person with my background in the lab. People with different backgrounds are a PhD student here and everyone works on his/her PhD almost alone. I wish I could pair to another student and brainstorm and discuss different ideas. However, it is not possible here. I told my supervisor, he replied first you should prepare some initial results so that we can approach others group for collaboration. But even then I won't discuss with another person on a daily basis because of the distance between those groups which are in other countries.

Did your advisor say anything about this?

No, He didn't. I think he has given me plenty of time and freedom.

Don't panic. What you're feeling is very common: so called "impostor syndrome" (where you feel that you're not good enough to be there) is very common in academia.
Talk to your supervisor about how you're feeling, and try to narrow down the focus of your research question. You have plenty of time still, but its important you take the time to understand exactly what your work is trying to answer, which will in turn help you understand where to focus your efforts (for gathering data, publishing papers, etc.).
Some supervisors are more diligent than others, so if you feel yours is too busy or not providing the help you need, don't suffer in silence but talk to someone else. Many institutions have some form of tutor system, or faculty position devoted to helping out students that are under pressure or struggling.

"I think he has given me plenty of time and freedom." - although micromanagement never helps in the long run, too much of a good thing could be a problem, too.
It sounds like you are on the right track, but simply need more time, patience, and practice.
I would recommend to get a research assistantship (RA) position, if that is common in your country/institution (in the U.S. many graduate students have RA or TA appointments). This will put you in a relatively structured work environment with a plan, reasonably clear expectations for work output, and a regular opportunity to receive guidance from your supervisor.
The RA job may or may not be with your advisor, and it doesn't have to be for all of the remaining 2 or 3 years you have left in the program. (If you advisor has no funding to support you at the moment, you can work for a year elsewhere, then who knows maybe s/he will get a grant and be able to hire you to assist with the research, or you can simply stay in your job. With this in mind, try to find a position on a relatively large, long-term, well-funded project.)
Beyond the structure and direction, RA projects often become the platform for developing a dissertation, as it is typically not hard to come up with good "offshoot" ideas that are a little different from the main thrust of the research grant but are complementary to it, filling some gap in the questions that are being asked and the knowledge being gained. Also, working on other people's research projects will give you valuable exposure into how others brainstorm to come up with feasible ideas and questions, design studies to
address these questions, and implement them in a collaborative work setting.
As @Landric suggests, the "impostor syndrome" is very typical and is probably a normal part of professional development of someone who has to operate in a loosely structured intellectual environment thinking about new concepts and ways of doing things that have not been done before. If you were totally confident every day about every intellectual leap and analytic decision that you need to make, you probably would not be doing your PhD right!
I would be surprised if many PhD students had publishable, primary data results in their second year of study. There are good reasons for this: 1. Typically the first 2-3 years are the time to complete the required coursework and pass the general exams that qualify you for dissertation research. At least in the U.S., and in social sciences, this typically happens in the 3rd year of study, and ideally the exam can be at least partially aligned with the tentative research idea/proposal for dissertation work. 2. The first years of PhD study are typically the time to become familiar with the broader and narrower aspects of an academic discipline, to gain a foothold in the intellectual milieu of the subject of study. As such, this is not the time to make bold public intellectual proclamations and throw lofty claims to the field through publication in high-profile journals.
Although successful in some cases, the latter type of activity tends to be risky and can do more harm than good, with the half-baked ideas creating a premature, less-than-positive impression in the field of your future colleagues. Not necessarily a great idea. Don't forget the "student" part of being a PhD student. You are engaged in a process of your own, personal intellectual development first, and contribution to the field at large is not expected until a later stage of your study (the last 1-3 years).
So, my advise is to let go of your worries, clear your head, talk to your advisor about these concerns, and explore opportunities for RA positions on grants that seem of interest and potentially relevant to your future goals in terms of area of research and career focus. The summer is a great time to find such a position, as many research centers and labs hire new graduate research assistants during the summer to build capacity for the following year.
I am not saying you should not be trying to publish or submit to conferences - but I am saying that it's OK, and probably best, not to fly solo. As a student, your role in research efforts is by definition auxiliary rather than primary. Focus on learning to effectively collaborate with others and support the work of more established scholars, and use these experiences to learn, learn, learn as much as you can about how research is done in this academic discipline. Be a 2nd, or 3rd, or 6th co-author on papers - this is nothing to be embarrassed by, and in fact many established scholars often make do with co-authorship way down on the list. (Note: A mark of a truly excellent PI/advisor is to come up with opportunities for their RA's/advisees to be 1st authors at least on some of their research output, typically conference papers. You can usually tell if this happens by browsing the research group's website and seeing if and where student names pop up on the group's list of publications.)
If you see some of your peers spewing out publications right and left, don't despair, and hold off on comparing yourself to them and drawing early conclusions. Who knows, perhaps this pattern is a temporary flare-up, and their productivity might fizzle out toward the later stage of their studies. Burnout happens everywhere, and not everyone develops at the same pace. Keep your mind focused on your own work and responsibilities, and your time will come. There will be a right time for you to produce research you can be proud of. Sometimes, this does not happen until after one's dissertation is written. And that is normal, too. It is important to find a balance between quantity and quality, and to put greater emphasis on the latter. While easy wins are rewarding in the short run, they should be mere stepping stones on a path to more difficult, longer-duration projects with delayed payoff.
If you do get an RA job, use the Fall and Winter semesters to understand the research domain of the project and brainstorm possible complementary ideas that could become a dissertation proposal. Use these ideas to structure part of your general exam. If you end the 3rd year having passed the exam and having a (rough) draft dissertation research proposal, you will be well on your way to complete the studies in 2-3 more years (within 5 years).
I have to say it is not at all uncommon to take longer than 5 years to complete a PhD (I believe the average in the U.S. is closer to 6). What would you rather choose, to give up, drop out, and waste 2-3 years of graduate school, or spend a little more time, persevere, learn a lot and build more skills, and finish a degree?
To summarize, you asked the question at the right time, and you are not behind, your concerns and worries are not unique, and you are not going to fail. You are going to succeed. With that, good luck!


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Refuting a hypothesis in a dissertation
I am writing my dissertation, and things came out somewhat different to what I had thought three years ago. Back then, I had three hypotheses. Two turned out to be true. The third, last and flimsiest, looks false. The question is: how should I describe the third hypothesis in the short list of hypotheses?

I could phrase it the way I did three years ago. In the results and conclusions section, I could try refuting it.
I could phrase it the other way around, as if I always thought it was untrue. There a billion problems to that, the least being: how does one then describe the experimental plan? I can't really say I wanted the null hypothesis to come true? Surely different kinds of experiments would have been more useful.
I could leave that section out. That is madness, it's a lot of work down the drain.

I don't understand the question. You have proven a (reasonable) hypothesis to be false? Congratulations! That's a valuable result. Write it down so others don't have to test that hypothesis again. Don't forget to write down how you derived that hypothesis.

Voting to close. This is completely unanswerable except by somebody familiar with the work in question. You should be asking your advisor, not random strangers on the internet who don't even know what you're working on.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because questions on how to refute hypotheses are not strictly within the domain of academia.se and might be best located in a discipline specific conversation.

I disagree: I think it's drawn some nice general answers.

As a slight tangent, it can sometimes help fill out the greater context and place of a work if you at some point (usually in an introduction) detail how the entire project got started.  Frequently the best way of writing out a paper is wildly different from how it proceeded in reality--I recently had a paper which started with a clear and specific idea for the starting point, and this ended up being the last thing talked about, as a simple application, in the actual paper--, and this can make it unclear how the problem was originally approached or even found.  Those things are valuable to know

It is hard to give good advice on this without knowing the concrete dissertation and the expectations of your community. Hence, this is one of those famous questions where the right answer really is ask your advisor.
However, in the dark I am not sure why you would not just use Option 1 from your list - you had a (hopefully reasonable) hypothesis, you set up experiments and tested it, and found no evidence to support your hypothesis. Assuming that the hypothesis wasn't bad to begin with and the experiments were sound, why can't you just write it down like this?

I agree with @xLeitix's advice (+1): use the first option, that is, leave your hypotheses untouched. There is nothing wrong with not confirming certain hypotheses - negative results are also valuable (for example, see this paper, this journal and this workshop). I would suggest to complement textual reporting with a summary table, with a minimum of three columns: hypothesis, result of hypothesis testing, statistical significance of the test. In addition, I would recommend (and this is expected in a dissertation report) to include your interpretation of all results (including the negative ones) in the Discussion section of the Results chapter.


text:
What is the proper way to judge the quality of education of a university?

Why do Russian and Israeli universities score low in various world rankings?

In this question, most of the answers more or less stated that, rankings of universities available on the net are kind of useless.
Then my question is, how can a student judge the quality of education of a university before getting as admission? What factors he/she can observe to take the decision? What information they should collect?

Is this for graduate or undergraduate study?

graduate program. some teachers may be expert in research. But, doesn't give enough time in class rooms. May be he stays away for seminars. Then students are screwed up.

The best metric is comparing the quality of current and recent graduate students, in various research outlets. If students from institute X stumble more over questions at conferences compared to those from institute Y, or if they publish in lesser venues, or produce less-solid papers (more errors, more failures to think a problem through), then you can conclude either that Y attracts better students or that Y does a better job of training students than X (I don't think it would matter, for your purposes, which it is). But this is a very labor-intensive evaluation. A second runner-up method would be to look at the job-placement histories of institutions, though getting hired often reflects politics (who your adviser knows, who hates your adviser) as much as student quality.


text:
What points should I consider when applying for/accepting a position at another department?
I specialize in Computability Theory which is part of Mathematical Logic at the intersection of Theoretical Computer Science and Mathematics. Therefore I could potentially apply for jobs (e.g. a lecturer) to philosophy (because of logic and foundations of mathematics), computer science and mathematics departments.
However, my research is of very mathematical nature. Hence, if I am going to collaborate with some other researchers, they are almost certainly going to be mathematicians. If I am going to have a PhD student, I would prefer if he/she took mathematical graduate courses since these are going to be more related to my research and the research I can supervise. Similarly, I would prefer to supervise the final year students writing their thesis more related to my research.
I am afraid this may pose a conflict, if I for example am not interested in the research of my employing department and do not collaborate with the colleagues there or do not attend their seminars. On the other hand I can imagine that the interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues from other departments may be welcomed.
The reason why I ask this is because getting a job in academia is competetive and one cannot always get the preferred position. Therefore: what points should I consider when applying for/accepting a position at another department outside my nominal specialization?

I edited away the question in your original title, whether it would be a good idea to do this, because I didn't want your question to be closed as "opinion-based"...

@StephanKolassa Your edit improved the question. Thank you.

This will depend on the particular university you're applying to. Some philosophy departments include a considerable amount of mathematics or computer science; others have none.

You already have two questions there:

What should you consider when applying for a position at a different department?
What should you consider when accepting a position at a different department?

I'll concentrate on the first question here, and maybe you want to repost your second question separately, because it really deserves separate treatment.

You already hit the nail on the head in your question. The hiring department will wonder just why you apply there from a different specialization, and what you would bring to the table here. (And if they google your name, find this post and read something about "not attending their seminars", this might influence them further...) Being desperate for a job and having done something vaguely related will not be sufficient.
Therefore you need to convince the department you are hiring that you are a good answer to their needs.
Multi- or interdisciplinarity is good these days - but it's better to be interdisciplinary "looking out" from a department than "looking in". So:

In your cover letter, emphasize any work you have been doing that fits into the target department.
Get recommendations from the discipline of your target department, not your original one.
For these two points to work, you will need to actually immerse yourself in the target discipline and its culture. It's fine to come to philosophy from a mathematical point of origin, but be sure to have publications in journals of mathematical philosophy, not only in mathematical journals with a philosophical bent.
You will likely be required to teach introductory courses in your target department. Make sure the hiring committee can infer from your application that you can and will do so. It would be good if you could point to experience having done just that. Perhaps you could try teaching such a course before starting your applications?
Familiarize yourself with the research being done at your target department, and explain how you could collaborate with your departmental colleagues in your research plan. (You should be doing this regardless of what department you apply to, it's just even more important in your case.)

And don't write anything about "not being interested in your colleagues' research" in an openly accessible forum under your real name, even if your question at this point is purely hypothetical.

When accepting a position in a different discipline, things like different conventions in negotiations may come to mind, but as I wrote above, I'd say this is really a better topic for a separate question.


text:
How should I convince my parents about a career in mathematics?
I am an 11th grader and studying undergraduate mathematics and living in India.
I want to become a mathematician, but there is one problem in this path. My parents want me to become a medical doctor, but I have no interest in biology. My parents say there is no career in mathematics and it is a total passion job, you can't get anything from it. They say: "There is no demand of mathematics and you can't go anywhere after few years. The salary is not good and no job as a mathematician. You will only get a job if you do your Ph.D."
So my questions are:

Is it true what my parents are saying?
If it isn't, then what are the careers in mathematics? It is fine if it is a bit long; I don't want any shortcut to success. Also will studying mathematics take up a lot of money?  It is a huge issue in my house.

Related Question.

You should take into account that the answer to your question is country-specific. In my country for example, math majors will end up working as school teachers (or other unrelated occupations if they are not interested in teaching). So, I would say, your parents have point, unless you have more details about the employment opportunities in India.

What about computer science? You can study some (a lot?) of theoretical maths, while keeping the option of becoming a professional programmer open.

You do not need a PhD in maths (see answers) to get a job. I am related to two individuals who have undergraduate degrees in mathematics and went on to careers in engineering (after some further studies): one in aerospace engineering and the other in systems engineering. If you can do the maths, you can learn the [insert applied mathematics].

But@BenNorris I don't want to do applied mathematics I want to do pure mathematics....

Your parents are right. An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician shipwreck on an island, and they only have canned beans to survive. When rescue ship arrives, they found the engineer, alive. He built a machinery with palm woods and elastic vines to crash the cans on the rocks and eat the beans. They also found the phisicist, alive: with drops of water of a waterfall, he was able to make the can lid resonate until it explodes, and eat the beans. Then they found the corpse of the mathematician, with some notes on a paper. They say like this: "Supposing, ad absurdum..."

You should remember that the pure maths you have met at high school is not the same as the pure maths that academics do. It is quite likely you will find you are actually interested in things applied enough to be of use in a job outside academia. Indeed, there are few jobs you cannot go into having studied maths.

Well @JessicaB I am doing group theory and topology right now

Ah. You won't really be able to tell for a long time yet whether you can get a good job working on those; you'd need to have published good research to be relatively sure. Still, other maths might be more what you like than being a doctor. I've heard talks by people who did pure maths PhDs and went into computer security where they enjoy the research.

Show them this article.

Your parents are thoroughly incorrect when they say that there is no career opportunities in mathematics.
Further to Dave Clarke's answer, many (applied) mathematicians find work in the City (as in the financial services sector of London) running risk analyses, for instance.
If however, you are looking at finding work as a research academic in mathematics, then jobs are there, but sought after. Teaching mathematics at university level provides wider prospects, however.
To answer your question about money, the amount you have to pay largely rests on the tuition fees that you can afford. This will depend on which university you choose to attend.
There is also the middle ground of studying mathematics with a view to putting that study to work in medicine. Consider that statistics (yes, probably not the subject you are interested in), was essentially developed as a response to a medical situation (plague in London). There is also a vast amount of work requiring pure and applied mathematics in medicine (nuclear medicine, MRI, NMR, for example).

One problem I see is that if there is a 1:10000 ratio to get these "opportunities", you better be extraordinary. If you are less than that you may end up with a diploma which will not get you anywhere close to math. I work and worked with many people who graduated in math, physics, geography , ... and work in high-tech. Great work but nothing close to what they graduated in. I am not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing but if you love being an MD you are almost guaranteed to do that after you graduate in medicine (even if you are not that great). Not the case for math IMHO.

@WoJ True, but does it sound like the OP loves being an MD? Might be better to study what you love, give it a shot, and if it does not work out do something that you love slightly less (but maybe still more than Medicine). Also, the odds gotta be better than 1:10000.

@xLeitix: I agree with you, I was merely commenting on the "throughly incorrect". I graduated with a PhD in physics, now work in IT and loved both. It is just that you may not get the chance to fallback on something you like. The point is not to be frustrated afterwards. Math is not that bad, think about philosophy :) As for the odds: they are certainly better and there is someone who ends up being at the position.

Mathematician was the top-rated job according to a study discussed in the Wall Street Journal in 2009.  Number 2 was Actuary and Number 3 was Statistician.  Income for mathematicians was a bit higher than either of those (it surprised me how well-paid "mathematicians" are).  Computer-related careers also placed well in this ranking.
Like they say "it's nice work if you can get it"!  For some sense of the available jobs, check mathjobs.org.  A PhD will likely be required for many but not all.
Regarding costs: You don't need much equipment, so that could help keep costs down. ✎  Scholarships are often available for advanced degrees in this area, so earning a PhD may be more a matter of time and effort than money.
If you're interested in going to grad school for mathematics in the US, have a look at the Mathematics GRE Subject Test, since your results on that test will (likely) be a strong factor in influencing where you are accepted.

If you are in high school, it is definitely too early to start studying for the Mathematics GRE Subject Test.  I would not recommend anyone study for it for any more than a year: up until that point (and probably safely beyond) it is much more rewarding and useful to learn mathematics rather than study for a test.

@PeteL.Clark I have revised the concluding statement.  The exact timing for test prep seems like a fairly individual thing.   Nevertheless it is very pragmatic for someone who is thinking about money to get a good score on that test.  Yes, there's more to life than just the test score, but a poor score on that test would not be any kind of asset.  I'm pretty sure it's one of the first thing admissions panels look at.  Getting a good score on a standardized test is a way to set yourself apart.

Need to be careful of relying too heavily on that study, it emphasizes that "they typically work in favorable conditions -- indoors and in places free of toxic fumes or noise" which is of course true, but only one of many factors in evaluating "success".

The answer very much depends on what kind of mathematics you study. Some purely theoretical topics may lead only to academic positions, whereas other areas could lead to positions in finance, data science, statistics.

I can understand your situation since I come as well from a country where parents convince their offspring to join either: medicine, engineering or pharmacy. Because they think these are the "secure" jobs. Although the following might sound intuitive to many readers, I expect that people coming from developing countries (like me) might find this advice valuable.
Your parents speak out of their experience from what they see around them. I would assume that, like in my country, it is true that mathematicians do not have many good opportunities in India.
So to answer question (1), I assume that in India this is true. In other countries that might not be the case, although it is true that in general medical doctors will probably earn more than mathematicians, but in many countries (e.g. western European countries) you (as well as your family) can live a very decent life with a mathematician's salary.
(2) As others said already, mathematicians can get jobs in research, IT and as well in insurance companies.
Now my advice is to do what you love and let it eat you! this will sound Utopian to some, but no it is true, you can do what you love and live a decent life a the same time, you do not have to do something you hate (e.g. study biology) in order to live happily. Money is not everything, and you cannot guarantee you'll earn a lot of money even if you become a medical doctor.
If you really have the passion for mathematics, I suggest you apply at universities abroad. Apply for scholarships and fellowships and study at a place that will appreciate your passion to the field. If you really love something you'll do great at it, and I think you'll have a better chance to reach your highest potential at universities known to be strong in mathematics. Also that's where you will probably get exposed to better job opportunities.

Quite simply, you're not going to be happy if you (for example) become a medical doctor and you hate the job. This is your life and you need to do what you want to do, regardless of whether or not it pleases your parents.
You clearly have a deep understanding and passion for maths, and if you follow it as a career path you could do great things.
You're just going to have to tell your parents that this is what you want to do.

If you have good grounding in math, this opens you up to well placed career in anything computer related (software development, research, all sorts of finance-related positions). Obviously, that's a pretty good career path these days. You'd be surprised and how varied computer-related positions involving heavy math lifting are.
If you want to do pure math research, that may be harder to pursue. There aren't all that many research positions in terms of pure math out there, in India or even elsewhere, compared to amount of people seeking them.
However, you're not restricted to pure academic university position. If you're into number theory, any number of crypto* related opportunities are there (NSA in US is a heavy employer of such people; and I'm pretty sure India may have it equivalent). As time goes, security and encryption gets to be more and more important.

To convince your parents, show them the numbers for those applied jobs. Both their #, and the salaries (especially for things like quants in financial firms)

I would advise that you go for your passion which is mathematics. If you do change your mind after obtaining a degree in mathematics, you can always apply to medical school as a graduate and by this time, your decision will be well informed. Perhaps explaining this to your parents might help ease their anxieties about your future. Also, bear in mind that medicine is more expensive to study at university level (more years of study) compared to mathematics. It is true that you could probably get by as an average medical doctor but if you don't have the right personality for the job, you will stand out for the wrong reasons and you will definitely hate it in the end. There is a lot of pressure on medical doctors and its not uncommon for the media to focus on them.
Think about it-if you study maths and you change your mind to medicine, you don't have much to lose. However, if you study medicine and realise its not for you, you run the risk of either dropping out of the course or forcing yourself to complete a degree you don't enjoy.
It is true that Pure mathematics may not necessarily earn you millions but you can never predict where your research will take you. There are mathematicians who consult in the industry in addition to their academic duties.
You just need to find a way to convince your parents-perhaps get the attention of someone whom your parents respect and are likely to listen to.
Best wishes.

@Rememberme, you're welcome.


text:
What should a reply to a peer review look like?
Recently I have received a peer-review letter on my article. While preparing an answer I've found that I have no idea what I should include in the answer.
There is multiple "idea" notes and few language issue mentioned.
It's my first peer-review, so it would be very useful to have some idea how to compose a good reviewer reply.

Addressing the issues mentioned point by point is usually a good way to go.

Some open access journals like BioMed Central show all these correspondence (look for "pre-publication history" at the right vertical bar. It may give you some tips on how they are actually done.

Generally, the best way to respond is with a detailed rundown, discussing every point that the referee raised in turn.  (This may be unnecessary if there are only a handful of minor changes asked for, but it doesn't hurt even then.)
What I generally do is to start with a two or three sentence introduction, stating that I have made all the changes that the referee suggests.  If there were changes that I was unwilling to make, I just say that I have made most of the changes but that I feel that one or more of the referee's requests were not appropriate.
Then I begin a point-by-point analysis of what the referee said and how I have responded.  Usually, I address the points in the same order as the referee raised them in their report, but not always.  (Sometimes there may be just one major revision that was requested, and I want to discuss that first, before the minor points, even though the referee did not order things the same way.)  It's often a good idea to quote directly what the referee said in the report and then follow up with an explanation of the changes that have been made.
Sometimes, just stating that the change has been made is sufficient.  This is typically all that's needed for linguistic problems.  If the editor and referee may have trouble finding a change, you can point out where it is.  If the changes are more substantive, it's a good idea to give a summary of what the changes were.  These don't need to be long, but the should point out the main significance of the changes.
If there were changes that you were unwilling to make, you must carefully explain why.  If you think the referee was wrong, this should be pointed out very tactfully.  A good referee will recognize their error if they really made one.  If there are matters of opinion, it may be trickier to convince editor and referee that things are really better your way.  It is also important that you make it clear that you are reasonable about making changes.  If you refuse to make anything but the most trivial corrections in response to a referee's report, that makes you look stubborn and probably unreasonable.

The format that works for me, looks like that:

Thanking the reviewers and editor for comments
Stating the major issues of the referee report, and how we address them in the new version.
Summarizing major revisions done, if any. This includes re-organizing the paper; change in terminology; adding / removing results; etc. Sometimes this part blends with the previous one, but sometimes there are changes that you have done which were NOT requested by any reviewer, but were needed in the revised paper.
If the referee report contains a list of specific comments: add a list of these comments (copy-pasted from the report itself). Below each comment, reply if, and how, the comment was addressed.
thanking the reviewers and editor.

Matt Might explains on his blog a very systematic step-by-step procedure to address reviewer comments, which I recommend you to read. His premise is that every response should ensure the reviewers that

We acknowledge your criticism and advice; we understand your
  misunderstanding; and we can fully integrate this feedback.

It is not actually appropriate to reply directly to the reviewer, instead, you should summarize to the editor (knowing that the reviewers will see your response) what changes you made (especially relating them to what reviewers tell you you should do), and what changes you did not make (briefly justify not making a change requested by a reviewer). Most of the time, you should make a change, though it may not be the change requested. For example, if a reviewer tells you to used method X rather than Y, you don't have to use method X but you should explain in the paper why method Y is not appropriate. The reason for doing that is because if the reviewer didn't understand your paper well enough to see that, other readers are also likely to be perplexed, so you need to explain better. Sometimes reviewers are just embarassingly wrong so that anybody in the field should know why you use Y rather than X, in which case you can keep the discussion out of the paper, and simply tell the editor why Y is the appropriate method.
There is no need to give a detailed accounting of every criticism, and you could summarize criticisms of exposition with a general statement like "problems with language have been resolved throughout the paper".

I don't mean to answer reviewer directly, I even don't know who have reviewed my article...


text:
Is it unethical to take ideas from a pre-print to write your own research paper (though the author of the pre-print is acknowledged)?
One of my friends is in a very curious position. He has been researching on a number theoretic problem for months but couldn’t solve it until recently after he has seen a pre-print in arXiv which attempts to prove the problem. But though he has taken ideas from the pre-print, his own article differs considerably from that of the pre-print. According to him, following are the chief points of difference,

My friend actually proved a stronger version of the problem.
He gave an outline to the proof of a conjecture that the author of the pre-print stated in the concluding section of his/her paper.

My friend has decided to mention precisely how much he had been benefited from the paper in the Acknowledgements section. Will there be any problem if he sends his article to a journal for publication?

Isn't this how it's supposed to work? People get ideas from reading papers, extend the previous work, give due credit?

I would mention that in my field (theoretical particle physics), this is a very common position to be in. Definitely not one I would describe as "curious".

As an anonymous user on an internet forum, it is okay to use I instead of my friend all the time. We've all had these friends!

@TheDarkSide I guess the anonymity is what enabled the OP to say the person in question is a friend, as opposed to the more usual friend of a friend.

He should just cite what he used or learned from the ArXiv paper and send it in. There's no real need to add an acknowledgement.

Even if it is not a published paper?

@user170039: Yes, the same citations are appropriate and required, regardless of whether the paper is published or not (but there is no need for extra acknowledgement beyond what would be used for the published paper).

I agree. Given the fast moving nature of the field, in a case like this I'd advise specifically noting and including the retrieval date in the citations. Many journals ask for this, in any case.

He should also consider sending a copy of the paper to the author of that preprint.

@user170039, yes, it's published, and he should cite it with as much specificity as he can. It's not published in a peer-review journal, so there could be some who think of the source as unreliable and non-archival. It seems like mathematics is one area where this is less of a concern.

@user170039 It is published in the literal sense of "made public", but not in the more restricted sense of "disseminated by a publishing organization."

He should cite the ArXiv paper, and not just mention it in acknowledgements.

@ScottSeidman, isn't that what my answer says?

@MarkJoshi: For an arXiv preprint the retrieval date isn't really relevant; what you want is the arXiv id and version number.  Any change to an arXiv preprint bumps the version number, and all past versions are permanently archived and cannot be modified.  (Of course, it's possible that some journal wants you to include retrieval date anyway, and you might as well humor them, but the version number is what you really need.)

Furthermore to what Nate Eldredge says, the retrieval date does not tell you which version of the paper was retrieved. I'm not actually aware of a convention in my field (not math) to cite arXiv version numbers, but come to think of it, it really should be done.

@BillBarth has the correct approach, but his phrasing "just cite", and "no real need for an acknowledgement" I find rather misleading, because it seems that the attribution is being somehow reduced.
The reality is that this preprint should be referenced and cited in the main body of the paper, where its contribution is used, and not merely mentioned in the acknowledgements where few readers will actually note it.

Bill's answer is surely short, but I can't see how it can be considered misleading.

This is not an answer but a comment on Bill's answer.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post.

@espertus: This certainly does provide an answer to the question.

@DavidRicherby: False.  It is a complete answer.  I have also explained how it relates to the earlier answer.

@BenVoigt You're technically right, but the number of negative comments should guide you to think of how to improve your answer.  As a reviewer (which is where I saw your answer), I recommend moving the first paragraph into a comment and adding a bit to the beginning of the remaining second paragraph.

You could just edit @BillBarth's answer instead, resorting to post your own only if the edit is refused.

@Lohoris: That would not be an appropriate edit (or edit suggestion).

@BenVoigt of course it would be

As mentioned in other answers, it's completely fine to use / extend ideas from a preprint that's been posted on arXiv or otherwise made public.  This is essentially the exact reason why the author made the preprint public in the first place.  You will cite the preprint as you would a paper published in a journal, conference proceedings, etc, except that of course you will list an arXiv ID instead of a journal title, volume number, etc.  Your journal's style guide should explain how to cite preprints (if using BiBTeX, consider @preprint).
You may convey additional thanks in your Acknowledgements section if you are moved to do so, but this should not take the place of proper citation.
Of course, as is the case whenever you are extending someone else's work, your paper should accurately describe the work done by the preprint's author, and carefully distinguish it from what you have added.  You should be careful that you do not inadvertently misrepresent the preprint author's work as your own.
There are a few extra considerations when extending work from a preprint:

Keep in mind that the preprint has not undergone peer review.  Of course, peer review is no guarantee of correctness, and if you are writing a paper that depends heavily on a previous paper, you will want to check it carefully enough to be sure that your work rests on solid foundations, regardless of where/if the previous paper was published.  But for an unreviewed preprint, you should check it even more carefully.
Before starting work on your own paper, you might want to consider contacting the preprint author with your idea and suggesting a collaboration.  In addition to sharing expertise, this also helps mitigate the risk that the preprint author has already had an idea similar to yours, and is currently writing it up in a paper that will be published before yours would be.  (This is also possible when extending work from a traditionally published paper, but is perhaps somewhat more likely in the preprint case because of the shorter timeline; if the work is very recent, it's more likely that the author is still actively working on related topics.)
There's a good chance that the preprint is currently being reviewed for traditional publication.  Before submitting your paper, you should check to see whether the preprint has been accepted / published in a journal / proceedings / etc, and update your citation if necessary.  (If it has been accepted but not yet published, you can list it as "To appear" with the journal's title.)  Check one more time when you correct the galley proofs of your paper.
Check periodically to see if the preprint has been revised or updated, as the changes may involve something that materially affects your paper.  Note that arXiv only includes the first 5 updates in their daily emails, so just checking the emails may not suffice.  It is even possible for an arXiv preprint to be withdrawn by the author (this might happen if they find a fundamental error); it remains available for download, but in this case it's probably not a good idea to try to use it.  (Of course, published papers can also have corrigenda or retractions, but they are more common for preprints.)

No,there is nothing unethical to take ideas from a pre-print to write your own research paper,especially if the author of the pre-print is already acknowledged in your paper,

http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46879/is-it-unethical-to-take-ideas-from-a-pre-print-to-write-your-own-research-paper/46957#

What does this add to the existing answers?

Are you advocating for only citing one work from any given author, no matter how many of their papers actually developed work you used?


text:
How can a student get a mentor?
How can a student get a academic mentor to help during publications and research.

Are you enrolled at a university?

@DaveClarke Unfortunately not I am 3 years of being in University.

@RohanVijjhalwar I didn't quite understand your response. Does that mean you are a high school / secondary school student? Or that you are three years away from starting university or that you finished university three years ago?

in my opinion, Stack Exchange is full of mentors

Two ideas:

Ask around for a student assistant job that can yield a first glimpse inside the world of research.
Write your thesis about one of the topics that you alluded to in your question. This can be a first step towards a paper and it is an opportunity to discuss your topic with a professor.

this was assuming the OP is enrolled at a university. i keep this answer, because it might be useful for someone who is.

Mentors and advisors serve two different purposes.
An advisor is someone who acts in academic or research capacity as a supervisor for teaching or training purposes. A mentor acts like a counselor, providing advice about how to conduct one's studies and one's career.
The biggest difference between an advisor and a mentor is the notion of "received benefit"; an advisor has a vested interest in your success (perhaps she will write papers with you if you succeed), while a mentor should have a more altruistic attitude, and should not expect any such benefits from helping you. (They're helping you because they want to see you succeed.)
Someone can be both an advisor and a mentor at the same time, but this is a relatively rare combination (usually it's someone who has already been quite successful, and so further "benefits" from helping you don't make a large dent in his or her career).
As for finding a mentor, this can be a bit tricky; often they start out (temporarily) as an advisor, and then migrate into a mentor role. Sometimes they can be friends or family, or you can be introduced through a mutual colleague. There are also some programs available that help to find mentors for young students. But there's no magic wand that produces mentors out of thin air. You'll have to work at finding one—and keeping one! (And ultimately, more than one.)

I currently want to find someone who has experience in the field to help me out - Is it good if I message few academics from Local Universities? Or would that be too irritating for academics?

Unless they specifically say on a webpage that they don't want such emails, you're free to write whomever you like. However, they may not be willing to answer. Getting an introduction from a mutual acquaintance would probably work much better.

The difference between an advisor and a mentor is important and well put in this answer. Getting an advisor probably requires some institutional work, but getting a mentor can be easy. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=of4jy38uJaM

I suggest that you join several of the professional communities associated with information security.  (I assume you mean "information security" when you say "security".)  Get to know people in the community, find people with similar interests, ask questions, and ask for advice and support.  The people who respond positively might be candidates for mentors.
Some communities are formal and some are informal.  Some are centered on a geography and some are not.  Some are focused on physical interaction and others are on-line/virtual.  Depending on where you are located, you may or may not have easy access to some of these options.  The good news is that, in the year 2015, it is easier than ever to connect with professional communities nearly anywhere in the world.
Look for your local chapter of ACM and IEEE.  Look for Meetups and hackathons in your area.  Look for conferences and workshops to attend.  Look for on-line mailing lists on topics that interest you, and then join them.  Join Twitter and start following information security professionals and academics there.

This may depend on the institution where s/he studies, for example:
For schools, these young students can select a teacher who has a postgraduate degree in their subject of interest as their mentor, just as in colleges & universities, the person who supervises a young student during his/her thesis, which is generally written for a postgraduate degree, becomes his/her mentor.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/