[melling]

No, that's wrong. The same amount of research can still be done in public universities if the talent pool is increased. You now simply have a lot more people working on the problem. Have a dozen companies with a staff of a few hundred researchers creating more knowledge, even if it's temporarily private, is a huge win. Patents expire and other companies are still capable of figuring out the competition's solution.

Basically, the entire premise is stupid. We are adding a few thousand highly skilled people into the workforce. There's no way that's a problem.

[afarrell]

Actually, the universities will get more funding from now-wealthy alumni who made their money in industry.

[ambicapter]

You can't honestly think that the department will continue doing the same caliber of research immediately after losing 50 of its members. It will take years to regain the amount of know-how that just vacated the premises.

[melling]

In the meantime that team just got a huge budget increase to continue their research.

CMU is a great university. I image there are 2-3 PhD students at the top 50 school who will be looking to work there. CMU might even be able to lure away a couple other professors from the top 25 who'd love the chance to rebuild the program.