The shame IMO is that this is going to further polarize people along the lines of "Yay, stick it to those rich schools" and "Omg, this is literally the second coming of Hitler."
It would be lovely to have a broad conversation about why it makes no sense for the government to play HR manager for universities, and ALSO ask why billions in tax money is perennially given to ultra-wealthy, exclusive universities who are often more than capable of finding opportunities for profit in the private sector. Because the question seems to be: "Is Harvard capable of remaining solvent without a couple of billion per year? If that's the case, what's going on there? What is the taxpayer getting out of this that it wouldn't be able to get otherwise? Is there no other funding model?"
Which opens the question of whether or not cutting funding is likely to get what the government wants, or further drive universities to seek funding from potentially hostile foreign governments.
And I think depending on where the money goes and how it's spent, sometimes the answers range across a whole spectrum. But as I said, instead of that conversation, we're stuck with more politics as a team sport.
> "...more than capable of finding opportunities for profit in the private sector..."
You actually want research institutions to be even more patent-happy moneygrubbers than they already are today? That's going to keep even more technologies and drugs unaffordable without licensing and hold back progress.
That seems like a false dichotomy, unless you're really saying the two options are "Billions in federal funds" or "Ivy Leagues will become even more horrific in the world of patent law." In fact rewarding such bad behavior with billions seems insane, surely that money could be better spent on institutions willing to commit to less combative practices.
> The paper you linked is topically - and perhaps a bit ironically - co-authored with an Israel funded thinktank.
It's also made by a number of respected academics and academic institutions, and all you've done is ignore the content in favor of attacking a respectable source.
The fundamental question is about basing research funding on merit: Should government funding go to the best researchers with best ideas, regardless of which university they are affiliated with? Rich elite universities can attract many of the best researchers, because of the resources and prestige they offer. And those researchers then win competitive grants from the government.
Some argue that research grants should be deliberately spread wider in order to fund a wider range of ideas. Instead of considering each funding call in isolation and awarding grants to the top 10-20% of applications, maybe existing funding should be considered a negative merit, regardless of its source. Or maybe there should be stricter limits on how many grants a single PI can have at the same time.
It would be lovely to have a broad conversation about why it makes no sense for the government to play HR manager for universities, and ALSO ask why billions in tax money is perennially given to ultra-wealthy, exclusive universities who are often more than capable of finding opportunities for profit in the private sector. Because the question seems to be: "Is Harvard capable of remaining solvent without a couple of billion per year? If that's the case, what's going on there? What is the taxpayer getting out of this that it wouldn't be able to get otherwise? Is there no other funding model?"
Then we have this: https://networkcontagion.us/reports/11-6-23-the-corruption-o...
Which opens the question of whether or not cutting funding is likely to get what the government wants, or further drive universities to seek funding from potentially hostile foreign governments.
And I think depending on where the money goes and how it's spent, sometimes the answers range across a whole spectrum. But as I said, instead of that conversation, we're stuck with more politics as a team sport.